How Laundry Choice reviews are written
Every review on this site is written from the manufacturer’s published specifications and documentation for that model. This page says exactly what that means, and where it falls short.
The source
A review starts from the product’s specification sheet, its listing, and where available the manufacturer’s manual and energy label. The figures a review quotes — drum capacity in cubic feet or rated load in pounds, spin speed, the number and names of cycles, wash and dry times where stated, voltage and plug type, venting requirement, water use per cycle, annual energy use and Energy Star status, noise where stated, drum material, and the width, height and depth — are the manufacturer’s figures, restated. We do not measure any of them.
Where a manufacturer publishes a figure under a stated condition, the condition matters. A cycle time is quoted for a particular load on a particular setting; a capacity in pounds for a portable washer assumes dry cotton. A review should say what the figure describes, not just repeat it.
What a review does with the figures
A specification is only useful against a question. A 4.5-cubic-foot drum is ordinary for a full-size washer and enormous for a flat; a 1,200 rpm spin leaves clothes far drier than 800 rpm and matters more to someone without a dryer. So each review reads the model’s figures against the home its category implies — a family laundry room for a full-size machine, a flat with a sink and a socket for a portable, a cupboard with no vent for a ventless dryer — and says who the numbers suit and who they do not.
Capacity units are treated with particular care, because the two families do not share one. Full-size machines are quoted in cubic feet of drum; portable and compact machines are often quoted in pounds of dry laundry, and a twin-tub quotes wash and spin capacities separately. A review compares within a unit and says which it is using.
What a review does not do
- No hands-on testing. No test load, no water or energy measurement, no cycle timing, no observation of how anything came out. Any sentence in a review that reads like an observation is an inference from the published specification, and where that is not clear the sentence is wrong and should be corrected.
- No ratings or review counts. We do not publish star ratings, owner review counts, or anything derived from customer reviews.
- No prices. A price captured when a review was written is wrong by the time you read it.
- No defaults. Where a manufacturer does not publish a figure, the review does not fill the gap with a plausible one.
Categories
Each review is filed under one of four categories: washing machines, portable washers, clothes dryers and portable dryers washers and dryers. The category is decided by what the machine is and how it installs, not by what the listing calls it — a washer that connects to a tap and drains into a sink is portable whatever its capacity, and a dryer that needs no vent is ventless whether it is a heat pump or a condenser.
The 2026 clean-up
Until September 2026 the site also carried reviews of heating elements, timer knobs, lint traps, indoor vent kits, drive belts, drain hoses, door props, a cover mat and a food dehydrator. On 2026-09-12 we classified all 108 pages by the product named in their title and removed 18 from search indexing. The rule was simple: if the product is not a washer or dryer, the review is not part of this site’s subject. The 90 pages that remain are washers and dryers, and the categories above contain nothing else.
The removed reviews were not deleted. They still resolve for anyone who has a link to one, and they still carry the same disclosure and the same affiliate links. They are simply no longer offered to search engines.
Where this method fails
It inherits every weakness of its source. If a manufacturer quotes an optimistic capacity, the review repeats it. If a listing gives a cycle time for the shortest cycle only, the review can say so but cannot supply the normal one. If a specification is missing — and noise and water use are missing more often than not on portable machines — so is that part of the review.
It also cannot tell you anything a specification does not encode: how well a washer rinses detergent out, how badly it vibrates on a wooden floor, whether a ventless dryer leaves towels stiff, how a twin-tub’s spin actually performs, or how long a portable’s pump lasts. Those are the things a hands-on test would tell you, and this site does not do one.
Accountability
Reviews are published under the editorial name Brandon Hayes, which is disclosed as a pen name. The method above is the point of accountability: if a review departs from it, the review is wrong and should be corrected, and there is no biography to hide behind.