I"m gonna hold out as long as I can to not have a dishwasher with a filter.  If I have to get one like that some day, I might as well just go back to washing dishes totally by hand. As many know, I don't believe in prerinsing at all and I at best scrape the largest pieces off.  Sometimes there'd be a bit of debris even at the bottom of the GE.  With the Kenmore TT, I scrape just about as well, maybe a bit more.  But I've also beeen known to put a saucepan that had been used to cook rice in it, and some had gotten well cooked on the bottom of the pan, right in the dishwasher.  I can hear the grinder grinding up that rice and it goes through a filter purge 4 to 6 times during the cycle.  But, it came clean with Cascade Complete.

The problem with the Whirlpool is that it appears this new model does NOT self clean the filter. It's up to the user. I personally don't like the idea--I like the idea of the filter being as clean as possible by the final rinse. Plus, I can see many users never bothering to clean out the filter. Sort of like how many people never cleaned their washer's user-cleaned lint filter, resulting in a lint filter that needs a crowbar to pry it out.

The length of cycles on this Whirlpool seems insane. Especially for those who do big cooking sprees that last all day and keep generating mountains of dishes.

I don't follow current dishwasher news that closely. But it seems to me that Whirlpool had been the #1 recommendation by many for decent US made dishwashers. Now, with this new Whirlpool design, it seems likely that this recommendation will go down the drain. Is there anything on the market that is US company/US made that's decent? Or are dishwashers going to be something one must buy from an a foreign company--at  least if one wants something decent?

Thanks Barry for the input on GE! As I said earlier, I don't follow dishwashers THAT closely, but I like to know a bit about current market in case someone asks me for ideas about a new appliance.

I'm not particularly bothered by dishwasher noise. It's a small price to pay for NOT having to wash dishes. Although I can understand those who want it dead quiet. If the kitchen is used as more than a kitchen--which is the case in many homes--noise might a real issue. For me, kitchens are basically mainly used for cooking and nothing else.

The noise argument is something heavily marketed at my nearest Home Depot. I don't know if it's store policy, or just the woman I see working there most times when I wander through. But in any case, if I wander through and look at something, she'll come and we'll talk. And her big argument for buying the model "over there" that's 2, 3 times the cost is how much quieter it is. My attitude is I really don't care about noise, and if I were to buy a 2, 3 times more expensive model it had better be 2, 3 times better as an appliance. Often, I fear, the only thing that goes up is the price and frill features.

I'm not alone in my views. The first time I had this noise talk at Home Depot I was tentatively shopping for my-then roommate, who's dishwasher was acting up, and might or might not be replaced. I heard the noise argument then. When I reported it later to my roommate, I heard something along the lines of: "I'll go with the noisy model, save money, and just turn up the volume on the TV!"

Mark, the only option that is supposed to be available for that cycle is heated dry.  It uses about the same amount of water as Pots/Pans so it might be a little bit more forceful than normal cycle with the variable speed motor.