It can be hard to sort the winners from the wet blankets when it comes to finding the best clothes dryer for your home.
And if you pick poorly, you'll cop bigger power bills because dryers are energy-hungry appliances.
Dry hard: Our experts have tested clothes dryers for years in our dedicated lab.
Here at CHOICE, we don't want anyone to be left high and dry by average products – so our experts review the most popular clothes dryers on the market meticulously in our labs.
We evaluate key indicators including drying time and energy efficiency, and we analyse and compare features, cycle times, running costs, noise levels and lots more to help you choose better. CHOICE members can access all this info in our full clothes dryer reviews.
We don't want you to end up with a dud buy, so here are the products that scored lowest in our lab tests. Consider becoming a CHOICE member to see the best performers.
All the features in the world couldn't save this Fisher & Paykel from winning the wooden spoon.
1. Fisher & Paykel DE7060G2
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 66%
- Price: $659
- Load capacity: 7kg
This Fisher & Paykel boasts plenty of handy features including child lock control, automatic dry sensor, anti-crease program and delayed start.
Unfortunately, those bells and whistles are undone by this vented unit's actual drying performance and power consumption.
Scores for energy efficiency and drying time were fairly ordinary overall, earning it the last-place ranking in our lab test. You can definitely do better for the price.
Read our full Fisher & Paykel DE7060G2 clothes dryer review.
The HDV70E1: Haier by name, lower by score.
2. Haier HDV70E1
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 67%
- Price: $799
- Load capacity: 7kg
Uncannily, this model and the Fisher & Paykel above have almost identical features – and performed equally average in our tests.
Both received the same middling score in our energy-efficiency test, but the Haier scored one percentage point higher for drying time.
Read our full Haier HDV70E1 clothes dryer review.
Dryer beware: This Haier condenser underwhelmed our expert testers.
3. Haier HDC80E1 condenser
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 67%
- Price: $999
- Load capacity: 8kg
This Haier is a condenser dryer, which means it collects moisture from the hot exhaust into a reservoir or drain, rather than pumping it into the air (so there's less dampness and chance of mould in your laundry).
Condensers are more complicated machines and are usually more expensive. Sadly, our tests found this model doesn't live up to its price tag.
The Haier did score better in our drying-time test, but it lost marks for energy efficiency. It was also notably noisy when operating.
Read our full Haier HDC 80E1 clothes dryer review.
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
