French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door refrigerators blend form and function. They feature stylish double doors that show the large fridge on top, and a freezer drawer below. Special features such as through-the-door dispensers, higher-end ice machines, and customizable flex drawers make them stand out from the rest.
We asked Ladina Schopf - an interior designer, architect and the founder of LS Projects - for her tips on how to select the best one. They weighed storage capacity as well as layout, energy efficiency, and other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As its name suggests, GE’s Profile series is aimed at people who want to integrate cutting-edge features in their kitchens. This fridge is loaded with them all including a Keurig K cup coffee maker on the door to a sophisticated dispenser of water. But these flourishes don't mask mediocre performance, especially in the refrigerator's freezer and an ineffective temperature-controlled drawer. The refrigerator is expensive and I was expecting better.
Aside from that blip, this fridge is a great choice. It boasts a spacious freezer compartment, which is quite uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Furthermore, it can hold a decent amount of frozen foods in comparison to similar models.
Inside the fridge, you'll find 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment has 18.5 cubic feet, which is the standard for a French-door refrigerator at this price. It has a decent sized refrigerator with an ice maker in the left door. However it's not the biggest one I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in both compartments to create customized storage layout for the items you need to keep. The GE PYE22PYNFS's interior design is good-looking, too. The LED lighting is a nice feature, and the in-door storage bins have a third shelf that can fold down so that you can store items that are tall. The drawers are equipped with temperature controls so that you can set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. The drawers are easy to open and close, but I found the plastic's textured coatings a bit hard on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator includes all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator in this price range. It has Wi-Fi, app support and GE's SmartHQ Software. The app, which is available for iOS and Android devices can let you control your refrigerator from anywhere in the world, and it has many options for customizing. It will also send notifications when the door is unlocked and when the freezer or fridge needs to be defrosted, and when the filter has to be changed.
It would be great it GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill which is a feature found in a few GE refrigerators that allows users to set how many cups they want to disperse. The fridge displays a countdown to reveal how much water is left, but it's not as effective as Precise fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is a stunning piece of equipment. It's designed to look like it's a seamless part in your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also has a vegetable compartment that keeps fruits and vegetables fresher for longer, and two compressors to preserve food. The ice maker we tested was one of the most efficient, and it produces an ice pyramid with only a little water. This refrigerator is ideal for a single family or kitchenette that needs an elegant design and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was rated as the best in our Refrigerators Test for several reasons. The temperature of the freezer remained constant at just above 0°F and never fluctuated more than a fraction - this is crucial to prevent the risk of a freezer burn. The refrigerator section of the refrigerator also performed well. It reached the initial temperature within an hour, and remained at the temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch has a reputation for high-end appliances which is why it's no surprise that this counter depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance that has the option to connect to your home Wi-Fi network and Bosch's Home Connect platform. This app allows you to monitor and control your refrigerator remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The fridge is a bit expensive, however it has excellent features and functionality for the price.
While the fridge is an amazing piece of equipment however, it is important to understand the limitations. It has a small shelf space, so you'll require some creativity when storing tall items. Also the shelves aren't sprillproof and can be easily damaged or stained by sharp objects. It is easy to take out the refrigerator trays, but be sure to keep them clean to avoid mold growth.
If you're considering this refrigerator, be sure to check out our reviews of the French Door GE Appliances Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S is an excellent counter-depth refrigerator that packs a lot of storage in the frame's compact size. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. Inside, the fridge has an ordinary French-door design with gallon-sized door bins on each door, two rows of shelves for spill-capture and a set more spacious drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded to provide more space for taller items. There's also a full-width drawer for products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the nice features of this refrigerator is that the ice maker is inside the freezer, making it easy to transfer frozen ice to the fridge to use as required. The freezer is designed with thoughtful elements, too, like sliding drawers that help better organize the placement of your items. It also has a large container for storing frozen food and a separate bin for ice.
Another awesome feature of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. You can control the temperature, lighting and other aspects of your fridge using your smartphone. It's an easy way to monitor your refrigerator and manage it, especially when not at home.
But while the Smart InstaView is a neat feature, it doesn't necessarily improve the overall performance of the refrigerator. This fridge took longer to defrost food and chill it than other models we tested. This is likely due to the larger capacity.
The doors are another problem with this fridge. The handles that are sunken allow smaller people to open them from the bottom. However taller people will struggle to close them without slamming. It would have been much better if these had front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is a great choice for those looking to combine the look and feel of a French-door refrigerator with more efficient design. It has a capacity that is superior to counter-depth models and is able to cool evenly. It's also less expensive than the top counter-depth refrigerator that has an ice maker, which helps make it a desirable choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for an French door refrigerator that won't cost you a fortune and isn't expensive, this Frigidaire is a good choice. It's a basic design that isn't as visually striking as some of the competition however it comes with enough features to make it a solid option. french door fridge freezers www.frydge.uk , the temperature adjustable drawer, helps to keep food items such as vegetables and meat fresher longer. It also comes with a huge water dispenser and a decent ice maker that operates quickly.
The "Chill Drawer", which sits above the two crisper bins, is a excellent feature. This drawer allows you to direct the majority of the refrigerator's cooling power to this area so it can be used to store food items that require extra attention. You can adjust this feature by using a slider that's located right in the middle of the drawer. You can also adjust the general cooling settings for the entire fridge. I've found that the generic settings are more effective than the specific ones.
In my tests, I found that the temperatures in the refrigerator were fairly consistent across different parts of the refrigerator. Temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge didn't vary very far from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. This is a great performance but doesn't quite make it to the top of our rankings.
This fridge has a few other neat features, including a temperature-monitoring display that alerts you to fluctuations and provides a forecast for the day ahead. This fridge can be connected with a smart thermostat to obtain more precise readings of the internal temperature of your fridge.
The Frigidaire FGHB2866PF's exterior is made of stainless steel with a grey-bodied body which has a "smudge-proof" finish. It does a great job of preventing streaks and fingerprints from appearing even when compared with shiny stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tried.
Stephanie Cronk, executive editor of Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews Team, oversees the site’s buyer’s guides and product test reviews. She has over 15 years of experience in publishing and commerce including retail and digital. Stephanie is passionate about finding the most effective products and recommending them to customers. She concentrates on home and technology.