Indesit Moon Washing Machine

Washing Machine Evolution, Revolution Or Revulsion?

One thing is for sure, the new Indesit Moon is striking when you first see it and Indesit have gone to town with advertising their latest baby. But, like many new and different designs, it sparks love or hate in many who see it as well as a bland, nonchalant indifference in some, but not many people don't appear to have an opinion on the Indesit Moon washing machine, be it good or bad.

I guess that's the point though of this machine because, as I'll explain in a bit, there's really little else other than the looks to separate it from the rest of the pack and in fact you pay quite dearly for that striking design.

Love it or hate it though, it makes an impression.

Is It Any Good?

Ask most of the guys in the trade and they'll tell you that, if it has an Indesit badge on it then, no, it's rubbish.

If you watch the commercials, there's an infomercial over to the right and the TV advert below, Indesit would have us believe that somehow this is a merging of machines and man. Really, I thought it was just a washing machine and one that really doesn't offer anything new at all other than a different look about it.

But let's have a look at the features.

Detergent Dispenser

The claim is that the detergent dispenser in the door gets "straight to the heart of the wash" but it's nothing new, Candy used to use this sort of system many years ago on some of their compact washing machines. The obvious claim is that they don't clog or get dirty but, in all honesty, that's not what experience teaches us.

This also makes the door a bit heavier and reports from the trade seem to indicate that the door is a little flimsy and liable to breaking but only time will tell on reliability of the system.

This also means that the door is a "solid" design meaning that you can't see into the machine to see what it's doing, or not doing and this may well be an issue for some people. That said the LEDs do indicate where abouts the machine is in the program and this may well be sufficient.

Simple Controls

The control dial is a simple affair and would appear to be designed to remove confusion however, in doing that, a few of options appear to have been removed.

For example there are a total of fifteen programs available but this will include the usual "spin only", "rinse" and the likes with eight specific cycles designed for easy use, Silks and delicates, Wool, Delicate cottons & synthetics, a 30 minute 30 degree fast wash, 60C Cotton, synthetics and a 40C non-colourfast cotton.

All The Rest

The only other thing that may be a bit unusual is the apparent addition of what we call "turbidity sensors" to detect the level of soap in the water when rinsing. Basically what these do is look into the water, normally using an infra-red sender and receiver, to effectively "see" if the water is clean. Other than that the rest of the features are pretty much as you would expect even on more basic machines costing a fair bit less. In other words, nothing that special really.

The TV commercial for the Indesit Moon washing machine

Of course the other bits and pieces, the 1400rpm spin, six kilo load and the likes are now, at this £300 price mark, pretty much standard the only additional being the A+ energy rating but, asides from that, it's really just an AAB washing machine. So other than the striking design there's really not a lot new here.

Reliability

If you happen to be a site regular you will know that we're not exactly fans of Indesit as the machines generally appear poorly built although that's not so much a problem with the company as much as the price point at which the machines sell. It's the old thing of you don't get a Rolls Royce for Mini money and, we suspect, this will be the case here.

However, it is worth noting that Indesit's customer services do not receive praise here or anywhere else for that matter.

We have already seen reports of machines being exchanged on the internet and reports from the trade about them not having a huge amount of faith in the washer but, if you want something a little bit different then perhaps this is for you.