Usually Frigidaire and high-end aren't used in the same sentence and usually with appliances, you get what you pay for. But, to help answer your ????'s. The Affinity's should cost quite a bit less than a comparative Duet Sport or Kenmore and still do a great job cleaning clothes. The smallish dryer will offset some of the energy savings normally associated with front load washers but it is still quite a bit more efficient than a regular top loader. For the price, it is one of Frigidaires better appliances. If you're not sure about the quality, look at things like door hinges, knob materials, and such. If you want to know if the salesperson is pulling your leg about everyone owning one at the store, learn a couple obscure points about the Affinity and ask the salesperson about it. Se how they react/answer.

We absolutely love our frigidaire affinity!

Gibby3000, It took about two weeks. I had only washed the blanket two times. Although it is an old blanket that was given to me by my mom. I just never thought it could pill and shed bad enough where it would be a problem. Never had that happen in my top loader, so maybe the spin speed had something to do with it as I keep it on maximum for most items. There was nothing in my owners manual regarding items shedding so it was surprising. However, the tech was very kind about the whole thing and had it fixed within an hour. As for where to get a blanket that large, you should be able to find one in the department store. I know I still see them around here, usually towards winter time. cynic, It is strange, but there is no filter apparently. However, now that you mention it, there probably should be. I agree there are not many with my machine. There is another 6700 model that people usually go for due to a heating element in it I think. I bought mine do to the fact it was on sale and was in the price range I could afford. On top of that I try to keep things a simple as possible. There were Kenmores that had more features, but they had bad reviews in many cases. I had also been turned off by Kenmore as I have many appliances here by them, including my old top loader and they just don't last for some reason. Easy to fix in most instances, but annoying none the less. My Affinity machine does clean superbly in my opinion. I had used my moms old Roper, which still cleans really well after all these years, while it was out. I could tell the difference though in how my clothes smelled when done. They come out much fresher and cleaner in my Affinity. I will definitely keep you all posted on it. I hope to have no further problems in the future.

livebetter opines: "... that makes NO sense." I hope that you are agreeing with me that LG's response made no sense, not accusing me of nonsense. The LG warranty was on the appliance as a whole, not on the electronic components inside the appliance, so a unit that lacked the electronics was defective in materials or workmanship. livebetter continues: "Firstly, why would you make a warranty claim when an appliance was sent to you missing pieces. I would have called retailer who sold me said appliance and demanded a new one??" We originally purchased a showroom display model, but it was one that had never been hooked up. When we got it home, we found that the internal electronics were missing. The retailer, to its credit, immediately exchanged the defective unit for a brand new unit in a factory-sealed box, and we scheduled an appointment with the retailer's installer to install the unit in our home. When the installer arrived at our home and opened the box, the second unit, also, was missing all of its innards. livebetter continues: "I have to believe something was done about that situation. You didn't just accept that did you?" Of course not. By then, all -- that is, both -- units of the retailer's local* stock of that model had been in our home, so the retailer was unable to make an immediate second exchange at that time, although it was willing to engage in a solution over a longer time frame. The appliance in question was an LG LCE30845 cooktop, to replace a Jenn-Air brand cooktop that had suddenly failed without warning; due to Whirlpool's acquisition of Jenn-Air and orphaning of pre-acquisition Jenn-Air products, repair parts for the Jenn-Air cooktop were unavailable, so we were basically cooking over our backpacking stove in the meantime. (*The retailer is Best Buy, which did have other units of that LG unit in warehouses thousands of miles from us, but Best Buy had no other units in the geographical division where we live, and estimated that it could take weeks to get a third unit shipped here.) Looking for a more immediate solution, we called the local LG warranty contractor, with which we scheduled an appointment to fix (if that is the word) the second unit. The contractor called us back a few hours later to cancel the scheduled appointment, however, saying that it LG had refused to authorize the contractor to install the necessary parts. That was when I registered the warranty on the second unit and made a claim against LG directly, receiving the response that I reported above. After that, we went back to Best Buy a third time, which had a unit shipped out here from a distant division and exchanged the new appliance for the second unit without question; we did have a Best Buy tech open the box of the third unit in-store to confirm that finally we had a unit with all its parts. We had the third unit installed, and it has worked flawlessly. The whole process took several weeks and a big emotional toll (both on us and on Best Buy), but eventually we had a working LG appliance. We received no report about what action LG took with regard to to the first two units when Best Buy presumably attempted to return them to LG for credit; by then, it was out of our hands. But the experience was certainly educational in respect of LG's attitude toward its end customer, in stark contrast to Best Buy's exemplary customer care.