Planning to buy a washing machine, TV, dishwasher, air fryer, stick vac or fridge in the end of financial year (EOFY) sales?
Before you get caught up in a shopping frenzy, there are some products you should avoid, even if they’re massively discounted. Sure it’s hard to pass up a bargain, but these products just aren’t worth it, no matter how tempting the sale price may be.
CHOICE has done the hard work for you so you don’t end up with a dud in the sales. Our expert testers put household appliances through their paces in our labs so we know which ones are the good buys, and which ones to avoid.
A fridge is often a grudge purchase, made hastily when your existing fridge dies.
But if you’re thinking ahead and want to upgrade your current fridge with a good deal from the sales, take a breath before you get swept up in the bargain fever.
If you shop without researching, you could end up with a fridge that’ll cost you more in the long term in the form of big power bills and food that’s gone off too quickly.
Look out for poor-performingfridges with big price tags like the Smeg FAB32RPB5AU.
You’ll also lose out twice over if you buy an expensive fridge that performs poorly. Two doubly disappointing fridges are a $4000 Smeg fridge and a $3000 French-door Bosch, which both scored a CHOICE Expert Rating of just 43%. That’s a big price tag for poor performance.
Their biggest sins? A temperature stability score of just 13% for the Bosch fridge and a shocking 0% for the Smeg fridge.
This metric measures how much the fridge temperature fluctuates. A low score means you can expect things like your ice cream melting and refreezing, your food spoiling or not staying at safe temperatures to prevent food-borne illness.
So for the low, low price of $4000, you can expect spoiled food or a delightful case of food poisoning.
Let’s be real: there’s probably a thousand things you’d rather spend your money on than a washing machine. But if you’re going to buy one, you might as well make sure it’s good.
Even on sale, this Chiq isn’t a good buy.
A lacklustre washing machine won’t only fail to make your whites whiter and your colours brighter, it’ll chew through electricity and water – which will cost you (and the environment) even more in the long run.
A mattress should last you about eight to 10 years.
If you’re clocking up the recommended eight hours’ sleep each night, that means you’ll be spending more than 29,000 hours up close and personal with your mattress.
And some of the mattresses we’ve tested cost more than $5000. This is one purchase you definitely don’t want to mess up.
The worst-performing mattresses in our test could leave you sleepless.
We use high-tech labs in Europe to test mattresses, assessing things like comfort, sagging, stabilisation, sweat resistance and more.
One of the mattresses at the bottom of the heap costs nearly more than $2500 at full price, so it just goes to show there’s no correlation between price and performance.
In fact, all of these mattresses scored worse than a $200 foam mattress from Kmart, which really demonstrates the value of doing your research before buying.
Poor sound quality, so-so standard definition picture quality and humdrum high-def picture quality are some of the delights that await you if you buy a TV that performed poorly in our expert tests.
Don’t be blinded by sales – ensure you’re buying a TV that’s worth the cash.
You don’t necessarily need to spend top dollar for a top TV: five of the 65-inch TVs that our experts recommend cost less than $2000, and you may be able to pick them up for even less in the sales.
If you want to dodge a B-grade box, here’s the ones that landed on the bottom of our latest test. Best to fast forward on these ones.
A robot vac sadly won’t free you completely from the vacuuming, but it is a good way to stay on top of it in between deep cleans.
Kmart robovac’s price might be tempting, but its performance is disappointing.
They’re not cheap, though, so it’s extra important to choose one that’s worth the money.
Even if you find these bots heavily discounted, we suggest you look elsewhere – we found these machines just didn’t compute for a good clean you could count on.
A good dishwasher will save you hours of slaving over a full sink. A bad one will create even more work for you and will empty your wallet.
Our kitchen experts have tested almost 70 currently available dishwasher models, comparing them side-by-side on their ability to handle dried-on foods like egg yolk, spinach, butter, oats, rice starch and more.
‘Very cheap to run’ was about the only good thing our testers could say about this Omega.
We’ve been doing this for decades, so we know exactly what makes a good dishwasher and what will leave you elbow-deep in greasy washing-up water.
There are three Haiers in this list, but don’t write off the brand altother: others scored better in our testing.
If you’re as serious about coffee as our experts are, then you’ll know how important it is to buy a coffee machine that ticks all the boxes.
Whether you’re looking for a manual coffee machine so you can geek out on grinds, dosing and tamping, or you’re a lazy coffee lover who just wants a caffeine hit at the press of a button, it’s important to get it just right. After all, is there anything worse than a bad coffee first thing in the morning?
If you think life is too short for bad coffee, this Kmart model is best left on the shelf.
When we test coffee machines, we enlist industry experts to blind taste test coffee from each machine, and we also assess ease of use, milk frothing and temperature consistency in our testing labs.
This Bosch dryer takes almost four hours to dry a load of washing.
One word of advice from our whitegoods experts: “Don’t splurge on an expensive heat pump dryer if you don’t use your dryer very often – they’re more energy efficient than a vented dryer so they cost a lot less to run.
“But because they cost so much more to buy, unless you’re using it regularly you may be better off overall buying a cheap and cheery vented number, as you might never make back the initial outlay.”
The kitchen appliance du jour is on many people’s EOFY shopping list.
Converts rave about their convenience, ease of use and ability to cook foods that previously could only be done in the oven – think marinated chicken wings, roast pork, chicken nuggets and more.
This twin Kitchen Couture air fryer might give you double the trouble when you get it home.
Their running costs are also cheap as chips (air fried ones, naturally), so if you pick up a bargain air fryer you’ll save at the till and hopefully on your power bill, too.
However, not all of them live up to the hype. Here are the ones to avoid in the sales, even if you find them cheap.
A good stick vacuum can make quick cleans a breeze, but poor performers can give you the rough end of the stick and leave you doing more laps at home just to bust all the dust.
The LG Ace hardly lived up its name in our tests.
Our experts thoroughly tested more than 50 popular models, and found these sticks that you should give the flick.
Alice Richard is a Content creator and marketer. Alice writes on a range of topics, from health insurance to heaters and BBQs to bargain-hunting, always with the aim to help consumers find the best products to buy, and which to avoid.
Alice can take vast amounts of data from CHOICE product tests and turn it into content that is easily digestible and fun for readers.
Alice has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.
Alice Richard is a Content creator and marketer. Alice writes on a range of topics, from health insurance to heaters and BBQs to bargain-hunting, always with the aim to help consumers find the best products to buy, and which to avoid.
Alice can take vast amounts of data from CHOICE product tests and turn it into content that is easily digestible and fun for readers.
Alice has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland.
For more than 60 years, CHOICE has been fighting the good fight for Australian consumers.
In the past year alone we've uncovered systemic issues with sunscreens, investigated shonky supermarket pricing, fought for stronger scam protections and helped make complex energy pricing fairer and clearer.
CHOICE is here to provide unbiased advice and independent testing in our world-class labs. We buy the products we test, just like you do, and our expert reviews are influence free. We’re here to help you choose smarter. Hopefully you’ll also save some money along the way.
Thanks to CHOICE, you’ll never be alone when a business treats you unfairly. You can support our work by joining or donating to our cause.
