French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door refrigerators are a perfect blend of form and function. They come with stylish double doors that reveal the large fridge on top, and a freezer drawer beneath. Special features like through-the-door dispensers, higher-end ice machines and flex drawers that can be customized make them stand out from the crowd.
We asked Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the best one. They evaluated storage capacity as well as layout and energy efficiency, among other factors.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As its name suggests, GE’s Profile series is aimed at those who wish to incorporate cutting-edge technologies into their kitchens. This refrigerator has it all including the Keurig K cup coffee maker in the door, to a clever dispenser of water. 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 option, despite the slight blip. It has a huge freezer compartment that is not common for counter-depth French-door refrigerators. It also holds a lot of frozen food compared to other models.
The fridge has 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment has 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is on par for the size of a 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 alter the shelving in each compartment to create a custom storage setup for whatever you have to store. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS also looks attractive. The LED lighting is an appealing touch. The storage bins in the door include a third shelf that can be folded down to store tall items. The drawers come with temperature controls that allow you to set them to Meat, Beverage or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, but I found their plastic textured coatings to be a little hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with all the features you would expect from a refrigerator within this price range. It has Wi-Fi as well as app support, and GE's SmartHQ Software. The app, available for iOS and Android devices can let you control your refrigerator from anywhere in the world, and it has numerous options for customization. It also sends you notifications when the door is unlocked and when the fridge or freezer needs to be defrosted, and when the filter requires a change.
It is nice if GE PYE22PYNFS had Precise Fill, an option that is available in a few GE refrigerators that allow users to set the number of cups they would like to disperse. It also has a countdown on the fridge display to display how much water have left, but it's not as useful as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Designed to look like a seamless part 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 has a vegetable compartment that keeps fruits and vegetables fresher longer and has dual compressors to ensure the best preservation of food. The ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient and makes pyramid shaped ice using minimal water. This refrigerator is the ideal option for households with a single member or kitchenettes looking for an integrated look and top-of-the-line food preservation.
This fridge was rated the most efficient in our Refrigerators Test due to a variety of reasons. The freezer temperatures remained steady at just a few degrees Fahrenheit and never fluctuating by more than a fraction one degree. This is crucial to avoiding freezing burn. The refrigerator section of the refrigerator also performed well. It reached the initial temperature set within an hour and remained at that temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch is a household name known for its top-quality appliances. Therefore, it's no surprise that Bosch's counter depth fridge Bosch counter depth refrigerator can be connected to your home Wi Fi and Bosch's platform Home Connect. french door fridge freezers allows you to monitor and control the refrigerator remotely using your tablet or smartphone. The refrigerator is costly, but offers great features and functionality at a reasonable cost.
While french door fridge freezer is an incredible appliance however, it is important to understand the limitations. It has a small space for shelves, so you may require some creativity when it comes to storing large items. Additionally the shelves aren't impervious to sprills and could be stained or damaged by sharp objects. It is easy to take out the trays from the fridge however, you must clean them frequently to prevent the growth of mold.
If you are thinking about this refrigerator, make sure you check out our review of the French Door GE Appliances 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 plenty of space in a small frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. The fridge is built with a standard French door design, with two rows of shelves that can be used to capture spills and a set crisper drawers. The top right shelf can be folded down to give tall items more headroom. There's also a full-width drawer to store products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the nice features of this refrigerator is that its Ice maker is located in the freezer, making it simple to move the ice to the refrigerator to use as needed. The freezer also comes with thoughtful design features, such as sliding drawers that allow you to sort your things. It also has a large container for storing frozen food, and a separate one for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is another cool feature of the refrigerator. You can control the temperature, lighting, and other aspects of your refrigerator from your smartphone. It's a simple method to keep track of your refrigerator and manage it, especially when you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat, but it doesn't necessarily improve the efficiency of the fridge. The refrigerator took longer to defrost food and chill it than other models we test. This is probably due to its larger capacity.
The other issue we have with this refrigerator is its doors. They have sunken handles on the front that allow smaller people to open them from the bottom, but they're not easy for taller people to steer closed without slamming the doors. It would have been better if they came with a front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a ideal option for those looking to combine the advantages of a French-door fridge's aesthetics with a more efficient layout. Its capacity is above average for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a good layout. It's also a little cheaper than the best counter-depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which can make it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for an French door refrigerator that won't break the bank this Frigidaire is a great choice. It's a basic design that isn't as striking visually like some of the competitors however it comes with enough features that make it a great option. Its most notable feature is the adjustable temperature drawer helps to keep food like meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also has a large ice maker and a water dispenser.
The "Chill Drawer", which sits over the two crisper bins, is a nice feature. This drawer lets you redirect a portion of the refrigerator's cooling power directly into this area, meaning you can keep food items that need extra attention. You can alter this feature using an adjustable slider that is located just in the middle of the drawer. You can also adjust the general cooling settings for the entire fridge. french door fridge freezers 've noticed that the generic settings work better than the specific ones.
In my tests, the temperature of the refrigerator stayed fairly consistent across different areas of the refrigerator. The temperatures in the middle, top and bottom of the refrigerator didn't vary much from 38 degrees. This is a great performance, but it 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. The fridge can be linked with a smart thermostat to gain more precise information on the internal temperature of your fridge.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made of gray-bodied stainless with a "smudge proof" finish. It wards off streaks and fingerprints better than other stainless steel finishes I've seen.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor on Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guide and test-product reviews. She has more than 15 years of publishing and commerce experience, mostly in retail and digital. Stephanie is passionate about finding and recommending the best products for consumers, with particular focus on home items and technology.