Dishwasher buying guide now available
Anyone researching buying a dishwasher and looking for good independent buying advice should find the new Which?
Dishwasher buying guide report very interesting. Which? are highly recommended at Whitegoodshelp and I have many links to their reviews, reports and Best Buys for white goods.
Although I recommend joining Which? Online because you can research virtually any type of product before buying, Which? have started writing special reports which are available online to anyone for just £4.95.
Here’s a mini review of the dishwasher report
The first thing I noticed about the landing page of the dishwasher report was that as well as being able to pay using normal cards you can also pay using Google Checkout and PayPal. As I have a PayPal account myself I found this very convenient and only had to enter my PayPal login details.
Before buying there is a preview facility where you can read the first four pages (including the cover). Understandably, you aren’t going to see too much of the report for free so there’s only a bit of general information and the contents listing to see here. However, you can get a good feel for the way the report is laid out and the interface that you can use to view it.
The interface
The dishwasher report is viewable online using a Flash program through your browser. This is a very well designed interface. It’s simple and functional with an animated upturned page corner when you hover your mouse over the bottom right of the page. Clicking the page corner turns the page. Pages are viewed two at a time like an open magazine and your mouse pointer becomes a magnifying glass when positioned over it. Clicking the mouse over either page zooms in and from there, moving the mouse up and down scrolls the page. A second click zooms you back to the double page view. It all works superbly.
You can read the whole report, search the report, email parts of it, and even print it out.
The printed version
I was surprised to find an icon which prints out the entire report in full colour. This worked very easily on my system and resulted in a physical copy i can read anywhere. There’s also an option to drag the mouse over any section of a page (or even the entire page) which brings up a window containing an image of the selected section. Now you can elect to save it as a (jpeg) picture on your computer or enter an email address and have the picture sent somewhere else.
Summary
For a fiver, this is a great way of researching buying a dishwasher. Even if not buying a dishwasher there’s a good deal of interesting and useful information on dishwashers for anyone owning one including a report on which is the best dishwasher detergent?
Which? are totally independent, all the products they review have been bought by themselves. They accept no freebies, and don’t rely on companies sending them items to review so they feel no obligation to be polite and nice about products. All their activities are funded by subscribers and people who buy their reports.
It is refreshing to have such control over the report I’ve just bought. It is much more normal for companies to impose Draconian limitations on such products and force us to be only able to read it online after logging in. Being able to print it out and even e-mail sections to friends and relatives, to me, reinforces the fact that Which? are all about helping the consumer.
The only negative point I have is the disparity between the prices, where some reports seem to be much better value for money than others (if judged on page count). However, I don’t think the ones with fewer pages are not good value for money, it’s just the ones that have many more pages that look a little too cheap.
Preview the Dishwasher buying guide report
More reports?
Here’s a list of some of the other guide reports, which are likely to grow in number -
- Audio Visual
- Choosing an MP4 Player
- Choosing digital TV equipment
- Using digital TV equipment
- Choosing a camera
- Using your camera
- Which? Car (148 page report for just £4.95)
- Food (The Good food guides)
- NE London Guide
- SW London guide
- Central London guide
- Devon guide
- East Sussex guide
- Norfolk guide
- Cornwall guide
(You can have a preview of any of these reports using the dishwasher report link above. Just click the appropriate tab at the top of the page)
(affiliate links used)
Written by Washerhelp on April 10th, 2008 with
no comments.
Read more articles on Dishwashers.
To subscribe to or feature this article, or to add it to Digg, del.icio.us, Furl, Reddit or StumbleUpon please hover mouse over the "Social Bookmark or Subscribe" link above