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  • Introduction

  • Front

  • Finish

  • Controls

  • Interior

  • Top Rack

  • Bottom Rack

  • Cutlery Basket

  • Electricity Use

  • Water Use

  • Yearly Running Cost

  • Washing Speed

  • Washing Performance

  • Quick Wash Cycle

  • Normal Wash Cycle

  • Heavy/Pots & Pans Wash Cycle

  • Washing Cycles

  • Customization

  • Additional Wash Options

  • Capacity

  • Wash Arms & Filters

  • Lower Dish Rack

  • Upper Dish Rack

  • Cutlery Holder

  • Detergent Dispenser

  • Ease of Use

  • Noise

  • Controls

  • Efficiency

  • Washing Performance

  • Features

  • Introduction
  • Front
  • Finish
  • Controls
  • Interior
  • Top Rack
  • Bottom Rack
  • Cutlery Basket
  • Electricity Use
  • Water Use
  • Yearly Running Cost
  • Washing Speed
  • Washing Performance
  • Quick Wash Cycle
  • Normal Wash Cycle
  • Heavy/Pots & Pans Wash Cycle
  • Washing Cycles
  • Customization
  • Additional Wash Options
  • Capacity
  • Wash Arms & Filters
  • Lower Dish Rack
  • Upper Dish Rack
  • Cutlery Holder
  • Detergent Dispenser
  • Ease of Use
  • Noise
  • Controls
  • Efficiency
  • Washing Performance
  • Features

Introduction

Front

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The front of the GE CDWT980VSS.

Finish

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Controls

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Interior

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The CDWT980VSS with door open.

Top Rack

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The top rack of the CDWT980VSS.

Bottom Rack

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The bottom rack of the CDWT980VSS.

Cutlery Basket

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The CDWT980VSS cutlery basket.

Electricity Use

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We found that the {{product.name}} used a low amount of electricity in the Normal and Quick+ wash modes, but it used a lot more in the Heavy Duty and Pots & Pans mode, because it is heating the water using electricity.

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Water Use

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This dishwasher used a fairly minimal amount of water in the standard cycles, but used a lot more in the special cycles, such as the 9.48 gallons used in the Heavy Duty cycle. For this reason, you should only use the longer, more powerful cycles when they are needed.

Yearly Running Cost

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For an average user, this dishwasher would cost about $38.09 a year to run, which is a little higher than the other similar models we have looked at. That's assuming about 208 uses a year (4 a week), with 50% being in the Normal cycle, 25% in the Quick+ and 25% in the Heavy Duty cycle.

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Washing Speed

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The {{product.name}}offers a wide range of cycles with very different speeds, from the just over an hour Quick+ out to the nearly three hours of the Pots & Pans cycle.

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Washing Performance

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Overall, we found excellent performance from this dishwasher, with most of the cycles doing a good job of removing the food stains from our

Quick Wash Cycle

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The quick cycle on the {{product.name}} took just over an hour to run, and we found that it offered moderate cleaning performance, but it failed to remove some of our more persistent stains. It removed most of the egg and oatmeal from our dishes, but failed to shift some of the tea and meat stains, leaving significant traces of both. It also made little impact on the lipstick that we put on the rim of our test teacups, so oe would recommend that you use it for lightly soiled dishes only.

Normal Wash Cycle

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The normal cycle is the one that gets the most use on dishwashers as it is designed for mixed loads of dishes. We found it had good performance, shifting the majority of our test stains on our dishes and cutlery. It did struggle with some of the stains, though, leaving traces of the baked-on spinach on one dish and the burnt milk on one of our test glasses. It also didn't remove the lipstick on the cup rims. But overall, the performance was very good, with most of the stains being completely removed.

Heavy/Pots & Pans Wash Cycle

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The ultimate test of a dishwasher is how well it can remove heavily baked on, burnt stains from cookware. We test this by adding a number of serving dishes covered in burnt and dried cheese, pasta, sauce and burnt sugar to our test load. The {{product.name}} did an excellent job here when we tested it using the pots & pans cycle with the Storm Wash enabled, removing all of the test stains on our dishes, with the exception of one tiny spot of burnt sugar and a couple of small spots of spinach on the dishes. The overall performance was extremely good.

Washing Cycles

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The 6 wash cycles on offer provide a good range of options from quick cycles for small, lightly soiled loads up to large, heavily soiled loads and pots and pans. 6 is not a huge number of cycles, but it is enough to cover pretty much anything. The most commonly used mode will probably be the Smart Auto cycle, which uses a sensor to determine when the dishes are clean by looking for dirt in the cleaning water.

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Customization

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There are no real customization features on this dishwasher: you can't change the wash level or other options except by choosing a different wash cycle or one of the other features (see below).

Additional Wash Options

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There are a handful of other wash options, including a sanitize mode, start delay and a half wash for a small load that uses less water and electricity. In addition, a child lock can be enabled by pressing and holding the sanitize button down for more than 3 seconds. When this is enabled, all of the buttons are locked out until the sanitize button is pressed again for more than 3 seconds.

Capacity

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The {{product.name}} holds a lot of dishes: we found that it could hold up to 11 place settings, which means 11 dinner plates, small dishes, bowls, glasses, cups, saucers and accompanying cutlery. That's more than the other comparable models we have seen, all of which were only able to hold 9 or 10. Part of this seems to be the better design of the top rack: the lower level of the right side makes it easier to put a number of bowls in there.

Top Rack

Bottom Rack

Wash Arms & Filters

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There are two wash arms on this dishwasher, one below the bottom rack and one below the upper rack. Both rotate and are driven by the water pressure, and are slightly curved to offer more jets at different angles. If required, the upper rack can be removed and the upper wash arm replaced with an included spray for washing very large items.

Next to the bottom wash arm is an additional water jet dispenser, the small red device in the photo below. This is used in the storm wash setting, and it fires more water upwards to clean a heavily stained dish or bowl placed above it.

The CDWT980VSS wash arms.

The DW 14140 upper wash arm

The CDWT980VSS filter.

Lower Dish Rack

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The bottom rack is designed for plates and pots, which are held in place by five rows of nylon-covered tines. This allows you to put in up to three rows of plates, if the smallest plates are small enough to allow the edges to fit between the others. The angle of these supporting tines can be adjusted to three different settings, which makes it easier to put in large or thick plates. For larger dishes, the plate supports can also be removed completely, leaving the rack wide open. At the rear left of the rack is an area for the Storm Wash feature, which uses extra jets of water from a rotating washing arm help to clean a heavily soiled pan or dish. On the right side is the location of the cutlery holder.

The bottom rack of the CDWT980VSS.

Upper Dish Rack

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The upper rack is designed for glasses, cups and small plates, and has four rows of tines. The two right rows can be adjusted to two positions, or lowered down out of the way, providing more space for larger items. The rack can be raised and lowered by pressing two levers on the sides and lifting or lowering the rack. The entire rack can also be removed, and an additional water spray put in if you are washing something particularly large.

The top rack of the CDWT980VSS.

Cutlery Holder

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The cutlery holder is removable, which makes it easier to load and unload. It clips into the right side of the lower rack, and can hold up to 80 items. The cutlery can be placed loosely in the two baskets, or the tops of these baskets can be used to hold the items in place. The latter makes for better cleaning, but won't work with cutlery that has large or coated handles. We had no problems putting our test cutlery in, which is plain metal.

The CDWT980VSS cutlery basket.

Detergent Dispenser

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The detergent dispenser on the door has two compartments: one for a pre-wash and one for the main wash. We had no problems putting in powder, liquid and detergent packs in both compartments. On the right of the detergent compartments is the rinse aid dispenser.

The CDWT980VSS detergent dispenser.

Ease of Use

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Overall, we found this dishwasher to be very easy to use, with the racks sliding out easily and the cutlery holder being easy to lift out to fill or empty. The racks can also be easily adjusted, making the washer easy to adjust for different types of load.

Noise

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The {{product.name}} is a very quiet dishwasher overall, with only a slight whooshing noise when it is washing, and a quiet gurgling when draining. Both of these were only audible when you are standing right next to the washer, so we doubt if it would disturb anyone.

Controls

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The controls for this dishwasher are located on the top edge of the door, so they are hidden from view when the door is closed. This gives the dishwasher a clean look, but also means that they are a little awkward to use: you have to either hold the door open with one hand or gently close the door so the lock doesn't engage to use them, which is a little awkward.

Efficiency

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Though the {{product.name}} may use a little more energy than average on special cycles, it's because it takes so long and ensures clean dishes. For instance, the heavy-duty cycle takes a full 3 hours 14 minutes, but it outperforms other washers we've tested.

Washing Performance

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Though there are only six wash cycles on the {{product.name}}, they're well chosen. We suspect most users will rely on the Auto Clean sensor, which keeps washing dishes until the filth stops flowing through the filter. The Samsung did an especially good job on the heavy-duty cycle, cleaning almost all of the baked-on grease and grime.

Features

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The {{product.name}}'s capacious interior fits 11 place settings, which are easily loaded thanks to smooth-gliding drawers. Our only complaint was the auto-lockout feature on the controls, which meant we had to prop open the door while choosing a wash cycle.

Meet the tester

Richard Baguley

Richard Baguley

Contributor

@@rbaguley

Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.

See all of Richard Baguley's reviews

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