I'll be honest - with all the information out there about different types of dishwaser, you'd have thought we had a logical reason behind choosing this model. Instead, the main reasons we choose it was because it was grey (and matched our other kitchen appliances), it fitted in our allocated 'slot', and we knew the brand name to be decent enough from past experiences. This criteria immediately meant that we were limited with our selection, to three or four models and of those, we decided this was the best.

I bought this machine to fit in a small gap we have in our kitchen - which was great, but I had to drill a largert hole than expected due to the water softener being built into the water hose. this was a bit of a pain to be honest and had I havce realised I would've purchased a different model.

The dimensions are as follows:

Height (mm) - 850
Width (mm) - 450
Depth (mm) - 600

So it'll fit in the smallest of places, but as I say, watch out fo the space needed for the external water softener!

That said, this dishwasher is very quiet, I sleep above the kitchen and we were pleasantly suprised with the levels of noise - and slept through it's cycle.

There are 8 selectable programs, though what the differnece is between some of them is difficult to fathom: Intensive, Normal, Short time, Prewash, Eco, Speed, Delicate, Goodnight. The speed wash was disappointing - so disappointing, that the plates had to go through again on a normal wash. We also had a breakage (a pint glass) when we used the main wash - though there is a delicate setting which should've been more safe. I think the glass itself was to blame, as it was very thin.

Capacitiy wise, despite being slimline, this does holds two days worth of plates for a family of three. We used to have a problem that the old dishwaser would smell a bit, even when closed with a couple of days worth of plates stacked, but this seems to have a better seal and no odour escaped! There are apparently set places for ten place settings, though if you use your imagination and stack things correctly, there is some room for manouvere.

Price wise, it is a little expensive, which I tend to find with most Hotpoint products. I am hoping that the extra money we paid means it'll last longer, but we have only had ours a couple of months and time will tell on that front.

It is a very efficient peice of kit - as you'd expect, with class A ratings across the board, so if you are on a water meter like we are, this helps with the bills and is still a much easier option than doing the washing up manually!

If I had the space I would definately go for a larger model, as you can obviously go londer between washes. There is also plenty of competetion out there in the form of Zanoosi, Bosch and Whirlpool, so choose carefully.