French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Melding form with function, French-door refrigerators offer elegant double doors that open to an enormous fridge on top and freezer drawer below. These refrigerators stand out because of their distinctive features, including through-the-door dispensers as well as higher-end Ice makers.
We asked Ladina Schopf - an interior designer, architect, and founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the right one. They weighed the capacity of storage and layout, energy efficiency, and other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Like its name implies, GE’s Profile series is targeted at consumers who want to incorporate cutting-edge technologies into their kitchens. This fridge is loaded with features, from an in-the-door Keurig K-cup coffee maker to a clever water dispenser. But these flourishes don't mask mediocre performance, especially in the refrigerator's freezer and an ineffective temperature-controlled drawer. This refrigerator is costly, so I expected better.
This fridge is a great choice, despite the blip. It boasts a spacious freezer compartment, which is quite uncommon in counter-depth French door fridges, and it holds a good amount of frozen food when as compared 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 also has a decent sized ice maker packed into the left-hand door, although it's not the biggest I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in both compartments for the perfect storage solution. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is also attractive. The LED lighting is a nice touch. The storage bins in the door come with a third shelf that can be folded down to store tall items. The drawers have temperature controls that let you set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. The drawers are simple to open and shut, but I found the plastic's textured coatings a bit hard on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator has all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator within this price range. It has Wi-Fi, app support and GE's SmartHQ Software. Frydge UK is available for iOS and Android devices and lets you manage your refrigerator from anywhere in the globe. It also has many options for customization. It also sends you notifications when a door is left open, when your fridge or freezer needs to be defrosted and when it's time to change the filter.
It would be great to have GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill, an option found in a few GE refrigerators that allows users to select how many cups they want to disperse. The fridge shows a countdown to reveal how much water is left however it's not as useful as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is a striking piece. It's designed to look like it's a seamless component in your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also boasts a veggie compartment that keeps vegetables and fruits fresher for longer and dual compressors to ensure maximum preservation of food. The Ice maker is among the top we've tested and produces a pyramid-shaped ice that is low in use of water. This fridge is perfect for a single family or kitchenette that needs an attractive design and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was rated as the top in our Refrigerators Test for a variety of reasons. The temperature of the freezer remained constant at just above 0°F and never fluctuated by more than a fraction, this is essential to avoid freezing burn. The fridge section of the fridge also performed well. It reached the initial temperature within an hour, and remained at the temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch has a reputation for top-of-the-line appliances and appliances, so it's not a 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 lets you monitor and manage your fridge remotely using your tablet or smartphone. The refrigerator is pricey, but offers great features and capabilities at a fair price.
While the fridge is an amazing appliance however, it is important to understand the limitations. It is possible to be creative with tall items because the fridge has a small shelf space. Also, the shelves are not impervious to sprills and could be stained or damaged by sharp objects. It's easy to remove the refrigerator trays However, be sure to keep them clean to avoid the growth of mold.
If you're thinking of buying this refrigerator, be sure to read our review of the GE Appliances French Door Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S counter-depth refrigerator is a great option for those who need lots of space within the space of a compact frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. The fridge has the standard French door layout, with two rows of shelves that can be used to capture spills and a set of crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give tall items more headroom. There's also a full-width drawer to store food items and an internal water dispenser.
The refrigerator comes with an ice maker, making it easy to transfer the ice when needed. The freezer is designed with thoughtful elements, too, like sliding drawers that can help you to organize the place of your items. It comes with a large bin to store frozen food items, and a separate container for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is another awesome feature of the refrigerator. It lets you manage the refrigerator's temperature, lighting, and more using your smartphone. It's an easy way to keep track of your refrigerator and control it, particularly when you're not at home.
However, while the Smart InstaView is a neat feature, it doesn't add to the overall performance of the refrigerator. The fridge took a bit longer to defrost food and chill it than the other fridges we tried. This could be due to its bigger capacity.
The other issue we have with the door of this refrigerator. The handles with a sunken design let shorter people open them from the bottom. However taller people will have a hard time closing them without slamming. It would have been much better to have 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 a more efficient design. Its capacity is higher than average for counter-depth models, and it cools evenly. It's also a bit cheaper than the most expensive counter depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which makes it an attractive choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a good option if you want a French-door fridge that won't break the budget. It's a basic design that's not as visually striking like some of the competitors however it comes with enough features to make it a good choice. Its most important feature, the adjustable temperature drawer helps to keep food items such as vegetables and meat fresher for longer. It also has a large water dispenser, as well as an excellent ice maker that operates quickly.
The "Chill Drawer", which is situated over the two crisper bins, is a great feature. This drawer lets you direct some of the fridge's cooling power into this area, so it can be used to store food items that require special attention. You can alter this feature by using the slider located on the in the middle of the drawer. You can also use this feature to set a general cooling level for the entire fridge however, I've found that changing the general settings tends to produce better results than specific ones.
During my tests, the refrigerator's temperatures stayed fairly consistent across different areas of the refrigerator. Temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge didn't stray very far from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. This is a solid performance but isn't quite at 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. The fridge can be linked with a smart thermostat in order to gain more precise information on the internal temperature of your fridge.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made of grey-bodied stainless that has a "smudge proof" finish. It does an excellent job of removing streaks and fingerprints, even compared to glossy 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 more than 15 years of commerce and publishing experience, mostly in digital and retail. Stephanie is adamant about finding the most effective products and recommending them to consumers. She concentrates on home and technology.