The LG FHB1207Z2M is the 7 kg front loader in LG's FHB12 series, and it is the one to buy when floor space is the real constraint. Its cabinet is 600 mm wide and 850 mm tall like its bigger siblings, but only 440 mm deep — over 100 mm shallower than the 8 kg and 9 kg models. In a Malé apartment where the machine has to live in a bathroom recess or under a counter, that difference is often what decides whether it fits at all.

A 7 kg drum handles the everyday wash for a smaller household comfortably: a couple, a small family, a working household running two or three loads a week. Worth knowing before you buy — the rated 7 kg applies to the Cotton and Cotton+ programmes. The specialist cycles are deliberately smaller: Allergy Care and Mixed Fabric take up to 4 kg, Quick 30 and Activewear up to 2 kg, and Delicates up to 1.5 kg. Overloading a delicate cycle is the usual reason a wash disappoints.

The motor is LG's Inverter Direct Drive, which couples the drum straight to the motor rather than spinning it through a belt. Fewer moving parts means less noise, less vibration and one less thing to fail. That direct coupling is also what makes 6 Motion Direct Drive possible: the drum can tumble, step, roll, swing, scrub and filter, and each programme chooses the motions suited to what is inside it.

Steam is on the Allergy Care programme, running at 60 °C to cut down the substances that set off allergic reactions — sensible for bedding, pillow covers and baby clothes. The machine feeds from a single cold inlet and heats the water itself, so every temperature from cold up to 95 °C is available without a hot water connection. Spin tops out at 1200 RPM, and in this climate that top speed is the difference between clothes that dry on the line and clothes that sit damp.

Two practical notes for installation day. The transit bolts must come out before the first wash, using the spanner in the box — running the machine with them still fitted will damage it. And the machine needs to sit properly level on all four feet or it will walk during the spin. The cold supply hose, spanner, hole caps and anti-rat cover are all in the box; the drain hose is already fitted at the rear.

The same machine is available as an 8 kg (FHB1208Z2M) and a 9 kg (FHB1209Z2M) if you need more drum, though both are 550 mm deep rather than 440 mm. In stock in Malé at Night Owl.