Starting superficial this was bought to match the 20 cu. ft. French Door Refrigerator (Review Here RF217ACBP), Electric Range (FE-R300SB) and Microwave (1100W 1.8 cu. ft. OTR SMH9187B). All look great with streamlined shiny black finish. But what about performance?

Its seriously quiet.
Our kitchen is open to the living room and the dishwasher is on the side of the kitchen closest to the living room. While its operating I can watch TV without needing to adjust the volume at all. Its that silent. Every now and then as it transitions from one cycle to the next we hear a little noise or we hear the water draining but even that is nearly silent and our only reminder it’s on at all.

The wire racks are deep and accommodate a great deal more than our old dishwasher. They do slide in a little crooked sometimes so you have to guide them. I would have preferred that they sat more rigidly on their track into the dishwasher. Filling them is easy with 2 multi level shelves and two utensil bins that have very convenient handles to pull them out with. There are even some little brackets to safely hold knives, blade side down, for optimal cleaning. A full family would have trouble running out of room often. 

The door locks closed with a solid feel. It opens smoothly and will stay at any position you open it to. This is really great as we don’t have a lot of room in our kitchen and with the door all the way down you can not get in or out of the kitchen. Because it will stay at any position I can open it 1/3 of  the way open and drop a coffee mug into the top drawer without blocking my wife from getting out of the kitchen.

*** This is probably the most important point about this dishwasher so don’t skip this part. ***
When we first had this dishwasher installed we continued to use the cheap liquid detergent we had from the old dishwasher and the dishes were not getting cleaned well at all. I was very concerned that we had bought a very bad dishwasher. I spoke to Samsung support and they told me the dishwasher operated best with the little all in one packets of detergent. I was a bit annoyed at this answer but went ahead and bought a box to test this out. It worked better than I would have thought actually.

Using the all in one packets I can really over stuff this roomy dishwasher and the dishes get very clean. The streak free part of the packet even seems to work well. Im simply shocked at how much of a difference the packet over liquid made. Yes the packets are more expensive per load but as I said I can really over stuff this thing so I have gone from 2 or 3 loads a week to just one. This more than makes up for the cost and saves me some water as well. If you really are opposed to those packets then this is not the dishwasher for you. Otherwise I can say it cleans better than any dishwasher I have ever used. Bar none. Even the dogs dishes with the dried on yuck come out spotless at the end of the cycle.

The cycle is a bit longer than I would have thought. I have not timed it but I would put it at about 1.5 hours for the normal cycle. I really don’t know how this ranks with any other dishwasher but I have never found it to be a problem. Maybe if you had time issues this would be something to look into closer.

The controls are straight forward, clean and feel sturdy. One very nice feature is the pause button that makes for an easier time putting that stray spoon in without all the splashing of just opening the door. 

Last point. Cleanup of the black high gloss front is very easy when it gets smudges. A little windex will do the job nicely and the flush buttons make for a clean look all the time. 

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 360