Hot and cold fill washing machines

Well we're in the process of looking for a new washing machine and I'm tearing my hair out. The approach seems to be "We've decided that you want to save energy. Therefore we will offer you loads of programs none of which will allow you to do what you actually want to do but whatever we have chosen that you might want to do you can be sure we have optimised it to save you energy thus preventing you from doing what it was you might think you wanted to do."

No I don't give a s*it how much energy the f***** thing uses - it's negligible. I want to choose whatever temperature I want when I want and I want the maximum spin speed when I choose to get the f****** clothes dry!!! Bloody EU directives/regulations etc. all over it.

No, these were apparently - even by TV standards - appallingly bad.

My dishwasher has about 4 programmes.

The washing machine about 20! I use cottons 40,60,90 and woollens. And maybe delicates. And the last 2 probably only differ in spin or no spin.

I agree - 3 knobs would be simpler - temp, spin and wash type.

Miele...

Despite having 20 odd programmes, it does not compromise on water or wash, so ultimately I'm happy. And it takes on plenty of water for rinsing too (probably because I've set all the software options up to max!)

I'd not expect them to pull apart every single item they test. And as regard long term, they used member feedback long before it was used by sellers. But of course Which haters didn't like that either, if it disagreed with their views.

Dunno.

What seemed to be the norm was people hating Which for not giving a product they owned and liked 100%

Can't remember anyone complaining about buying a 'best buy' then finding it rubbish.

I very much doubt you'll find any new TV with even half decent sound via its internal speakers. Merely adequate for those who don't much care.

I would. And I'd expect better than simplistic product information, too.

I pretty much agree with that.

The real problem IMO is that it's impossible to predict reliability accurately --- the best you can do is look at the past performance of a brand & product range within a brand, & hope for continuity.

no. You look at the feedback online.

Too true. I recall the days when the industry actually tested the sound quality the set could achieve.

there are many levels of 'carp' For example the inbuilt speakers in a friends laptop are tinny beyond belief and worse than my asus netbook which is pretty tinny too.

OTOH the Samsung TV is no worse than a cheap transistor radio of the

Its all down to loudspeakers. And size of soundbox.

Their reviews are too cursory for me. Still, I'd use them for a ballpark recommendation every time, and I happen to have access to a subscription.

Of course times change, but their provenance is sound:

Which was generally pretty appalling compared to even a fairly cheap sound system.

What you tend to get with tiny speakers.

Quite. And it's not just one make. You pay many hundreds of pounds for a TV which claims to have a decent picture, but to get sound to a similar standard have to pay for add on bits.

Would be more honest to sell the set with no internal speakers.

If the Grauniad approves, they must be *really* s**te.

Good advice, and the more so the more complex the product.

We recently had to replace our old Humax TV recorder. It had been pretty good, so we decided to buy the latest Humax with a similar spec, without doing too much research into online feedback.

It is terrible. It regularly crashes and then refuses to switch on, unless you unplug it for several minutes and then restart it, which itself takes a long, long time.

Having now looked at online reviews, I find that lots of people have had the exact same problem. How can a respectable company ship a mass-market product in such a condition?

Fortunately we bought it through Tesco Direct, so it is being refunded with the minimum of fuss.

Ditto our Panasonic. Absolute PoS.

Discontinued. Good.

Just to go back tot he original topic. We bought a new washing machine this week - a Samsung and in the handbook it did refer to hot and cold fill but only on some models. Maybe this is an EU thing.