Beko DV6120X (6kg)

Reliable results – Handles all types of clothing and sensor function works well.

Impressed and affordable – I bought this dry as I was on a limited budget but still wanted something with a good energy rating and a decent size. I can't fault it. There's loads of drying cycles to chose from and a alarm to let you know it's finished. ( this can also be silenced)  Show details

Must have For Winter! – We live in freezing victoria and drying clothes in winter is just about impossible without a dryer. This works admirably and is simple and easy to use. It has a few nifty features that make it better than usual. First up it reverse tumbles which means all the clothes don't end up in a ball, secondly it has an interior light - never seen that in a dryer before an lastly it senses when the clothes are done - yes! Its a good dryer!  Show details

Really Good Dryer – I have been pleasantly surprised by this dryer. I was so used to not having one before we got this that it took me a while to get used to it. I am pretty keen on it now though! The best way to use it is to finish off half dried clothes and sometimes all it takes is 15 minutes to have everything perfect. The dryer is huge and could take the whole washing load if needed. It seems very strongly built and works well.  Show details

Great Dryer From Beko – I finally agreed to get this last winter and what a difference it made! Warm fluffy towels instead of cold half damp ones for a start. I had not heard of Beko before but the build quality is good and solid and its well designed. It is simple to operate and has worked flawlessly since we have had it. It was excellent value and provided it keeps running without issue, then I will be happy.  Show details

Fabulous Dryer – We bought this dryer last month. It has been fabulous. great capacity. Plenty of drying options and cycles. Well made and quiet. It was also a great price. It's mostly used for finishing the drying id still a bit damp. I would definitely recommend this clothes dryer. It is exceptional value. It was bought from The Electrical Discounter in Underwood Brisbane.  Show details

No more Hanging out on the line – I literally no longer hang my clothes on the line to dry. This Beko clothes dryer is the best value for money dryer out there. It can pack in an incredible 6 kg of clothes. Has some very book features and options for different types of drying. Even auto spins once the dry cycle is finished to prevent creasing.  Show details

Needed every day – It is a great machine with that all9ws you to dry your clothes and or linen to what you need. Ready to iron or extra dry. Has a handy light inside that allows you to see if it has missed anything while taking it out. It is also large enough for a family of 5  Show details

Fabulous dryer even though I've never heard of Beko, I recommend it – This dryer is fabulous. I'm surprised how quick and quiet it is. My old Hoover must have been 20 or more years old, so replacing it was difficult. I'd never heard of Beko but with so many new brands on the market these days just took a chance, plus the price suited my pension  Show details

Delusion – I am very disappointed more with the previous reviews written on this product than anything. As always, i checked to see what other people thought before i bought. I can't believe we are talking about the same product. It is a DUD - DUD DUD. takes forever to dry......and the creases, my goodness and the list goes on but i can't be stuffed bothering. I hope i have saved someone money by my efforts.  Show details

It Works – Just purchased this dryer, and was a little disappointed at first because my clothes didn't dry after a 60 minute cycle. It was a normal load, just clothes and only about half the drum full. I read a few mixed reviews, started getting worried, then actually read the manual (highly recommend that by the way), and now I have a perfectly functional… Read more

dryer.

Turns out, the timer settings are for finishing off or just drying things on a low-ish heat for a set amount of time. If you want that super warm static feel of the old dryers, the 'Extra Dry - Cotton' sensor setting is what you want. Cotton ones use high heat, synthetics normal heat and delicates low heat. I figured I could just use the timer like I was used to but 5 minutes of my time learning what the bells and whistles do really paid off. Four stars because I have only had it a day, but so far so good.

Great product, very sturdy – Great dryer. Good for getting pet hair off towels and bedding, easy clean lint filter. Good for baby items with freshen up setting. Great price compared to others of the same level. Only negative is that it's not very energy efficient and it takes about 1 hr 40 mins to dry a regular load.  Show details

Avoid if you want to dry clothes. Get one if you like untangling balls of clothing – Bought this based on seller's recommendation. Sadly, it doesn't dry anything well as it rolls all clothes into a tight ball, leaving a tangled, wet lump for you to sort out. Service call revealed that the drum operation is built so that it only turns in one direction, with no reversing cycle, so you are guaranteed tangled balls of clothing every… Read more

time.

Go for F&P or even a cheap Westinghouse. We've got these and they are streets ahead of the Beko.

Totally Useless. Asking for Refund – Will not dry linen. Rolls into balls and stops when still damp. Poor product design. Thermostat not adjustable by service agent. Takes all day to dry one load of bed linen. Only works if one sheet at a time. Certainly not 6kg of them. Not fit for purpose. Look elsewhere.

Great!...except for sheets – So i've had this dryer just under a year now. It replaced an Indesit 6kg vented dryer that was fantastic for many years. I bought this dryer in the height of winter and due to our busy work schedules, being without a dryer was not an option at all. I ducked round to our local Kambo's store with the intention of buying a cheap Simpson 4kg to fill… Read more

the gap until we had saved for a larger capacity machine with more bells and whistles (we are a sucker for them). Saw this 6kg vented Sensor Beko for the same price as the Simpson and it really was no contest. I paid the lady and this little beauty came home with me.

From the start I could not believe the price of this machine was correct for the features we got. I was ready to pay 1000 bucks at a later date for a sensor dryer with a drum light that was 6kgs or more and I got it all for 450 bucks. Bargain.

And it works as it should too! The sensor cycles do a great job as long as we seperate things out into 'like' fabrics (towels with towels, t-shirts with t-shirts). It doesn't like loads with a mix of heavy and light fabrics as it confuses the sensor if the light things dry quicker and start to over-dry the machine will click into cool down and then click off leaving the heavier fabrics still a bit damp to the touch. Luckily we are pretty fussy with how we seperate out our wash loads so thus far it has not been a problem.

The ONLY thing this machine struggles with is Sheets sadly. I have not had one load of sheets come out properly dry yet and have given up trying to dry them in the dryer at all. They come out in a pretty well tied up ball, roasting hot on the outside and cold and still wet on the inside. I think it is because the machine only reverses the drum direction for about 5 seconds which isn't enough to untangle the sheets. Its not a big problem though I just have to make sure I dry the sheets outside.

Overall, this dryer was a bargain and does its job wonderfully well...except on sheets lol.

Happy with my Beko dryer – We are a family of four and we have had this dryer for nearly 4 years and it has not missed a beat and I LOVE the sensor function. We only use it once a week. It is a little noisy and we have an internal laundry and when the door is closed you can hardly hear it so it has not been an issue for us. It is a vented dryer so you must be able to vent… Read more

the hot air via a pipe included with the dryer to the outside and the dryer cannot be hung on the wall. It can leave our towels and hankies in a bit of a twisted mess sometimes but it doesn't bother me.They still fold up fine. The drum in our dryer suddenly stopped working yesterday and with further investigation by my husband discovered that one of the belts, not the big one but a very small one had frayed quite badly and was almost broken through and was not doing its job. It only had a 2 year warranty. He has removed the belt and it appears it is very hard to get one here in Sydney. I have found the exact one on Ebay from the UK, so we may have to purchase one from overseas. With postage it will only cost us a total of $37.00. We are still hopeful to find one here in Sydney. I have always been quite happy with my dryer and it does exactly what I expect it to do.

Fast, Efficient, Quiet - Me and My Washing - We Love Our Beko – This review may seem a little long, but my objective is to give you the type of info I am looking for when I read reviews, but usually cannot find. I have also waited a year to do this review as that gave me a decent time period in which to judge the appliance. After owning 3 very reliable Simpson dryers in 30 years, all of which eventually died… Read more

of old age and hard work after approximately 10 years, I decided to change brands. I have now owned the Beko DV6120X for just on 12 months, having purchased it new on 7 August 2014 after considerable research. It was purchased from Bing Lee in Fyshwick, Canberra for $427.

I had initial reservations about buying the Beko as numerous user reviews rubbished them. But one thing I have learned over the years of reading user appliance reviews is that the majority of user reviews are posted by people who are unhappy with their product. Various statistics indicate that for every negative review or complaint, there are approximately 30 positive reviews or comments that never get published or posted. The majority of user reviews for any brand of any type of appliance I have read before buying something has been negative, which speaks volumes.

After 12 months of use I can say that I am very happy with the Beko. I live in Canberra where drying clothes in winter can be difficult due to the extremely cold weather. We are a family of four, two of whom are teenagers who use copious quantities of clothing. However, we transfer washing straight from the washing machine to the dryer only if we have to, which is not too often. The energy from the sun is free, so use it I say. We hang everything on the line weather permitting or in the garage or house if it is raining. Only when washing is somewhere between 75% dry to feeling 100% dry will we use the dryer. In winter when maximum daytime temps are often less than 10 degrees, it is hard to tell if clothing is damp or just very cold. In this situation it goes into the dryer and usually within 5-10 minutes it is done.

Following this methodology I find the Beko dries surprisingly fast as it really only has to finish the clothes off. There are enough drying options to suit most types of clothing, and so far in one year none of our washing has been damaged by the dryer. Our Simpsons had three different manual temperature selections which I miss on the Beko, but instead it has a selection of three material types - cotton, synthetics or delicates - which seems to regulate the temperature to suit.

For drying options you can also choose from “ready to iron”, “ready to wear” or “extra dry”, all of which I have used and work as described. You also have the option of timer drying. Really, whatever way you wish to choose to dry your washing, the option is there.

For efficiency, I only ever fill the dryer about two thirds full at the most which gives the washing plenty of tumbling space, room for the air to circulate efficiently and helps reduce wrinkling. I also go to the small effort of sorting washing into basic material types before putting it into the dryer. Doing this helps prevent the issue of individual items being over or under dried. For those who think this must take a lot of time, it doesn’t – it takes mere minutes and produces a faster and better outcome. I can get through drying of 3-4 loads of partially dry washing in about an hour or so. I simply sort it roughly as it comes off the line, toss it into the dryer in smallish loads, and it is rare that one dryer load takes more than ten minutes. Many items then come straight out of the dryer and are hung up immediately in the cupboard while still warm and wrinkle free - no ironing required, which helps keep the power bill down a bit too I’d say. A nice feature on the Beko is that if you don’t get your washing out immediately after the cycle finishes, it does a few rotations every few minutes to help reduce wrinkles.

We have a number of 100 percent woollen jumpers which we use during winter, and like all woollen items they stretch and go out of shape after a few wears. After experimenting successfully with it once, I now put the jumpers straight from the washing machine into the dryer and the Beko works a treat drying and shrinking them back to the correct size without damage. Being washed on a wool cycle they contain a lot of water, but they still dry very quickly without any issues.

In response to other complaints I’ve read about Bekos, I make the following comments:

Noisy: No, it is quieter than our 3 Simpsons.

Cycle finished beeper: Yes, I’d say it is intentionally quietish, but it operates at a high frequency. The dryer is in our garage, and I can hear the beeper from our kitchen, which is approximately 15 metres from the dryer with four walls in between, over all the other usual household sounds of TVs and teenagers etc. It often takes a few beeps before I notice it, but it works.

Filter: Like every dryer it extracts lint which is the result of our clothes disintegrating because they get battered around in the washing machine. We use a front loading washing machine so lint isn’t a huge issue, but I still clean the filter every time. Why? Simply the dryer works more efficiently, dries the washing faster and uses far less electricity if the filter is clean. I was a builder for many years and I repaired or rebuilt a number of homes over the years that were damaged or destroyed by fires started by dryers with clogged lint filters. Really, there are many benefits to keeping your filter clean.

Doesn’t dry washing properly: Never been an issue. I’d say don’t over fill the machine, sort clothing into similar material types, leave a bit of tumbling space and pre-dry your washing a bit first. This will help your washing dry better, faster and reduce your power costs immensely.

Reliability: The dryer is mainly used to finish off the drying process, and used for small amounts of fully wet washing. It is used regularly most weeks, but it isn’t really working hard. In 12 months, there have been no problems. If it lasts 5 years I will be happy. Fact: No appliance is designed to last very long these days – shareholders must be kept happy and that only happens if lots of products are sold. Short term lifecycles and built in obsolescence and are now king.

Using any appliance or equipment requires common sense. Read the manual, experiment with it a bit and work out the most efficient and cost effective way to use it. End result, your appliance will be happy and so will you.

Economics and installation: Beko vs Miele (five-year update!) – Five-year update! I've had to downgrade my rating as the dryer didn't last the hoped-for six years. Not even 5, in fact. What happened is that the drum got a ring of rust in it on the back, there was some sort of seam there and it just rusted. I received a fairly unequivocal order that I was to do something about this as it was staining the… Read more

clothes. The first option I looked into was repairing it, since I was disappointed about the idea of having to buy another so soon. No dice. The local appliance repairer didn't exactly laugh at me, but did suggest I purchase a brand with more readily available parts if I couldn't get it fixed. I contacted the authorized place and was informed it would be about $300 for the drum, plus a very substantial callout fee and then more money every ten minutes. So, as much as a new one, basically.

So I took the local appliance repairer's advice and bought a Fisher and Paykel to replace it. I recommend you do the same.

At least it didn't cost me anything to drop it at metals waste at Kimbriki tip.

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One-year update. It's time for the one-year update of this dryer. There have been no problems, it's worked exactly as expected and reported below. The only issue that I have found is that, because the lint collector is in the bottom of the door opening, you might want to be a bit careful to clean that area as well i.e. give it a wipe when you clean the lint collector.

And... that's it! Nothing else to complain about. We've used it about the amount anticipated - 1 or 2 loads per week. I see other reviews have complained about sheets, I have not actually dried sheets in it. I think my wife has so I will update again when I get more info on the sheet front.

Original review follows --------------------------

We have only had this dryer for about two weeks, and half that time it was out of action while I installed the venting. However I wanted to post some information on economics and installation while it's fresh in my mind. When it comes to choice of dryer, there are three basic types (in electric): vented, condensor, and heat pump (which is also a condensor). Vented dryers need installation of a vent (more on that below) whereas the other two don't; heat pump dryers are more efficient than the other two (more on that also below).

We almost bought a Miele T 8861 WP heat pump dryer. Well, I'm an engineer, and I appreciate well-engineered machinery that is designed to last for 20 years. The T 8861 WP has good reviews both here on productreview.com.au and in Europe (with the aid of Google translate). However, our 12-year old Miele washing machine failed before we finalised the purchase, which brought proceedings to a screeching halt. Since the washer hadn't lasted for 20 years, I felt I had reason to doubt Miele's claims. Also, we now had to purchase two new machines instead of one. I decided on a much cheaper unit, the Beko DV 6120 X, which this review is about.

SHORT TERM: LIKE

The DV 6120 X is fairly compact and light. It fits in the back of a Mini Cooper - yep, in the packaging. I did have to lay it on its back which I expect is not recommended (although there were no dire warnings in the manual as for the heatpump dryers), but it was fine. And I was able to carry it up a set of steep stairs by myself, with the aid of the packing strips around the outside. With two people it would have been a breeze. At any rate, if you have a station wagon or SUV (or a Mini Cooper!), there's fifty bucks saved in delivery costs right there.

The control panel is simple and straightforward - just the way I like appliances to be. Just turn the knob to the desired setting and press the start button. You can Google to find the manual with full info, but basically there's settings for ready-to-iron and ready-to-wear for cottons and synthetics. Cottons also have an extra-dry setting. Also a delicates setting and timed drying of 10, 20, 40 and 60 minutes. Great! No silly LCD or having to press buttons lots of times to set a timed dry.

It looks and feels like a good quality machine. Everything about it is much nicer than our old Simpson. I'm no expert on the finer points of drying clothes but with the few loads I have done so far the laundry came out about what it says (ready-to-iron or ready-to-wear). My wife has pronounced the result to be "good."

SHORT TERM: DON'T LIKE

Nothing at all to not like so far. I see from other reviews that some reliability problems have been reported. Overall it doesn't really seem to be any worse than other brands.

MEDIUM AND LONG TERM

(I will update this section in a few months, or if any issues arise.)

ECONOMICS

I tried pretty hard to convince myself that the higher initial cost of a heat pump dryer was worth it - that is, that we could view a heat pump dryer as an investment in lower electric bills for... well, the next 20 years.

The Beko DV 6120X is rated at 266 kWh for 52 uses (i.e. once a week for one year) and the Miele heat pump dryer at 149 kWh. The difference is 117 kWh per year, which at 30 cents per kWh is $35.10. (Admittedly, the Miele is an "8kg" dryer while the Beko is "6kg", but let's just run with this for now.)

Over ten years, the Beko will cost $351 dollars more to run than the Miele; over 20 years, it will cost $702 more. That is IF you use the dryer once a week (on average), with a full load. If you use it twice a week, that is $702 dollars more for the Beko over 10 years and $1404 more over 20 years. If you use it 3 times per week, $1053 over 10 years and $2106 over 20 years. At this point, you could also account for the fact that if you run this much laundry through the dryer, you would in theory have to run the Beko four times while you can run the Miele three times (24 kg of laundry!). So you can see that if you are a heavy dryer user and work it out over 20 years, then the economics swing in favor of the Miele.

But that would be assuming that the Miele will last for 20 years. If it needs service calls at $300 a pop to keep it going that long, the economics swing against it again. However, the Beko isn't going to last that long either... I realised that there's a gamble/bet to be made on how long each machine will last, before needing a series of expensive service calls. Let's say the lifetime of the Miele (without service calls) is 12 years, since that's how long my Miele washer lasted. Let's suppose the lifetime of the Beko is 6 years (fingers crossed). If I do a full load twice per week, then in 12 years I buy one Miele machine at $2500 and use $1072 of electricity for a total of $3572. Or I buy two Beko machines at $450 each and use $1915 of electricity for a total of $2815. So in that scenario, the Beko wins by $757. But IF I had to run the Beko three times to keep up with the Miele's two loads, then the Beko option adds up to $3772, or $200 more than the Miele.

In summary, the factors so far in the decision are how much the machine will be used, and the lifetime (before service calls) of the machine. Two more factors are whether you feel like paying $2500 up front (putting it on a credit card, for example, would invalidate the above calculations), and whether you think the Miele "drys better" than the Beko. The reviews here (thanks other reviewers!) said that the Beko drys well and the sensor works properly, so for our relatively light usage, probably 1-2 loads per week on average, and with needing to replace both laundry machines at the same time, I went for the Beko. For someone who needs to use a dryer heavily, like a minimum of 3 full loads per week, the Miele would, in theory, be cheaper in the long run.

In my calculation above I made a bet that this machine will last for six years. I hope it does, but if it does fail in a year or two, then lesson learned and I'll re-evaluate (and update here). I'm optimistic about the Beko as it does seem like good quality so far.

INSTALLATION

I confess that for many years I vented the dryer straight into the laundry. This is a really bad idea, unless you like mould on the ceiling and lint everywhere! I decided this time to install the dryer properly and vent it to outside. Fortunately, with the Beko it wasn't that hard. I didn't need to buy a dryer venting kit, as the Beko comes with a flexible exhaust hose and a fitting to its outlet, so the only additional items needed were from Bunnings: a "Deflecto Exhaust Clothes Dryer Replacement Vent Hood Hsr4w" for $8.95 and a "Holman 100mm PVC DWV Floor Flange" for $3.32. (While a lot of online guides say you should use metal pipe/duct, the Beko came with the plastic hose so why shouldn't it be used?)

The exhaust vent mounts on the outside wall, and the Beko-supplied flexible hose can be worked over the 100mm pipe part of it. A hole of about 105mm is needed. On the inside wall, a larger hole is needed to fit the flange - about 120 mm. The flange provides a neater finish, and the exhaust hose nicely fits through it. In my case, I removed some tiles, cut them with a diamond jigsaw blade, and then replaced the tiles. Once the pipe is through the wall, the Beko-supplied fitting screws over the hose, and this can then be easily latched onto the outlet on the dryer.

It would have been best to position the hole right behind the dryer outlet, as that would be a short straight exhaust path and the dryer could be placed right against the wall. However, water pipes in the wall prevented that, so I placed the hole about 7 cm from the ideal location. (Just a note: it's very important to be sure of the location of water pipes and electric wiring before drilling or cutting into any wall!) With the hole offset this far, the dryer needs to be out from wall a little bit - I have the back of the dryer 10 cm from the wall. However since the dryer is only 53cm deep, the front of the dryer lines up with the front of the washing machine so it all looks quite OK.

Note: the above is not professional installation advice, it simply describes how I installed our Beko dryer. Of course, with the heat pump dryer, no venting is needed. If you had to pay someone to install venting you would have to figure that into the economics calculation.

SUMMARY

Surprisingly good quality for $449 retail. I'm surprised and pleased to find this quality at this price. As for reliability: well, so far so good!

GREAT DRYER – We brought the Beko 6kg dryer last week from Retravision. We have only used it twice so far and I am very impressed with it. We upgraded from our trusty Simpson sorocco 3.5kg and I was worried buying a brand (Beko) that I hadnt really heard of, but after a little research for reviews on it, I was more than happy to purchase it. It is a very… Read more

quite machine to run, The drum Light comes in very handy, Sensor dry is very handy. Over-all this machine ticks all the boxes thus far for quality and value for money also not to mention the 2 year warranty from Beko. The only downside is the ventilation is positioned on the back of the machine down the bottom, and the ventilation tubing that is provided is not very long, so now the dryer is sitting out roughly 30cm from the wall and the tube is on the side of the machine ( The hot air is still blowing into the laundry due to the short tube) .

Over all although its still early days I am very happy with this machine.

failed just out of warranty period – Well the two years of the warranty period, the dryer was great. The six months after the warranty period and now the machine doesn't spin. And BEKO don't seem to return emails or want to contact us at all. Our last F & P dryer lasted over 8 years. Very disappointed. Will not buy BEKO again. worked fine in warranty period. only lasts two years and beko have poor customer service.