The Hotpoint HDF330PGRWW Dishwasher: A Machine That Washes Dishes the Way a Politician Answers Questions

A dishwasher performs two functions. It washes dishes. It dries dishes. These two functions are its entire reason for existing. They are in the name. "Dish" and "washer." If it fails at these functions, it is not a dishwasher. It is a large, plumbed-in box that makes noise in your kitchen for 90 minutes and then opens to reveal dishes that are wet and still have food on them.

The Hotpoint HDF330PGRWW is that box.

Consumer Reports tested this dishwasher and found it terrible at washing. They also found it terrible at drying. They gave it a score that suggests the testing team spent the entire evaluation looking at each other with expressions that said, "Are we sure this is plugged in?"

For $430, you get a machine that uses water, electricity, detergent, and time to convert dirty dishes into wet dirty dishes. This is not cleaning. This is baptism — a symbolic gesture that changes nothing about the fundamental state of the thing being submerged.

The Vision: An Affordable Dishwasher for People on a Budget

The Hotpoint brand is owned by GE and positioned as their budget-friendly line. The HDF330PGRWW is a front-control dishwasher with a plastic tub interior, a two-rack system, and the general aesthetic of an appliance that knows it's the cheapest option in the showroom and has made peace with its station in life.

At $430, it sits at the very bottom of the dishwasher price range, which should have been the first clue. There is a price floor below which a dishwasher cannot effectively wash dishes, and the Hotpoint found it with the same precision it failed to apply to removing lasagna from a plate.

The machine has a "Normal" cycle, a "Heavy" cycle, a "Light" cycle, and a "Rinse Only" option. Based on Consumer Reports' findings, these cycles appear to produce functionally identical results: dishes that are slightly less dirty than before, which is not the same as clean, in the same way that "less on fire" is not the same as "safe."

The Glorious User Experience

Susan from Indianapolis, IN — ★☆☆☆☆

"I ran the Heavy cycle with the recommended detergent and the recommended loading pattern and the recommended water temperature. I opened it expecting clean dishes. I got dishes with a thin film of food residue, like the dishwasher had licked each plate but not swallowed. Every glass was cloudy. Every fork had something in the tines. The 'Heavy' cycle was heavy in the way that a gentle breeze is heavy — technically a meteorological event, functionally undetectable."

Dave from Columbus, OH — ★☆☆☆☆

"The drying. Let's discuss the drying, or rather, the absence of drying. I opened the dishwasher after a full cycle and every single item was dripping wet. Not damp. Dripping. Like the dishwasher had decided to skip the drying cycle entirely, or perhaps never knew it was supposed to dry things, or perhaps had a fundamental philosophical disagreement with the concept of evaporation. I now hand-dry every dish after running them through the dishwasher, which means I own a $430 pre-rinse machine."

Lauren from Nashville, TN — ★☆☆☆☆

"I ran a load of baby bottles through this dishwasher on the 'sanitize' setting. I pulled them out with milk residue still visible inside. Inside the bottles. That I'm about to feed to my infant. The dishwasher failed to clean the inside of a bottle on its most aggressive setting. I hand-washed them. I always hand-wash them now. The dishwasher has become a drying rack that uses electricity and makes noise. Expensive drying rack. Doesn't dry. One star."