Samsung DW80F600UTS Dishwasher Review

Unfortunately, a limited selection of wash cycles, long cycle times, and trouble removing some stains hurt the DW80F600UTS in our tests. There are a lot of good dishwashers that sell in the $600-$700 range, including the Whirlpool WDT710PAYH, the Frigidaire Gallery FGHD2465NF and the Blomberg DWT24100SS. This Samsung just can't compete with the best out there.

Design & Usability

A professional look combined with a simple interface

The DW80F600UTS sure looks nice. A stainless steel door and protruding handlebar give it a clean, professional appearance, and the three indicator lights near the top of the door add character and function. The interior is also stainless steel, and a hard food disposer sits below the bottom of the tub. In theory, that means this dishwasher can grind up washed-off food and wash it away, and there's no filter to wash.

The hidden control panel sits on the top of the door. Unfortunately, the touch-sensitive buttons aren't exactly "sensitive." It's frustrating pressing something with no tactile feedback and not seeing an indicator light go on immediately. The surface is also prone to picking up smudges and fingerprints, which doesn't help matters.

The interior provides plenty of loading space, and the bottom rack has a dizzying number of plate supports. You can't fold them down like in some other dishwashers, but two of the rows can be detached and removed. Instead of a single, long cutlery basket, the DW80F600UTS comes with two smaller ones. This adds a great deal of flexibility when it comes to loading dishes. We were able to comfortably fit 11 place settings and a serving setting inside the DW80F600UTS's interior. That's impressive.

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Features

Press a button and go.

The DW80F600UTS has four wash cycles to choose from: Smart Auto, Heavy, Normal, and Delicate. A Quick cycle is noticeably missing from that list, and from our testing, we found the DW80F600UTS to be in desperate need of one.

Sanitize is the only option for customizing a wash. This increases the wash temperature to bacteria-killing levels, which is useful for sterilizing items if a family member is sick. Topping off the list is a Child Lock to block accidental inputs (it's also useful for cleaning the control panel) and a Delay that postpones the start of a wash for 3, 6, or 9 hours.

Performance

We didn't think spinach could travel that far.

In the DW80F600UTS's Normal cycle, most of the meat, oatmeal, egg, and milk stains were washed away. Even a large amount of spinach got cleared off of the bowls we originally put them in. Unfortunately, instead of being drained away, some of the leafy green bits travelled to the other items in the dishwasher. Some of them even jumped to the upper rack and embedded themselves in the glasses and mugs we placed up there. It's a phenomenon known as redeposit, and it's the bane of dishwashers everywhere.

The Heavy cycle handled the same stains as the Normal cycle even better, with nearly no traces of original stains remaining. Unfortunately, like the Normal cycle, this cycle also suffered from instances of visible redeposit, though not to the same extent. Additionally, the Heavy cycle had a great deal of trouble with our tough burnt cheese test. Most dishwashers fail this one, but this Samsung appears to have burnt the remaining cheese on further.

Although the DW80F600UTS's hard food disposer is designed to grind up and wash away food particles and prevent them from redepositing onto clean dishes, our tests found that this was not the case. Combine that with long cycle times—the Normal took close to two and a half hours while the Heavy took three and a half—and we're left with a mediocre overall performance.

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

Before You Buy

Look elsewhere first.

We were able to find the DW80F600UTS on sale for as low as $640. That's a good price for a roomy, stainless dishwasher. However, there are a lot of others out there that do a better job cleaning.

For instance, the GE GDT580SMFES. The GE, like this Samsung, lacks a quick cycle, but its Normal cycle is done in 90 minutes and won't spray food particles everywhere.

If pure cleaning power is all you want, the Whirlpool WDT710PAYH is a good alternative. It was our Best of Year for an affordable dishwasher in 2013, and you can get it in stainless, too.

By the Numbers

The Samsung DW80F600UTS may give a professional appearance, but it certainly doesn't give a professional performance. Its sleek look couldn't fool our tests, and we found this dishwasher to focus more on form than function.

Performance

The hard food disposer wasn't doing its job.

The DW80F600UTS's Normal cycle removed a significant amount of the meat, oatmeal, egg, and milk stains. It scored an impressive 94.14% on the baked-on spinach stains, which is better than most other dishwashers. The problem was that many of those spinach stains got redeposited to other items, including mugs and glasses loaded on the upper rack. It was hard to find anything that didn't have a piece of spinach on it at the end of the wash.

The Heavy cycle unsurprisingly performed better than the Normal cycle. This cycle removed 98.4% of the spinach stains, something that we only ever see in high-end dishwashers costing nearly twice as much money. However, just like with the Normal cycle, little spinach flakes migrated to other items in the tub. The effect wasn't as dramatic, but it was still very visible.

With the Normal cycle clocking in at 2 hours, 27 minutes and the Heavy cycle taking 3 hours, 18 minutes, we can't exactly call the DW80F600UTS fast. The dishwasher also lacks a quick wash cycle, so no matter what kind of wash you want to do, you'll have to wait awhile.

Efficiency

The lack of a quick cycle actually helped the efficiency score.

We found that the Normal and Heavy cycles on the DW80F600UTS use an average amount of water and electricity. A Normal wash will set you back about 10 cents, using 3.12 gallons of hot water and 0.57 kWh of power. Heavy washes cost 21 cents, using 8.82 gallons of water and 0.88 kWh of electricity. These figures are pretty close to what other dishwashers' cycles consume.

The efficiency scores are helped by the fact that this dishwasher doesn't have a quick wash cycle. These cycles tend to use large amounts of water in order to achieve results quickly. For the typical American consumer, we calculate the DW80F600UTS's annual utility cost to be around $27.03, which is below average.

Capacity

Very spacious, very flexible

The DW80F600UTS proved to be quite spacious, and we were able to comfortably fit 11 place settings and a serving setting inside the stainless steel tub. There are enough adjustable parts within to accommodate even the most uniquely-shaped of novelty dish ware, and the pair of removable cutlery baskets means even more space can be made on the bottom rack. While not the best in other areas, the DW80F600UTS does a solid job with capacity and loading flexibility.

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