AEG L87680FL review

Our Rating :

Price when reviewed : £699

inc VAT

The AEG L87680FL is the company’s high-end, stylish washing machine. With its brushed-metal effect top and large CLD display, it certainly looks the part. It has a decent 8kg capacity and, with an A+++ efficiency rating and steam modes, it promises to be more than just a pretty face.

POWER AND WATER USAGE

As with all electrical appliances, the efficiency rating is just a guide. It’s the actual figures that are of more interest. In our tests, we ran Cotton 30C, Cotton 40C and Synthetic 40C cycles, using 3kg of washing in order to test power and water consumption.

At 30C, the washing machine used 0.59kW of power and 49L of water. This gave us a combined cost of 23p per cycle, which is about what we’d expect from washing machine like this. However, as this machine as a 1,600rpm spin speed, our clothes retained just 980g of water. This means that they’ll dry faster (or require less time in a tumble dryer) than machines with slower spin speeds.

Moving to the Cotton 40C cycle, we saw power consumption increase to 0.71kW, while water slightly increased to 58L. This put the cost per cycle up to 27p. However, thanks to the fast spin speed, our clothes retained just 979g of water.

Steam modes and an A+++ rating mean that this washing machine has plenty to offer

On the Synthetic 40C cycle, which can often dramatically increase power consumption due to the extra drum movements, we saw power consumption increase to 0.74kW, while water usage remained at 58L. The spin speed was reduced to 1,200rpm, so our clothes were wetter, retaining 1.4kg of water. We calculated a reasonable cost per cycle of 28p.

Using the EU Energy Label (see how we test washing machines for more information), we work out how much the machine costs to run each year.

With these calculations we worked out that this machine costs £54.74 for high usage, £41.05 for medium usage and £27.37 for low usage. That’s about what we’d expect for an A+++-rated 8kg washing machine, although we have seen models with lower running costs.

WASH PERFORMANCE

To find out how good the AEG L87680FL is at cleaning clothes, we put it through a series of tests using our stain strips. View our gallery to see all of the cleaning examples: dirty cloth is at the top of each sample; the clean one is at the bottom.

Wash performance was some of the best that we’ve seen, with good results in all of our tests using the Cotton 30C and Cotton 40C cycles. Cleaning was particularly good in our red wine stain test. Cleaning was slightly better in the Cotton 40C cycle with the cocoa stain than the Cotton 30C cycle, but it was a close run thing.

Wash performance at 40C and 30C was very similar, but we prefer the 40C cocoa performance (top)

We’ve seen marginally better performance from other machines in the hard blood/milk/ink test, but the AEG l87680FL still put in a good performance.

The Synthetic 40C cycle produced excellent results, as you can see from its performance with red wine stains

We’re pleased to say that the Synthetic 40C tests proved to be of the same quality and it was hard to tell the difference. All of our test stains were cleaned up well and this washing machine is near the top of the grade, performance wise.

EASE OF USE AND FEATURES

A control dial lets you select the wash programme that you want. There are all of the usual wash cycles you’d expect, plus a few extras. Anti-Allergy could be useful, as it washes clothes at 60C and then performs an extra rinse in order to get rid of any micro-organisms that family members may have a reaction to.

It’s good to see a steam mode, too, which helps to soften fibres and make ironing an easier process. It can also be used in the Refresh mode to give clean clothes that smell a bit musty a boost, so that they come out smelling fresher.
On top of this you can choose extra options per wash and override default settings. For example, you can choose the temperature (from Cold to 95C, depending on the selected cycle, and the spin speed (up to the maximum of 1,600rpm). In addition, you can select the Prewash feature to use a stain remover, select Time Save for a quick wash, and select Delay Start, so that you can ensure your washing finishes when you’re around. All of the options are displayed on the large LCD screen, which also shows you how long your wash has to go.

We like the styling of the AEG L87680FL and it was robust and well-built. AEG promises that this is one of its quietest machines and that was certainly true in our tests. With a rated wash rating of 49dB and spin of 73dB, it falls towards the quieter end of the market. It was certainly smooth in our tests, with no juddering or shuddering to distract us.

CONCLUSION

There are certainly a lot options on the AEG L87680FL and its wash performance was very good. However, the similarly-priced Panasonic NA-168VG4 has much lower running costs and just edged it for us in terms of wash performance. Unless you specifically want the steam modes that this washing machine offers, the Panasonic is the better choice for most people.