Why You Can Trust CNET GE PDT750SSFSS review: GE's midrange performer has a high-end price
The GE Profile PDT750SSFSS can be fun to use, but its performance doesn't quite match its $1,200 price tag.
Editors' note, June 9th, 2016: We retested the GE PDT750SSFSS after refining our lab conditions to increase water pressure. The results, text, and score of the review have been updated accordingly.
GE PDT750SSFSS
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
GE's high-end Profile Series promises "clean lines" and "brilliant touches that answer real-life needs." The $1,200 GE PDT750SSFSS Profile dishwasher lives up to the billing with a sleek stainless-steel finish and an impressive list of useful features such as the option to run a cycle on only one rack at a time and water jets that fit inside a tall bottle. The hidden controls keep the front uncluttered, and the 16-place-setting capacity feels roomy.
The bottle-wash feature in particular is unique and interesting, but the other features of the PDT750SSFSS, though impressive on their own, are less so when compared with the competition at this lofty price. For $1,200, plenty of other models, such as the LG LDT9965BD, include a third rack for utensils and flatware, which this GE does not. The LG LDT9965BD also cleans better than the GE PDT750SSFSS, and its black stainless finish doesn't smudge as easily.
If you want a high-end machine, I'd recommend LG's LDT9965BD over the GE PDT750SSFSS, but don't get me wrong, this GE Profile Dishwasher isn't bad at cleaning. In fact, it performed pretty well in our stressful series of tests, and its features are clever and well-implemented. The GE PDT750SSFSS is expensive for a dishwasher, but the useful features and competent cleaning almost make it worth it. If you find it on sale, it's worth considering.
GE's Profile Series dishwasher has a few high-end tricks up its sleeve (pictures)
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An inside-out look at GE's fancy cleaner
With its black wire racks against the backdrop of a stainless-steel tub, the finer points of the interior of the GE PDT750SSFSS don't stand out at first. The blue tips on the water jets provide a bit of color, and I liked the curved X shape of the two reversing quad-blade wash arms -- a big one at the bottom of the tub and a slightly smaller one hanging beneath the upper rack. Similar blue tips cover the bottle-wash tines on the upper rack.
Between those four bottle-wash jets on the left side of the upper rack, and the two fold-down stem holders with crevices for chopsticks, the GE PDT750SSFSS builds a lot of options for flexible use into a plain but professional-looking interior. Pull out the rack and you'll see a lever on either side that lets you adjust its height. Push the levers and it drops. Pull up on the sides of the rack and it'll click back into place in its upper position, 2 inches higher. Within the upper rack, the two left columns of tines fold down with a push, and click back into place with a snap.
The bottle-wash jets are the highlight of a solid list of features.
Similarly, the two rows of tines on the bottom rack can shift to three different angles or fold down entirely. Even the silverware basket that sits on the right side of the bottom rack can break apart into three pieces if you'd rather use some of that space for larger dishes.
Moving the upper rack up or down lets you load wine glasses or tall bottles for one run, and big pans into the bottom rack for the next. You can even use the Wash Zones button on the upper lip of the door to only run one rack at a time. Or let the dishwasher run a cycle and the quad arms, along with the bottle wash jets and a set of jets on the middle left side, will do their best to spray dishes from every angle.
The side jets add to this dishwasher's spray coverage.
The GE PDT750SSFSS offers seven different cycle options, with up to 10 combinations of cycle add-ons, including the aforementioned Wash Zone option, as well as PreSoak, Bottle Wash, Wash Temp and Power Dry. Most of the add-ons have their own buttons to the right of the main display, along with a button to delay the start of the cycle up to 12 hours. The bottle-wash jets will actually spray during most cycles, regardless of whether you've selected that add-on. Pressing the button just extends the time they spray.
A color LCD screen in the middle of the upper lip shows your selections, and buttons on either side of it let you scroll through the seven cycles of the dishwasher, then start the cycle when you have your options picked out. The seven cycle options are normal, auto, heavy, light, rinse, express and eWash, the last of which uses only 2 gallons of water at low power for extra efficiency.
Use the buttons on the hidden control panel to pick your options.
I found it disconcerting at first that you have to pick your options for the run and hit Start with the door open -- then you're prompted to close the door within 10 seconds to get things rolling. Otherwise, it'll cancel the start and you'll need to hit the button again.
The dishwashers I grew up with let you pick your options with the door closed, but since the now-popular hidden controls are likely to be under your counter with the door closed, doing things in this order makes sense and is common with dishwashers of this type.
The LCD panel goes blank after your dishwasher starts. Instead of a timer or status indicator on that panel, the word "Washing" lights up on a small display on the front of the machine. It'll switch to the word "Clean" when the cycle's done, but I wish the PDT750SSFSS did more to keep you posted about how it's progressing and how long it'll be until it's done.
It gives you an estimate when you're selecting your cycle, but that estimate can be as much as 30 minutes off or more. I had to check the manual to find the actual range of cycle times. The estimate on the machine tends to be at the lower end of the range.
Select your cycle and you'll see an estimated time on the display. Then, hit start.
Other than the door's status indicator, the front of the PDT750SSFSS has little else to it. The handle juts out slightly and curves around horizontally, and a circular GE logo adorns it near the bottom. The outside looks great, but as is typical with stainless steel, it smudges easily.
You can purchase the GE PDT750SSFSS from major appliance retailers including Lowe's, Best Buy, Sears and Home Depot. As is typical with large appliances, you'll likely find it cheaper than the $1,200 MSRP. It's currently listed at about $900 at all of the retailers above.
The GE PDT750SSFSS is only available in the US and Canada.
Taking the PDT750SSFSS for a spin
We put all of our dishwashers through a rigorous cleaning trial that tasks them with removing stuck-on eggs, coffee stains, spinach, macaroni and cheese, and more from a full 10-place-setting load of dishes. Check out the full details of our process in our article on how we test dishwashers.
The GE PDT750SSFSS finished with an average cleaning score of 74.6 percent based on three testing cycles. Getting three quarters of the dirt might not seem great, but we're intentionally hard on our dishwashers. We don't actually expect them to get the load fully clean.
We loaded the PDT750SSFSS full of very dirty dishes.
We run a test with a lot of food on a normal cycle with no add-ons so that we can learn how well the dishwasher deals with sticky foods like honey and peanut butter. We learn if the jets can reach every crevice of the dishes, and we use spinach and
The PDT750SSFSS boasts a Piranha hard-food disposer as one of its features, but the filter is actually what let this GE dishwasher down the most. We found little bits of spinach on a lot of dishes. Additionally, some noodles were still stuck to the plates, and the jets couldn't quite get into every bowl on the top shelf or every spoon in the silverware rack, as we found clumps of food stuck to both after every run.
These cleaning results are fine, given the rigor of our tests, but I hoped for a little more from a $1,200 dishwasher.
The small plates, which we had smeared with raspberry jam and mashed potatoes, came out of the dishwasher looking pristine. The GE PDT750SSFSS also did a good job of cleaning juice out of glasses, wine out of wine glasses and coffee stains out of coffee cups. The PDT750SSFSS is a fine cleaner, you'll just want to scrape the bulk of the food off your dishes before you load them, and spread out your spoons and bowls a little bit to give the jets extra room to work.
The 36.9 percent dry score is also a fine result. We run the test cycle on normal with no add-on options for drying. We found pools in the bottom rim of the coffee cups and the concave bottoms of the wine glasses, but otherwise, the dishes turned out pretty dry. Even better, the PDT750SSFSS mostly avoids annoying water marks. I tend to prefer a drop or two of water to those annoying white blotches. The PDT750SSFSS is not entirely immune to them, but the ball-tipped tines do well at keeping them to a minimum.
The GE PDT750SSFSS got the dishes mostly clean, and kept water spots to a minimum. Here's the arrangement of dishes we loaded on the upper rack.
The GE PDT750SSFSS outduels the competitively priced LG LDT9965BD on drying. The latter earned a similar 35.6 percent average score, but left many more water marks. The LG LDT9965BD scored a wonderful 90.3 percent cleaning average, though, showing that some high-end dishwashers don't require accommodations to help them clean.
The verdict
Look to the LG LDT9965BD if you want premium cleaning to go along with the premium price. LG's high-end dishwasher also looks better than the GE PDT750SSFSS, and includes a third rack. But I like the feature set and tine arrangement of the GE PDT750SSFSS better than LG's. Of the two, the GE washer is easier to use and includes a couple of unique extras like bottle-wash jets and rack-specific cycles. I'd say mission accomplished in terms of the GE Profile goal of providing "touches that answer real-life needs."
If the features and design of the $1,200 GE PDT750SSFSS win you over, the cleaning score shouldn't deter you. This would be a pretty good performer for a mid- to low-end machine, and if you rinse your dishes, it'll do just fine. Is it worth $1,200? No. But it'd be a solid option if you can negotiate a midrange price.