Fabric wear with those Asian-style impeller washers is very high, higher than a traditional toploader with agitator, despite all the water they use.
You can't really use those impeller machines, at the speed and rhythm they run the impeller, with low water. If you try, you are likely to stall the motor, or, at best, cause water to splash out of the tub.
There's a bit of a learning curve when you get used to how much clothes (and what kind) you can load them with and how much water to use.
I have a Panda XPB45 (4.5 kg/10lbs) twin-tub that I got from Amazon about a year or two ago to play with.
A friend of mine came to use my laundry (they live in an apartment building with a sketchy laundry room, coin-operated). They usually just use my frontloaders. This time the husband was curious to see what a twin-tub was like, 'cuz his granny complained about how much more work it was before automatics showed up.
He put a load of shirts in the machine, we filled the tub with the highest possible water level (it's completely manual, except for the timers). He washed for only 10 minutes or so. Shirts got as clean as the toploaders in a laundromat, but not as clean as they'd get in a domestic toploader or if we ran the machine for 15 minutes (max time on timer).
The shirts got rinsed and extracted, and they were *visibly* more worn out then when they went in. Every few months, when the laundromat in their building is giving them grief, they come back and I poke fun if they want to do the laundry as fast as possible with the twin-tub, they crack up, decline it and use the frontloaders.
A better trade off would have been to agitate for 2-3 minutes, soak for 30 minutes, then agitate for another 2-3 minutes.
The vast majority of people who still like to use such systems have clothes that are (a) very sturdy (jeans, work t-shirts or shirts) and (b) work dirty jobs, so they can fully control the cycle including long soaks and long wash periods. Also the machines are cheap to buy and basically disposable if they need repairs (usually they just send you a new one to replace it).
Everyone else that I know of that wants to just load the machine, go away for one hour or two and come back to clean clothes moved to automatic machines. Everyone I know that want to have clean clothes with minimal fabric wear has bought a front loader -- in fact, about 10 years ago, my folks went to some touristy beach and got us all t-shirts. About 5 years in, when *their* t-shirts were worn out and gone (they had a regular toploader with agitator), they started pestering their kids whose t-shirts were still looking new about what washers and methods they used. We all said "hot wash in a front loader". About 4 years ago or so they bought their first front loader and are still talking about how much cleaner and less worn out their clothes look.
Like I said, mileages do vary, depending on what water quality, detergents etc one uses.
I've been describing my experience and my family's experiences.
Everyone else should research and find out what is best (or more fun) for themselves and the conditions they see everyday.
Cheers,
-- Paulo.