I can only speak from our experiences with front loaders, but it's mostly very positive.
Overall, the front loaders have cleaned noticeable better than the top loaders they replaced, are quieter, use much less water and electricity, the driers dry faster--because the washers wring more water out of the clothes during spin cycle.
The downsides to the front loaders are the spin was sometimes so fast it'd knot up all the clothes, esp. bad with jeans, but our new washer allows you to adjust spin speeds, and that issue is long gone, and the drum smell, described below.
We bought our first front loader, a Frigidare set, about 8-9 years ago. Liked it a lot, but it was a very low/mid range set and ended up being less than stellar. It had the drum smell, combated effectively by leaving the drum door open after washes. But its fatal flaw was a poorly designed circuit board for its controls, used cheap caps in it, causing us to have to replace it once at around 5 years, and it needed it again when we left the set on Cape Cod when we moved.
The second set is our current set, a Whirlpool Duet Steam pair. This set has, so far, proven vastly superior to the Frigidaire set that I regret wasting the money on the Frigidaire pair.
The drum smell problem doesn't exist and have yet to have to leave the door cracked open at all...we wash 4-6 loads per week. The spin speed is adjustable so the uber tangled clothes issue doesn't exist, once we figured out what spin speed is appropriate for what load...the default spin speeds sometimes were too fast and did tangle clothes a bit.
But, to buy new right now, I doubt we'd buy such a higher line of washer/dryer like we did. Whirlpool has at least 4 lines of washers/dryers in their front loaders....Duet HT, Duet Steam, Duet Sport HT, and Duet Sport. We bought the Steam set because they were being discounted because they were year-end models. We've used the steam function rarely---wife has, really, I haven't at all---and it seems to work OK, but if they'd not been so discounted, we'd have moved one model line down. (The models being closed out below ours were already gone by the time we were buying).
From what we've read, Maytag, LG, Samsung, Kenmore and Whirlpool are all brands to consider. All produce excellent performing washers and dryers, but the major knock against LG and Samsung has been lack of qualified service persons and parts availability. While probably not an issue for people living in big cities/urban areas, it is a current issue for those of us living out in the sticks, or further out like us. The Korean brands still have not gotten their service and parts infrastructure as widespread as the "American" brands are. So, just something to consider.
And I wouldn't consider a top loader HE washer at all, unless under complete duress and no other option. They don't clean quite as well as front loaders, are a bit noisier, do not spin as fast so don't extract as much water from the clothes, causing increased drying times, and to match the front loader capacities, mfgrs. have been making top loaders slightly taller and taller to create drums that hold as much as front loaders. The down side is the drum is deeper, top to bottom, and if you're fairly short like my wife is at 5' 3", it could be difficult to reach the bottom of the washer's drum. I know we looked at a couple and she absolutely could not touch the bottom of the drums without standing on something.
I'd make sure you by with a stainless steel drum in both washer and dryer, or at least the washer. The stainless in a washer gives the ability to spin faster than plastic drums. I'd never consider any washer with a porcelain coated steel drum at all....never. Dryer has to have a moisture sensor in it, not a thermostat type drying control/sensor.