It's rather curious to me that the ads for the Hotpoint version, they had the white load in the lower basket and the vivid red load in the upper basket, while the Brastemp version shows exactly the reverse.
Then again, the Hotpoint machine advertised washing two loads without mixing the solutions, and Brastemp warns about possible mixing.
Anyway, some quick observations: the video from the guy testing the machine mentions that the machine fills the upper basket until it overflows (I suppose that's how it senses it's full, when the level in the lower basket starts rising again), which means one probably needs to be careful with whatever load/detergent/bleach is used in the top basket doesn't ruin the load in the bottom basket.
If you look at the cutaway from the machine advertisement, you'll see that yes, the mini basket has holes on the top for draining, just like solid tubs usually do, and yes, it does seem to throw the water over the lower basket clothes guard, but the gap between the perforated basket and the outer tub is rather small, so I would not count on wash fluids not mixing or contaminating the load in the perforated basket.
There's a point where the guy testing the machine shows the mini basket (I confess I just skimmed the video, no way I'd watch 50+ minutes of a cycle that doesn't have clothes in it) -- the basket seems to be build just like the mini baskets for Hotpoint/GE, that is, it has a center post that goes over the agitator, the only difference is that it looks like someone put a bearing on the top, so there's a coupling with the main agitator that drives the mini-agitator, while the tub is suspended and driven by the outer perforated basket. I'm not sure why the complexity, it doesn't seem to give the user any advantage over the traditional mini-basket from GE, maybe it lets Brastemp/WP say it's "innovative" instead of "copy cat" or "all that's old is new again". We'll see when more tests show up.
It's hard to tell from just the control panel, but it looks like the machine is cold-fill only and does not let the user raise the temperature, translation, cold-wash only.
The way he talks about the machine, it doesn't appear to have a spray rinse, so it's either one or two deep rinses. If the machine is as big as they say (15 kg/33 lbs), that's an awful lot of water, and even the lowest level of water seems a tad too high, which means one can't just put a couple of pounds in the big tub and wash it. In fact, the machine seems designed to require the mini basket for such small loads (there's a setting for upper/both/lower basket). This is not too different from what GE did, although women quickly got tired of having to find a place to store the mini basket and having to install it and remove it.
Henrik mentioned the use of lots of bleach -- unless things changed dramatically since 1990's, they don't do that in Brazil. As far as I'm aware of, what changed since then is that they reintroduced controlled suds formulas (from 1970's or so until 1987/88 the only controlled suds formula was Unilever's Skip, which disappeared from the late 80's until 91/92 when OMO Maquina showed up) and more formulas now have enzymes (from 66-77 we had BioPresto, BioZyma and some other brand I spaced out; then from 77-88 or so, only BioPresto). Some of the formulas have oxygen-based bleach, but a lot of Brazilians don't like the idea that clothes may fade and they also don't like to buy more than one brand/formula. In any case, yes, many people do use chlorine bleach, but not nearly as much or as often as we in USA do, Brazilians are keenly aware that chlorine bleach shortens the lifespan of clothing. Yes, I know, many Americans claim it doesn't, but it's mostly because in America clothes are expected to last for 52 wash cycles, while in Brazil they are expected to last for years. One of the favorite things for them there is to sun bleach the clothes.
Given that "extra-large" (15 lbs) washers used to already take over 10 minutes to fill up in Brazil (unless you lived in an apartment building with good water pressure), I hope people in Brazil has grown extra patient to wait for a washer which probably takes over 100 liters (~26 gallons) to fill.
Incidentally, I dunno if this is well known in Brazil or not, but Whirlpool has owned enough stock/shares of Brastemp to control everything they did since at the very least the late 60's, and it was obvious to people who had visited or lived in USA that the designs they made in Brazil were stripped down versions of outdated stuff they made in US -- in fact, my suspicion is that when a factory got too old in US and they updated it to make new models, they'd export the old factory lock, stock and barrel to South America, which was always at least a model or two behind US. So, I'm not sure when WP "bought" Brastemp, maybe we're talking about a more complete takeover, like more than 55% of the stocks/shares?
Anyway, certainly a visually interesting washer, might be fun to play with, but not something I'd like to own.
Cheers,
-- Paulo.
