Electrolux EIMED55IIW Review

Introduction

Design & Usability

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Open sesame.

The front of the {{product.name}} covers the basics: door and controls. Theoretically, you push in on the left side of the door and it pops open, so instead of a handle, this door has a button. An attempt at a hands-free solution, this solution falls short of success. More often than not, the latch wouldn't catch and the door would pop back open. You either need to slam it shut, or use a special door-shutting technique that—like any attack against the Borg collective—never seems to work twice. We definitely found ourselves wishing that the {{product.name}} would stop fighting us and just let us do our laundry...

At least the {{product.name}} has an easy-to-use set of controls. The dial has good grips, turns very easily, and clicks solidly from one selection to the next. Each setting around the dial has a blue LED to indicate your choice as well as a small icon that serves as a quick description of the cycle. The customization controls are also pretty straight-forward. We thought the {{product.model}} had one of the better control interfaces.

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Performance & Features

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The {{product.name}} stands firmly in the middle of the road.

The {{product.name}} doesn't have the most cycles we've seen, but it does have more than enough for the average user. There are 11 different options available, including one "favorite" cycle that lets you save a customized set of options for personalized loads.

Users can set a specific temperature and dryness, as well as enable one of the following options: Damp Alert, Extended Tumble, Add Steam, Delicate Heat, Sanitize, or Chime. The Extended Tumble option is definitely nice for helping to mitigate wrinkles when you can't immediately empty the dryer, and the Add Steam feature provides a hands-off approach to ironing your clothes. Beyond this, this Electrolux has no additional drying options.

Finally, this dryer's performance results ranged from good to average, with the majority falling into the latter category. Its Normal cycle managed to do an almost perfect job, but its Delicates cycle took a lot of extra time and under-performed somewhat. The Quick dry cycle was fast, but not particularly effective; the Bulky cycle joined its fellow drying programs in the mediocrity society, also failing to dry clothes entirely.

Conclusion

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Average performance, with a really awful door.

The {{product.name}} is a decent mid-range dryer that lacks frills but has better than average performance. We'd recommend checking out a floor model before you buy it to see if you run into the same problems with the door that we did. The other thing to keep in mind with the {{product.name}} is its performance, which was inconsistent. Some fairly satisfying results came out of the Normal and Delicate cycles, but it really failed to shine with the Quick dry and Bulky modes.

That being said, as long as you're using the {{product.name}}'s good cycles, the machine provides a lot of quality for a decent price... but other dryers do this better.

Science Introduction

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Performance on this Electrolux jumped all over the board. Our tests show where this machine excelled and where it flunked.

Performance Tests: Normal and Delicate Cycles

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See how two of the cycles we use most often performed on our tests.

If you want to get the water out of a normal-sized load, Normal is generally the way to go. We found that the {{product.name}}'s Normal cycle managed to evaporate 98.82% of the water in our test load (on average), and while this sounds pretty great, we expect (and often get) perfection on a staple like this. True, this model finished up in a 48 minute time frame compared to the 60+ minutes needed by most competing models. It is also true that, in addition to this welcomed duration, it exhibited a pleasantly low temperature peak: it never got hotter than a gentle 135 degrees Fahrenheit.

The {{product.name}} had an average Delicates cycle that only removed 71.68% of the water. Again, though, it did it in an unusually short time and at a wonderfully gentle temperature—51 minutes and 105.9 degrees.

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Performance Tests: Bulky and Quick Dry Cycles

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Our tests reveal how well this Electrolux handled bulky items and speedy drying.

You probably shouldn't use the {{product.name}}'s Quick Dry cycle for anything but a few items at a time. The 13 minute cycle stuck to its stated length, but only removed about 38% of the water from the load. The wet weight of our test load is a little over 7 lbs (the bone dry weight is about 4lbs), of which the {{product.model}} removed only one. After the cycle, the laundry felt very wet to the touch, about what you'd expect from a very high spin cycle on a washer.

Our bulky cycle test is a bit tough. A comforter is just about the largest, thickest item you would realistically put in a dryer before pulling up stakes and trekking it over to the laundromat or dry cleaner. It balls up as it tumbles around, creating a damp center that's shielded from the dryer's heat. While the {{product.name}} was able to get out over half of the water, we found the comforter was still somewhat damp in places. Combine the lackluster drying with the drawn-out cycle time of 82 minutes, and you're looking at fairly mediocre performance.

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