French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door fridges combine design and function. They come with elegant double doors that open to reveal an enormous fridge on top and a freezer drawer below. These refrigerators stand out due to their distinctive features, such as through-the-door dispensers as well as higher-end Ice makers.
We asked experts like Ladina Schopf, an interior designer, architect, and founder of LS Projects, for tips on choosing the right model. They weighed the capacity of storage, layout and energy efficiency as well as other factors.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As the name suggests, the GE Profile series targets those who want to incorporate cutting-edge features in their kitchen. french style fridge freezer has them all from the Keurig K cup coffee maker inside the door to a smart dispenser of water. But these flourishes don't mask mediocre performance, especially in the refrigerator's freezer and an ineffective temperature-controlled drawer. Since this refrigerator is more, I'd expect higher quality.
Apart from that minor flaw, this fridge is a great choice. It has a huge freezer compartment, which is unusual for counter-depth French-door fridges. It also has a large capacity for frozen food items compared to other models.
The fridge is equipped with 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment is 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is on par for an French door fridge that costs this much. It has a decent sized refrigerator with an ice maker in the left door. But, it's not the largest one I've seen.
You can adjust the shelves in both compartments to create customized storage layout for the items you need to store. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is good-looking, too. Its LED lighting is a nice addition and the inside storage bins have a third shelf that folds down to allow you to store items that are tall. The drawers include temperature controls that let you set them to Meat, Beverage or Deli settings. The drawers are easy to open and shut, but I found the plastic's textured coatings a bit hard on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with the all the features you'd expect from a fridge in this price range, including Wi-Fi and app support through GE's SmartHQ software. The app is available on iOS and Android devices and allows you to control your refrigerator from any place in the globe. It also comes with many options for customization. It will also send notifications when the door is left unlocked and when the fridge or freezer requires defrosting, and when the filter requires a change.
It would be great to have GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill, an option found in a few GE refrigerators that allow users to select how many cups they want to pour out. The fridge shows a countdown to display how much water is left, but it's not as helpful as Precise fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Created to appear like a seamless piece of your kitchen Bosch's French door refrigerator is one of a kind. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also boasts a veggie compartment to keep fruits and vegetables fresher longer and has dual compressors to ensure the best preservation of food. The Ice maker is among the top we've tested and produces a pyramid-shaped ice with a low use of water. This refrigerator is a great option for households with a single member or kitchenettes looking for a built-in look and top-of-the-line food preservation.
The fridge was rated the best refrigerator in our Refrigerators test for various reasons. The temperature of the freezer remained constant at just above 0° Fahrenheit and never fluctuated more than a tiny fraction - this is essential to avoid freezing burn. The fridge section of the refrigerator also performed well. It reached the temperature it was set within an hour, and maintained the temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch is known for its premium appliances which is why it's no surprise that this counter depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance that has the option of connecting to your home Wi-Fi network and Bosch's Home Connect platform. The app allows you to monitor and control your refrigerator remotely from your smartphone or tablet. The fridge is expensive, but it comes with excellent features and functionality for the price.
It is important to know the limitations of the fridge. You may need to get inventive with tall items since the fridge is limited in shelf space. Also the shelves aren't sprillproof and can be easily damaged or stained by sharp objects. It is easy to take out the trays from the fridge however, you must keep them clean to avoid the growth of mold.
If you're considering this refrigerator, be sure to also check out our reviews of the GE Appliances French Door Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S is an excellent counter-depth refrigerator that packs plenty of storage into a compact frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. Inside, the refrigerator has an ordinary French-door design with gallon-sized door bins at each door as well as two rows of spill-capture shelves, 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 for products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the great things about this refrigerator is that the ice maker is in the freezer, making it easy to transfer frozen ice to the fridge to use as needed. The freezer also comes with innovative design features like sliding drawers that allow you to organize your items. It also has a large container for storing frozen food, and a separate bin for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is a cool feature of the refrigerator. You can control the temperature, lighting and other aspects of your fridge using your smartphone. It's an easy way to keep track of your refrigerator and manage it, especially when you're away from home.
However, while the Smart InstaView is a neat feature, it doesn't enhance the overall performance of the refrigerator. The refrigerator took longer to chill food and defrost it than other models we tested. This is likely due to its larger capacity.
The doors are a different issue with this refrigerator. They have handles that are sunken on the front, which allow shorter people to easily pull them open from the bottom, however they're not easy for taller people to pull shut without slamming them. It would have been much better if they had a front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is an excellent 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 a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a great layout. It's also a bit cheaper than the most expensive counter depth refrigerator with an icemaker, which makes it a great choice.
french door fridge and freezer
If you're looking for an French door refrigerator that won't break the bank, this Frigidaire is a good choice. It's a basic refrigerator that might not be as appealing like some of its competitors however it has enough features to make a good option. Its most notable feature is the temperature adjustable drawer which helps keep food items such as meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also comes with a huge water dispenser, as well as an excellent ice machine that works fast.
Another great feature is the "Chill Drawer" that sits above the two crisper bins. The drawer lets you direct the majority of your fridge's cooling power into this area so that you can keep food items that require special attention. This feature can be adjusted using a slider on the outside of the drawer. It is also possible to use this to set a general cooling level for the whole fridge, but I've noticed that adjusting the generic settings tends to have a better effect than specific ones.
In my tests, the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly constant across the different areas of the fridge. Temperatures at the top and bottom of the fridge did not vary much from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. This is a great performance, but isn't quite at the top of our ratings.
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 obtain more precise readings of the internal temperature of your fridge.
The Frigidaire FGHB2866PF's exterior is constructed of grey-bodied stainless steel which has a "smudge-proof" finish. It does an excellent job of repelling fingerprints and streaks even when compared to the glossier 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 commerce and publishing including retail and digital. Stephanie is adamant about finding the top products and recommending them to customers. She concentrates on home and technology.