LG DLEX9000V 9.0 cu.-ft. electric dryer review

Now, a dryer that's this pricey is not on many people's wish lists. After all, you can get a great washer and dryer pair for much less than that. But don't you wonder what makes this dryer so great? We certainly did!

Design

First of all, it’s huge, and has enormous capacity, so if you're thinking of buying it, measure to make sure you have enough space for it, and can actually get it through your laundry room door. But, assuming you have the room and lots of laundry to dry, you’ll find so many things to appreciate about this dryer.

We see attractive dryers in our labs all the time, but this dryer’s Graphite Steel finish dazzled us. (It's available in white, too—the LG DLEX9000W, which costs about $100 less.) The door has a hidden handle on the edge, making the outside look even sleeker.

On the inside, a bright light illuminates the huge drum. The drum itself is angled slightly, to make loading and unloading more ergonomic, a nice extra. It’s simple to remove the filter for cleaning, because it’s located at the front of the drum.

Unlike most dryers, the control panel is located on the front, like its matching washer, the LG WM9000HVA. The large cycle selector knob turns easily, an LED light highlights the selected cycle, and the touch-sensitive buttons are easy to use.

The sliding door compartment on top puzzled us, until we realized it is the perfect place to stash the loose change and lost buttons that tend to show up in the dryer. You can probably stash a few dryer sheets in there, too.

Features

This dryer offers many useful cycles. They're probably more than most of us would ever need, but it’s a terrific range of choices. For example, SpeedDry and SteamFresh were our favorites.

• SteamFresh is a great way to take the wrinkles out of clothes. This is perfect for those mornings when you’re running late—you pop a wrinkled shirt in, and in 10 minutes, it comes out smooth and dry.

• SpeedDry got our bedsheets and pillowcases almost completely dry in 25 minutes. With this dryer, you wouldn't need to delay bedtime waiting for the linens to dry.

A safety feature, the Flow Sense light goes on when there is a problem with your exhaust system, not the dryer’s. This is a warning—if you see it, don’t use the dryer until you get the problem repaired.

Although you can buy a drying rack for this dryer, LG doesn’t include one. That’s a disappointment—at this price they really should. Maytag and Samsung offer racks on some of their models. That's a small quibble, though.

Performance

We tested the LG DLEX9000V with 8-pound and 16-pound loads of laundry, and a thick down-alternative comforter. After spraying them all with water, we ran them through the different dryer cycles. This dryer did a great job—the Normal and Bedding cycles, in particular, got the test loads 100% dry.

The Speed Dry cycle reached temperatures over 160°F, which is good for killing germs, but may put some extra wear and tear on the laundry.

This dryer's cycle timer could sometimes be misleading. For example, in one test, it told us that a Normal cycle would last 41 minutes, but our load took 75 minutes to run. Since cycle time tends to vary depending on the load of laundry, you may not find this to be an issue.

What owners say

Users rave about the speed, efficiency, and capacity of the dryer, and one review writes that it actually adds joy to laundry day. The steam features win high praise for removing wrinkles and sanitizing. None of the online reviewers say they like the smart app, and some take LG to task for not doing a better job with it. (In our tests, we found that the app could have some connectivity issues.)

The bottom line

We get it—most people aren’t going to spend this much on a dryer. But if you want a dryer that can tackle the biggest, fluffiest comforters and gets the wrinkles out of a shirt effortlessly, in the time it takes to eat breakfast, the LG DLEX9000V is the one to buy. If you have a large family that generates tons of laundry, this dryer will do a great job of drying it all.

If you'd like to look at a large capacity dryer that costs under $1000, the 8.8 cu.-ft. Maytag Bravos XL MEDB855DW is another top-scoring model. And it comes with a rack at no extra charge.