Beko BDEN38640FG Review

Introduction

Although it fits into the entry-level category for freestanding dishwashers, the Beko BDEN38640FG is well built and surprisingly flexible.

This dishwasher has a top cutlery rack, a three-position middle rack and wine-glass and tray holders in the bottom rack.

If you’re looking for an attractive, yet flexible freestanding dishwasher, this one may be for you.

Design and Features

• The middle shelf has three positions
• Clever bottom shelf layout
• Cutlery holder and rack

Finished in stainless steel with a neat LCD on the front, the Beko BDEN38640FG looks sleek and stylish. As a freestanding, full-size model, the main screen is useful, as it shows the current time remaining on the wash cycle.

This display doesn’t have any controls available on it. Instead, cycle and option selections are via the controls on the top of the door. Cursor keys move the indicator light, so you can see which cycle is selected, and a second screen shows the estimated run-time.

The standard cycles are all included, but this dishwasher also has an auto 40-65°C mode where it detects how soiled dishes are, and an AquaFlex wash, which is for everyday washes.

There’s a little bit of maintenance to get the dishwasher ready for use, including adding salt and setting the water hardness level. For the latter, this has to be done both via the control panel and by adjusting the physical control at the back of the dishwasher.

Rather than using a normal spray arm that’s fixed in position, the Beko BDEN38640FG has an arm that pivots around the inside of the tub to give better corner-to-corner coverage, known as  CornerIntense.

Space inside the dishwasher is quite flexible and there are some nice touches. On the bottom shelf, there’s a full-size cutlery basket, which you may want to remove, as there’s also a cutlery rack at the top of the machine.

The tines at the back of the bottom rack can fold flat to fit in larger items, and there are fold-down supports for baking trays, so you can even fit in large ones without worrying about them hitting the spray arm at the top.

There are also fold-down wine glass supports, so long-stem glasses can be loaded into the dishwasher, at the expense of plates or dishes.

The middle rack has a similar level of flexibility, with fold-down tines at the front, which can be used to hold smaller plates, and wine-glass-holders/utensil shelves on both sides.

Unusually, this rack has a choice of three height positions, rather than the normal two. This gives a bit more flexibility when trying to get a bit more space for glasses without lowering the rack to the point that the spray arm hits the dishes below.

Even so, I couldn’t get the right balance to fit in my tall-stem wine glasses in the middle shelf and still have enough room for plates below.

I did find that a dishwasher with a larger tub, such as the Hotpoint H7FHP33UK, gives more flexibility. And, that diswasher also has a top rack, where either side can be slid open to allow for more room below.

With the Beko BDEN38640FG, the top rack Is large but doesn’t have any sliding sections, so has to be used as is. The alternative is to remove the top rack entirely, and use the cutlery holder at the bottom, for the few occasions when you really need more space.

Overall, the large amount of space inside means that it takes a lot to fully load the Beko BDEN38640FG, and the company says that it has space inside for 16 place settings.

Performance

• Capable of deep cleaning
• Eco mode leaves a bit of mess
• Good running costs

I always load my dishwashers with stained items, and then test the cleaning quality and running costs on a variety of tests. I started with the standard Eco cycle, which gave me a cost per cycle of 23p (assuming an electricity cost of 24.5p per kWh). That’s about average for a C-rated appliance and works out to a decent cost per place setting of 1.43p.

Cleaning was generally good on this setting, although there were a couple of areas where the Beko BDEN38640FG could do better. With my plate that had dried-on ketchup, the Eco cycle managed to fully clean this.

I was hoping to get the same result with my dried-on mac-and-cheese, but the Eco cycle left a small amount of congealed cheese behind.

Likewise, the lower temperatures of the Eco clean meant that the spoon I’d used to dish up the mac-and-cheese, wasn’t cleaned properly.

I found that my coffee mug was cleaned up perfectly, with all traces of coffee removed.

My tea mug didn’t do as well, and there was a circle of tea stain at the bottom of the mug. The Beko BDEN38640FG’s manual does say that left-over stains like this show that you should use a higher-temperature wash.

My toughest test is the glass bowl that I use to make microwave scramble egg. Here, the Eco clean did a reasonable job of getting rid of the bulk of the mess, but some clear, dried-on bits of egg were left behind.

My wine glass fared very well. Placed in the bottom section, this glass was cleaned up perfectly, removing all traces of red wine.

To test out the maximum cleaning power, I put the dishwasher into its Intensive 70°C mode, which pushed the running costs to a reasonable 39p. This managed to clean everything well, including fully cleaning up my eggy bowl.

Testing the other modes, there’s an Auto mode, which senses the load and dirt and adjusts power, temperature and water use to suit. This cycle cost 28p to run, and managed to clean both mugs, but it still struggled with the egg bowl, leaving a lot of mess behind, so I’d stick with the Eco cycle for lighter loads.

AquaFlex is a mode designed for every day use, and this worked very well, with similar running costs to the Eco cycle, only it did a much better job across the board, with only a small amount of egg left on the bowl.

These main cycles all had good drying performance, with the Beko BDEN38640FG’s door opening automatically at the end of the cycle. Even my plastic tubs dried up well.

There’s a fast wash option that cleans everything in 45 minutes. This costs 26p to run, which is a touch more expensive than the Auto cycle, and the drying isn’t as comprehensive.

For regular soiled items that you need clean quickly, this mode is good, and the slightly higher temperature wash, compared to the Eco cycle, meant that even tea mugs came up clean.

Should you buy it?