Product review (3 stars): Newer Dumber Technology
These new washing machines are a consumers worst nightmare due to the drastic changes manufacturers have made.  The worst is that you cannot lift the lid for any reason, to do so causes the machine to stop.  Forget the days of watching the agitator in action.  Is it working, who knows? Maybe if they put a glass or even plexiglass window on the lid so you could look in to see if it's working would make it a more tolerable experience.  The machine pauses at predetermined intervals for reasons only it knows.  Agitator moves much more slowly than my old machine which was a workhorse.  On the positive side, it is so quiet you don't even know it's on.  The spin cycle is so fast that the clothes come out virtually dry.  This one has a break that stops the drum in a split second if you open it during the spin cycle.  The wash cycles are "whites, permanent press, and colors".  Each has a heavy, regular and light marking which makes the wash load longer or shorter respectively.  Heavy will agitate them quicker, but suppose I want them agiated faster without making the wash cyle longer?  Sorry, no can do.  My old machine had cycles for "gentle, normal, hand wash".  Each cycle determined the speed of the agitator regardless of how many minutes you wanted the to wash.  Ultimately, the question is whether they actually get your clothes clean.  My question is why the water gets dark when I put in my work clothes!  I don't roll around in the dirt, I'm a white collar professional.  The water never got dark in my old machine unless I threw stuff I knew was soiled in there.  It appears to me that all these drawbacks in the new machines are an ovezealous attempt to make them safer for unsupervised children and overmedicated adults.  None of those apply to me, nor do they apply to a large number of consumers who purchase these products.  Maybe they should sell them by "lifestyle".  For example you could have a "set and forget" model for those persons who might stick their arm in the machine during the spin cycle or leave a step stool near their machine so that their toddler can go through a whole wash cycle.  Then they could have the "active" lifesyle for people who know better than to stick their limbs into a machine which is either agitating or spinning.