Siemens hiDefinition Concealed Controls Dishwasher Review

Every so often you come across a product that exceeds your expectations—yes even in the lowly dishwasher category—and the Siemens hiDefinition™ Dishwasher does exactly that.

We recently rebuilt our kitchen and ended up with a space for the dishwasher that came up just a hair under the required 24" width (even after valiant efforts by the carpenters to eke out whatever space they could from the surrounding cabinetry). After doing some research, I discovered that European made dishwashers are built about 1/2" narrower than their North American counterparts. Problem solved!

This dishwasher is the quietest one I've ever heard (yes, every so often you hear a gentle swish of water, but that's it). For all intents and purposes - it's silent. You can be standing next to it while it's running and not even know it's running. Just last week, my sister inlaw saw me loading up the dishwasher and a few minutes after I had started it, she asked if I remembered to start the dishwasher—I told her it had already been running for five minutes—she was amazed. I was the owner of a Maytag dishwasher before this one that I was happy with, but after discovering this Siemens, I have to say the difference is night and day.

But perhaps most importantly—the dishes come out squeaky clean.

Features I like:

• ability to place the silverware basket anywhere in the bottom rack
• hidden controls (keeps the kids from playing with the buttons, but more importantly for me are the aesthetics of a clean front panel)
• miserly usage of water
• no heating element for drying the dishes (less electricity)—it uses the heat from the wash cycle to dry the dishes
• the handle on the front serves as a great towelbar next to the kitchen sink
• miserly usage of detergent (usually less than 2 tbsp. for a full load—no prewash required)
• cavernous interior
• handy activeLight indicator (LED that projects a red dot on the floor to indicate that the dishwasher is running)
  

The only improvement that I would suggest to Siemens is to convert the activeLight from just a red dot on the floor, to a projection of the remaining minutes in the wash cycle. The "hiDefinition" name leaves something to be desired - little to do with dishes - more to do with hi def TVs.  Otherwise, the Siemens hiDefinition™ Dishwasher gets both my thumbs up.

Oh, you're probably wondering what the "deadly" in the title of this review refers to. Well according to Siemens, this dishwasher does away with 99.9% of bacteria on your dishes (I guess their legal department didn't let them claim 100%).

http://www.siemens-home.com