Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN Review
A large dishwasher for bigger households
Verdict
With its huge internal space, this 15-place dishwasher is great for larger households. The Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN is clever when it comes to organisation, too, with fold-down spines, a cutlery drawer and a top rack whose height is easy to adjust. Running costs are competitive and cleaning is excellent in all but the toughest tests.
Pros
- Tonnes of room
- Easy to adjust
- Good range of programmes
- Competitive running costs
Cons
- Toughest dirt proves difficult to remove
Availability
- UKRRP: £379
- USAunavailable
- Europeunavailable
- Canadaunavailable
- Australiaunavailable
Introduction
If there’s one thing that the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN isn’t short of, it’s space. This dishwasher with 15 place settings offers a huge amount of room inside, all of it flexibly arranged.
At the bottom of the dishwasher is a large pull-out drawer, with a series of spines that can be stood up for plates or folded down for larger items. There’s a standard cutlery basket here, although you may not need it, since the top drawer is for cutlery, too. I found it was possible to fit all of my cutlery in this top section, leaving the bottom drawer for dishes and pans.
The middle drawer is similarly flexible. There are spines for plates, which can be folded down to make room for large objects, or to more easily stand up glasses. Along the side of the tray are plastic racks that can hold utensils such as spatulas or dishwasher-safe knives, and these racks have cut-outs to hold wine-glass stems.
This rack can be moved up and down using the click mechanism on the side. It’s one of the easiest drawers I’ve adjusted, changing height in a matter of seconds. I recommend emptying this rack before you make any adjustments, for safety reasons.
I managed to keep the middle rack on its lower setting and still have room for plates below. This meant I could insert my long-stemmed wine glasses properly.
It’s rare to find a dishwasher that works this well. With the rival Samsung DW60R7040FS, I found I had to put the top rack on its highest setting and then carefully load the wine glasses so that they didn’t hit the roof of the dishwasher.
With the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN, the huge bottom rack was able to hold all of my plates, bowls and saucepans with ease. If anything, this dishwasher was hard to fill to the brim.
Setting the dishwasher up for the first time is simple. You have to add water to the salt compartment, then 1kg of salt. After the dishwasher has been used once, you’ll never have to manually add water to it again.
You will need to add rinse aid, thereafter following the instructions in the manual to set up the dishwasher for the water hardness level where you live. You’ll find the rinse aid and detergent compartment on the inside of the door; it’s a pretty standard design that’s easy to load.
Control of the dishwasher is via the front panel, with the Sharp offering a good range of programmes. Eco mode is likely to be used the most: reducing energy consumption for normally soiled items. The Dual Pro Wash 60ºC is good for heavily soiled dishes in the bottom and more delicate glassware on top. Then, you get Auto programmes for light, medium and heavily soiled dishes.
For each programme, you can select from a range of override options, which include running just the bottom or top racks to save energy, choosing a hygiene option to deep-clean items such as baby bottles, a rapid option to speed up the wash, and an extra-dry choice.
The LCD shows the time remaining for the type of wash selected, which could be almost three hours for Eco, or under two hours for the Pro Wash option. There’s a faster 30-minute cycle available, although this is really for lightly soiled items only.
Performance
- Cleans most items well
- Tougher stains proved slightly more difficult to remove
- Competitive running costs
I started out with the Eco option, which uses a competitive 8.6 litres of water and 0.71kWh of energy. On average, the dishwasher should cost around 16p per cycle to run. Given its spacious size of 15 place settings, that’s a cost of 0.01p per place setting.
This is a D-rated appliance on the new system, but the old scale would have seen it as an A+++ model. Comparing it to an efficient appliance, such as the Samsung DW60R7040FS, there isn’t too much difference between the two. Here, the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN would cost around £39.69 a year to run, assuming an average of 254 cycles per year, which is only a little more expensive than the Samsung. Given that the Sharp actually offers more space inside it, you may even run it slightly less often than the Samsung.
To see how well the dishwasher cleans, I put my standard dirty items into the dishwasher. Starting out with the Eco option, here are the results.
First, my filthy coffee cup came up as clean as before it had been used, with all of the stains removed.
The same was true of a wine glass with a dried in red wine stain at the bottom of it. This glass came up sparkling.
The more difficult tests came next. First, a bowl with dried-on Weetabix, which can be tough to remove, since it can set a little like concrete. Here, the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN proved itself and removed all of the mess.
Dried on ketchup also proved no problem at all for this dishwasher. My filthy plate was soon returned to its normal condition.
The toughest test is a glass mixing bowl that’s been used to make scrambled egg in the microwave. Placing this on the top shelf to give the dishwasher a workout proved to be a step too far; there was a lot of egg left behind this time around.
I tried again with the tougher Auto 60-70ºC programme. The dishwasher performed better, but it still couldn’t quite remove all of the dirt off the dish. To be honest, I’ve seen few dishwashers that can, so the best option would be to rinse and scrape down very dirty items before putting them into the dishwasher.
Note that the dishwasher doesn’t fling open its door at the end of the cycle, and while the internal drying cycle does a decent job, without air circulation I found that some water remained on washed items at the end of the programme.
In terms of operative noise, I measured the dishwasher at a respectable 62.3dB. This is pretty quiet: you can hear it sloshing away, but you could happily sit in the same room as the dishwasher runs.
Verdict
While the Samsung DW60R7040FS is a better overall cleaner, acing the tough egg test, the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN isn’t that far behind, coping with all other soiled dishes well. Where this dishwasher wins out is for its internal size: it offers a huge amount of room, plus the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN proved easy to load. Offering competitive running costs, too, this is a well-priced model for anyone who needs to clean a lot of dishes.
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Should you buy it?
For a large family, or those who get through a lot of dishes regularly, this Sharp dishwasher offers tonnes of room inside, and it generally cleans well, too.
Spend a bit more and you can pick up a cheaper-to-run dishwasher that will clean even the most heavily soiled items perfectly.
Final Thoughts
Offering tonnes of room inside, the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN is super-easy to load up with lots of plates and pans. It’s simple to use, is comparatively well priced to run, and it cleans all but the toughest of stains. There are some better, more expensive, dishwashers that can clean better, and dishwashers that open the door at the end of the cycle tend to leave items a bit dryer. However, nothing takes away from the fact that the Sharp QW-NA26F39DW-EN is a quality dishwasher. If you’re after something else, though, check out my guide to the best dishwasher.
How we test
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FAQs
It can wash up to 15 place settings.
Yes, the top-most rack is for cutlery and there’s a cutlery basket, too.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
