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  • Design & Usability

  • Performance & Features

  • Conclusion

  • By the Numbers

  • Cleaning Performance

  • Efficiency

  • Design & Usability
  • Performance & Features
  • Conclusion
  • By the Numbers
  • Cleaning Performance
  • Efficiency

With its pole agitator, the ATW4675YQ will tame stains with brute force, and potentially wear out your clothing. It's all washed away by gallons upon gallons of water—far more than the majority of machines we test. If you're shopping for a washer that gets your clothing clean and don't care about anything else, this maybe for you.

To read our full review of this washer's matching dryer, the Admiral AED4675YQ, click here.

Design & Usability

If it ain't broke...

The Admiral ATW4675YQ harks back to an earlier era of washing machine design. A lot of consumers are looking for a washer similar to their mother's or even their grandmother's. With this Admiral, they'll find it. This machine is generic in every way. It has a three-dial control system on the outside and a powder-coated interior on the inside.

The dials on the left control load size—a proxy for how much the tub fills up—and wash temperature. Use these correctly, and read the owner's manual if you don't understand them. Your laundry will thank you. The dial on the far right controls the cycle selection.

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Essentially, the Admiral has only three cycles to chose from: Casual, Normal, and Delicates. Normal and Casual are further subdivided into heavy, medium, and light. It's all very straightforward, as long as your definitions of heavy, medium, and light are the same as this washer's.

The only usability issue we encountered was with the pole agitator. With such a large implement sticking out of the center of the drum, you can't just dump all your laundry inside. Instead, you need to place your clothes around it, which can be time consuming.

Performance & Features

Hulk—er, Admiral—Smash!

The Admiral showed off an impressive amount of power. There's a reason why the pole agitator technology has stayed around for so long. If we had to personify the ATW4675YQ washing clothes, it'd be as a boxer knocking out stains with a haymaker. However, the old ways do have their drawbacks.

Those stains that are getting beaten into submission are attached to your clothing. It's inevitable that your laundry gets a little more worn every time it goes through the wash, but this machine is more harsh than time should be.

This older design is also a water guzzler. Right now, every drop of water that ever will be already exists. A whole lot of it will be passing through the ATW4675YQ. We estimate that this machine will cost you roughly $85 a year. To put that in perspective, that's $850 over ten years. Consider that a $1,000 high-efficiency front loader usually costs $30 a year to run, and you could've spend the extra $550 you spent on water on a better washer instead.

On the features front, there's not much to say—this Admiral has none.

For in-depth performance information, please visit the Science Page.

Conclusion

Back to basics

In a world where gadgets get the limelight, it's nice to see a machine that adheres to the basics. The Admiral ATW4576YQ is what it is: a cheap washer. It has no frills. It has no features. You just stick your laundry inside and press the start button. The pole agitator will knock stains out of your clothes. It may fray your clothes and waste water, but that's to be expected. You're getting what you pay for.

By the Numbers

Science is the basis for all our reviews. For washers, our tests examine two things: cleaning ability and efficiency.

Cleaning Performance

Our cleaning performance testing relies on standardized strips of stained cloth, mechanically coated in household substances like cocoa and red wine. For the Admiral ATW4675YQ, we placed those test strips in the Normal Regular, Normal Extra Heavy, Delicate, and Casual Light cycles.

After each cycle finished, we scanned each strip with a photospectrometer to see how much each stain has been lifted. The Normal Extra Heavy cycle performed the best—around ten percent better than the industry standard. Overall, the ATW4675YQ did better than most top-loaders. It had the easiest time with red wine and cocoa and the hardest with sweat and dirt.

Efficiency

Efficiency is two-pronged in our testing labs. It's a measure of what goes in and what comes out. Water and electricity are what go in. To measure that, we attach watt and water meters to the Admiral ATW4675YQ. Based on national average costs for electricity and water, we calculate that this washer will cost you $85.52 a year to run. That's on the high side for washers, even amongst less efficient top-loaders.

The second half of our efficiency equation is water retention. That's the amount of water laundry retains at the end of the cycle. The more water that is retained, the more time and energy your dryer will have to expend. In this regard, the Admiral really had a hard time. Every test load that came out of this machine was soaking wet, often double the weight it went in. That's a lot more time spent in the dryer.

Meet the testers

Christopher Snow

Christopher Snow

Managing Editor

@BlameSnow

Chris was born and raised less than ten miles from our editorial office, and even graduated from nearby Merrimack College. He came to Reviewed after covering the telecom industry, and has been moonlighting as a Boston area dining critic since 2008.

See all of Christopher Snow's reviews
Jonathan Chan

Jonathan Chan

Senior Manager of Lab Operations

@Jonfromthelab1

Jonathan Chan currently serves as the Lab Manager at Reviewed. If you clean with it, it's likely that Jon oversees its testing. Since joining the Reviewed in 2012, Jon has helped launch the company's efforts in reviewing laptops, vacuums, and outdoor gear. He thinks he's a pretty big deal. In the pursuit of data, he's plunged his hands into freezing cold water, consented to be literally dragged through the mud, and watched paint dry. Jon demands you have a nice day.

See all of Jonathan Chan's reviews

Checking our work.

Our team is here for one purpose: to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and lab technicians obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.

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