Morphy Richards Saturn Steam

What is the Beko WR862441?

With its low price, the Beko WR862441G looks great in a graphite colouring accompanied by bright bluish-white lights on the digital display. With a good selection of 15 programmes, A+++ energy rating and 1600rpm spin speed, it gives little away to pricier competitors.

The Beko delivered great cleaning results in our tests, even though we couldn’t get a full 8kg into the drum. It easily archives A+++ energy on the Cottons Eco wash, while other programmes and smaller loads are far less frugal. However, the attractive price, solid wash results and a good selection of programmes win the day.

Related: Best washing machines

Beko WR862441 – What is it like to use?

Standing out from the all-white crowd, this budget Beko washing machine comes in a metallic graphite colour with matching grey fascia. The bright numerals on the gloss-black display lend it an air of quality. That feel doesn’t translate too well to the central controller knob, though, which felt rather cheap and rough to turn; unfortunately it isn’t the best we’ve used.

The digital display shows the time remaining on the cycle or the progress of the time delay option. Beneath the display is a raft of options buttons covering temperature, spin speed, prewash wash, quick wash and extra rinse selection. These felt like they’d been mounted with Blu Tack, giving more of a squish than a click when pressed. The display itself has crisp LED indicators for temperature, spin speed and the options, making everything clear and concise.

Stylish touches of gloss-black plastic and mirror chrome around the door go some way to giving this machine a premium feel, although the chrome is a magnet for fingerprints. The glass of the door is acutely shaped, curving inwards, which helps to gently tumble the load during the wash.

The huge door opens to reveal a smaller but still fair-sized porthole opening. The drum has an intriguing pattern and shaped paddles, which Beko describes as AquaWave. These are designed to softly agitate your washing and improve the water/detergent mixing effect.

Fancy stuff aside, the drum didn’t look too capacious – and, sure enough, it didn’t accommodate our full test load of real-world cotton clothing. We use 80% of the claimed weight in cottons as a full load, 6.4kg in this case, but the WR8662441G could really only cope with up to about 5.6kg. Of course, different types of material will affect the volume of your wash, but there’s no getting away from the fact that this Beko wouldn’t take out regular full test load for an 8kg machine.

Other physical features are standard fare, including a soap drawer that pulls out easily to fill, and pump-clearing drain at the bottom of the machine. This has a very awkward plastic flap, guaranteed to break a nail when opening. There’s no obvious guide or channel for pump water to run away into a tray either, so have a towel handy when clearing the pump.

The 1600rpm maximum spin and a massive A+++ energy rating are well above what you’d usually expect at this price. Moreover, the energy rating is claimed to be 30% more energy efficient than standard A+++ rated models.

The 15-programme list has a good range of cycles and includes a handy quick wash for small loads. This short but sweet programme will wash a 2kg load of laundry in just 14 minutes, so it’s perfect if you’re in a hurry.

Beko WR862441 – How noisy is it?

Despite its budget pretentions, the Beko’s high-tech inverter motor gave this machine a relatively peaceful character and it remained suitably hushed through all the wash parts of the cycle. The energy label states 50dB for wash noise; for most of the cycles we measured much closer to 45-46dB. That’s nicely quiet and not much louder than your average busy library.

However, the Beko made its presence heard when it got up to its full spin speed, topping our sound pressure meter at 76dB at 1600rpm. While in line with what’s stated on the energy label, by modern standards this isn’t “super-quiet”. 75-76dB would be about the same noise level as busy high street with traffic.

Beko WR862441G– What programmes does it have?

At its attractive price, the Beko impressed us with 15 programmes. There are two super-speedy programmes for lightly soiled clothing; Super Short and Daily Quick. Daily Quick will clean a full load of washing in around 28 minutes; Super Short will clean 2kg of your washing in around 14 minutes. Great stuff for those who are always on the go.

For typical cotton wash loads, there’s a standard Cottons programme and the super-efficient Cottons Eco. Due to the nature of the Eco programmes generally (saving energy and water usage by employing a lot of “soak” time), this program will take a fairly lengthy 3hrs 49mins at the default 60ºC wash. Knock that down to 40ºC using the temperature sector and the time comes in at a very respectable (for an Eco Cottons wash) 2hrs 43mins.

Other main washes include Woollens, Synthetics and a Mixed Fabrics wash, which allows you to wash cotton and synthetic clothes together. The Dark Care wash uses little mechanical action and low temperature to reduce fading. There’s even a dedicated wash for shirts, and Beko boasts that up to 40 can be washed at one time… which is about twice Richard’s entire shirt collection.

A personal favourite was the Hand Wash 20 programme for use with clothing that states “Not machine washable” or “Hand wash only”. This programme washes laundry with a very gentle action that aims to reduce or avoid any potential damage to your delicate clothes.

For those with allergies or sensitive skin, the Beko provides a dedicated Anti-Allergy wash and a Hygiene 20 programme. The Anti-Allergy cycle is a lengthy and intensive 60ºC wash, tested and approved by The British Allergy Foundation. Hygiene 20 is geared up for garments that won’t handle higher temperature washes, but need to be thoroughly cleaned. It’s an intensive cycle that uses water at a tepid 20ºC. The cooler water temperature means that this programme uses a fair bit less energy too.

The easy-to-select options include a Pre-Wash for seriously mucky clothes, and a Quicker Wash button for the Cottons and Synthetics programmes. This shortens cycle time for lightly soiled loads. Extra rinse uses a little more water but ensures detergent residues are thoroughly removed from the wash, and the delayed start does just that, in selectable 1-hour intervals up to a maximum of 19 hours.

Given the sub-£300 asking price, the Beko packs in a wide and varied selection of programmes and options.

Beko WR862441– How well does it wash?

With washing machines size is important, and the Beko stumbled at the first hurdle. Although the WR862441G claims to have an 8kg maximum capacity, the drum size was very tight for our all-cotton test load. The Beko’s capacity proved slightly ambitious as we struggled to get our usual 80% of claimed capacity, a 6.4kg load, of mixed items into the machine. We had to take out around 800g to fit comfortably, making our test load nearer 5.6kg. That’s the sort of capacity we’d expect from a 7kg machine.

The Beko came back fighting with great wash results and excellent stain removal across our tests, however. Our test stain strip included blood, ketchup, turmeric, coffee, cranberry and engine oil. This was allowed to dry for over 24 hours and placed in the Beko with a full load. We used the standard Cottons programme at 40ºC with 1600rpm spin speed and a leading brand non-bio detergent.

This cycle did a great job of cleaning the strip and completely removed the blood, coffee, cranberry and ketchup. The turmeric and engine oil were still visible, but had been reduced significantly. We’re yet to find a washing machine powerful enough to completely rid these stains without the help of biological detergent, so this is a very good result for a budget washing machine.

Even more of a surprise, given the rather cramped drum, spin efficiency was very good indeed. Our full test load had just 1.6kg of water left in the load at the end of the cycle, or around 29% additional weight. Any result under 30% is a very good spin indeed. These findings align with the label, awarding this Beko an A rating for spin efficiency.

The downside with this standard Cottons cycle is that energy and water usage were significant, especially considering the reduced size of the load. Using 1.4kWh of electricity and 85 litres of water for just a 5.6kg load is definitely on the high side by modern standards. If you halve the load, the Beko senses this and uses fewer resources. Not half as much, however.

We measured around 1kWh of electricity and 61 litres of water for a standard Cotton half load, and spin efficiency fell, too, albeit to a still respectable 33%. It’s clearly far more efficient to ensure you’re washing full loads.

So with those fairly steep resource figures, how does this Beko achieve an A+++ minus 30% rating, we hear you ask? That would be when using the Cottons Eco programme.

Consuming just 41 litres of water and a very low 0.75kWh from the mains supply for the very same stuffed-to-the-rafters full load, the Cottons Eco programme is up there with most A+++ and A++ machines on the market, if not exactly setting new standards.

Wash performance and spin efficiency both went south a little on Eco mode, with 35% water remaining after the cycle. Yet, if you have lightly soiled loads or use biological detergents, the Cottons Eco programme is just fine at washing and super-efficient.

Beko WR862441 – How much will it cost to run?

If you stick to the Cottons Eco programme then this machine will keep your electricity and water use right on budget. If you do need to use a more robust and better cleaning washes, those figures will go up significantly, and half loads are even worse for consumption per kilogram of load.

A standard full-load Cottons wash at 1.4kWh will cost you around 21p electricity and its 85 litres of water just shy of 30p. That is a total of around 50p per wash, assuming the UK average energy cost at 15p/kWh and £3.50 per cubic meter of water supply and waste.

The Cottons Eco programme came in at a total of just over 25p for the same load. For a busy family over the course of a year, this will add up to a significant saving.

If we apply our usual 240 loads per year of normal, lightly soiled daily clothing, split 200 full loads and 40 half loads, using the standard Cottons programme would cost you around £110 per annum. Ouch. We’d absolutely opt for the Beko’s Cottons Eco programme every time. That would cost you a grand total of a fairly frugal £60 per year.

While that doesn’t come too close to the most efficient machines we’ve tested, some of which are under £40 per annum on their most Eco of cycles, it isn’t a bad result given the low cost of the Beko in the first place. Many of those top-spec machines cost multiples of the Beko’s asking price, making the WR862441G something of a bargain all round.

Why buy the Beko WR862441?

The WR862441G has a unique look, is easy to use, washes well and is very efficient – as long as you stick to the Cottons Eco programme. The other cycles have a bit of thirst for electricity and water, but turn in wash performances that could make some much higher priced machines on our Best washing machine list blush.

Build quality of the controls and plastic parts is a bit ropey, particularly the selector knob and recalcitrant pump flap, and that chrome door trim will polarise opinion. Moreover, we couldn’t get a full load in the cramped drum, making this machine more like a 7kg model in reality.

However, if you take that fabulously affordable asking price into consideration, this Beko’s great wash and spin performance along with its frugal running costs on the Cottons Eco programme make it a great budget buy.

Verdict

Solid wash results and great efficiency on the Eco programme offset rather rough-diamond build quality and a cramped drum to make the Beko WR862441 a bit of bargain.

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