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  • Introduction

  • Design & Usability

  • Performance & Features

  • Conclusion

  • Science Introduction

  • Water Retention

  • Cycle Cost

  • Stain Removal

  • Introduction
  • Design & Usability
  • Performance & Features
  • Conclusion
  • Science Introduction
  • Water Retention
  • Cycle Cost
  • Stain Removal

Introduction

The {{product.name}} offers a specialized cycle for each of these unhappy occurrences: Baby Care, Gardening, Cooking and more! It also features a handy stain removal guide, an array of customizable options, easy-to-navigate touchscreen controls, and cheery music for every time you touch a button. Does any of this ease the eye twitch you develop after spotting the $1799 price tag? Well, not exactly.

This model, like its counterpart dryer, offers Smart Control to allow users to pilot and monitor their machine from a phone, but other than peeking at the time left on a cycle from another room, there really isn't any use for this feature—in fact, it adds time to the overall process because it necessitates the press of a button on the machine in order to connect to the app in the first place.

The {{product.model}} may seem like something Jane Jetson would buy at her local Mooning Dales, but don't get too excited. Mrs. Jetson has a house in the sky to run—food pills to buy. We've seen less expensive machines perform just as well or better than this one in terms of stain removal, water retention, and annual cost. Thus, if you've had your eye on this washer and you're truly searching for the best, you may want to eye a few others while you're at it, or at least search for online sales (which mark this model down to about $1530).

Design & Usability

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Will a big stack of bills buy great navigation and solid design?

On the whole, this machine is fairly easy to use. The touch sensitive screen sometimes requires another forceful tap to reiterate a choice, and when stacked, the upper LCD is difficult to read, but beyond that we really have no complaints.

When stacked, the upper LCD is difficult to read.

The glowing 8" LCD touchscreen is attractive and easy to use. A list of cycles on the left side of the screen will scroll—just use a finger to "spin" through them. Touch an individual cycle and its options will appear in a centered pane. On the far right of the screen is a list of settings, a time-remaining window, a child lock, and more.

The detergent drawer is well made too, divided into several units which are meant for various solutions, such as softener, bleach, detergent, and so forth. To use powder detergent, one must remember to first remove a blue plastic part. Below, a tinted, reversible door requires a notable amount of force to close.

{{photo_gallery "Front Image", "Controls 1 Photo", "Controls 2 Photo", "Drawer Photo", "Lint Trap Photo", "Interior Photo", "Interior Detail Photo", "Sides Photo", "Sides Detail 1 Photo", "Side Detail 2 Photo", "Back Photo", "Back Detail Photo"}}

Performance & Features

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We don't judge performance solely on stain removal, unluckily for this Samsung, but there are certainly plenty of goodies.

The stain removal powers on this model are satisfactory, even if some cycles are too rough and too long. We hoped for more, given this machine's jumbo MSRP. It failed to remove the proper amount of water from each batch of laundry too, setting up a difficult job for the dryer, and the handling was by no means tender. In fact, the {{product.model}} is something like a powerful man in stretchy pants, racing furiously around a bouncy pen. This washer body-slams and clotheslines stains (not in the rustic laundry way), and no sock, no polyester g-string, no crew neck will be spared. Hand-wash those fine silks, lest they be pro-wrestled. Regardless though, this washer will lift stains.

The control panel on this washer will make you feel like a kid in a customizable candy store.

In other news, the control panel on this washer will make you feel like a kid in a customizable candy store. As if its 12 basic cycles aren't enough to make us go cross-eyed with choices, there are even six extra cycles to handle any hapless situation ranging from violent pepperoni attacks, to children armed with markers, to oops-you-fell-in-a-dirt-hole. Launderers can also pick one of five gradations of varying temperatures, spin speeds, and soil levels for a given cycle. If you worry that your underpants are Extra Heavy dirty and require Extra Hot temperatures—so be it.

Users can name three of their own cycles, but only with nine characters, so "The Taming of the Shoe" is out of the question.

Finally, users can customize and name three of their own cycles. Now slow down, because you are only allowed nine characters, which means "Total Eclipse of the Dirt," "It's a Hard Day's Sock," and "The Taming of the Shoe" are all out of the question. Would it cheer you up to know that there are more great extras, too, like Prewash, Extra Spin, Extra Rinse, Steam, and Delay Start? Oh, and let's not leave out the handy stain guide, which gives you quick tips on how to deal with sundry stains and occasionally uses questionable wording, like "Ask[...] a nearby laundry" and "Spray water onto it with a spray."

Conclusion

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A wonderful washer with witless wireless: Is it worth the big fat price-tag?

First, the much anticipated Smart Control feature is a long way from impressing anyone, requiring users to press a button on the washer every time they open their apps. Ideally, the app would remember the washer and vice versa. For now, the only notable benefit of this very expensive add-on is the ability to peek at the estimated time-left from a phone in a separate room, and we just aren't convinced that it's worth so many hard-earned bills.

The much anticipated Smart Control feature is a long way from impressing anyone, and we just aren't convinced that it's worth so many hard-earned bills.

However, there are enough customizable treats on this machine to satisfy even the nerdiest of laundry enthusiasts though, with options like temperature, speed, and soil control, plus Prewash, Extra Rinse, Extra Spin, and Steam. Our favorite extra? The fact that users can tailor up to three of their own custom cycles and name them things like "Moby Dirt."

It's expensive, but the {{product.name}} has one of the fastest Normal cycles we've seen, and the overall performance in terms of stain removal is satisfactory across the board. This $1,799 washer ($1,530 on sale), while certainly not the top contender, does a solid job nonetheless. We only wish that it was less expensive to run, more competitive in terms of clothes handling, and a bit better about removing unnecessary water from a load.

Science Introduction

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This high-end Samsung has some big perks and some big let downs, too. In terms of stain removal, the {{product.model}} did a nice job across the board, but we test everything—from water retention, to cycle duration; from cost to run, to ease of handling. This machine's performance on those tests had both ups and downs. Below, we outline some of the highlights for you.

Water Retention

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Lower water retention rates mean less work for a dryer, and gentle handling means better care for your belongings.

Water retention tests are very important because the more water a washing machine leaves in a load of laundry, the more energy and time it will take for a dryer to get the next job done. With this in mind, we typically want to see no more than 50% water retention in a test load, and this very expensive machine did not hit that mark once. Every single test load came out with upwards of 50% retention, which we hoped would mean less spinning and therefore better clothes wear score, but that wasn't the case.

Normally, we could say that the kind of clothes wear we saw on this Samsung was fairly average, but given this machine's enormous price tag, and given the poor water retention test scores, we couldn't help but feel disappointed when our mechanical test strips came out looking so exhausted. The Heavy Duty, Whites, and Normal cycles in particular were very tough on threads, so launderers will want to be very cautious as to what they toss into one of these cycles.

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Cycle Cost

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Sometimes, spending more up front saves you money in the end, but is that the case here?

Often we hear that spending the big money up front will save you even bigger money down the road, but in terms of estimated annual cost that just isn't the case here. A big fat price tag like this one should be accompanied by a slim annual cost, but even some top-loaders beat this machine's yearly estimated rate, which is $37.05.

We mention top-loaders because they are vertically situated. In order to wash clothes effectively, top-loaders must fill the entire drum so that the contents are fully submerged and also suspended. Front-loaders like this Samsung, on the other hand, require less water because their sideways drums use gravity to tumble clothes around, wetting them thoroughly. They do not need an entire drum full of water and thus tend to cost a lot less to run, which is why it's inexcusable that any top-loader would cost less than this high-end front-loading machine.

In terms of cycle duration, the {{product.model}} jumps all over the map. The Quick cycle is in fact slow, the Delicate cycle is quick, and so it goes. While Willy Wonka may want to consider buying this Samsung for his chocolate factory, owing to the fact that the Heavy Duty cycle dominates cocoa stains, he will want to make sure that there are plenty of Oompa Loompas on hand to entertain him while he waits on his purple coat—it takes a ludicrous 103 minutes to do the job. Since we're on the topic of fictitious figures, perhaps Sonic the Hedgehog will express some interest in this washer too; the Normal cycle flies by in 44 minutes—truly a great time.

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Stain Removal

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Meet the tester

Virginia Barry

Virginia Barry

Former Managing Editor

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Virginia is a former Managing Editor at Reviewed.com. She has a background in English and journalism. Away from the office, Virginia passes time with dusty books & house cats.

See all of Virginia Barry's reviews

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