French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door refrigerators blend form and function. They feature stylish double doors that reveal a large fridge on top, and a freezer drawer beneath. Special features like door-to-door dispensers, ice machines with higher-end features and flex drawers that can be customized make them stand out from the crowd.
We contacted Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect, and founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the right home. They considered the capacity of storage, layout and energy efficiency as well as other aspects.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The name of the series suggests that the GE Profile series is aimed at those who wish to incorporate cutting-edge technology into their kitchen. This fridge is loaded with them all from the Keurig K cup coffee maker inside 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. This fridge is expensive and I was expecting better.
This refrigerator is a good choice, despite the small blip. It has a large freezer compartment, which is uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Furthermore, it can hold a decent amount of frozen food as compared to similar models.
The fridge is equipped with 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment is 18.5 cubic feet, which is the standard for a fridge with a French door at this price. It also has a decent-sized icemaker that is tucked away in the left-hand door, although it isn't the largest I've seen.
You can adjust the shelves in both compartments to create customized storage arrangement for what you want to keep. The GE PYE22PYNFS's design for the interior is stylish, too. The LED lighting is an appealing accent. The bins for storage inside have a third shelf which can be folded down to store tall objects. The drawers have temperature controls that let you set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, however I found their plastic textured coatings to be a little rough on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator is equipped with a complete set of features you'd expect from a fridge in this price range that includes Wi-Fi as well as app support via GE's SmartHQ software. The app, available for iOS and Android devices allows you to control your fridge from anywhere in the world, and has a ton of customization options. It will also send notifications when the door is left unlocked and when the freezer or fridge requires defrosting, and when the filter requires a change.
It would be great to have GE PYE22PYNFS had Precise Fill, an option available in a handful of GE refrigerators that allow users to select the number of cups they would like to pour out. It also has a countdown on the display of the fridge to show how much water you have left, but it's not as helpful 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 a seamless piece 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 longer and dual compressors for the best preservation of food. The ice maker is one of the best we've ever tested and produces pyramid-shaped Ice with low water usage. This refrigerator is the ideal option for a single family or kitchenettes who want a built-in look and top of the line food preservation.
This refrigerator was the highest-rated refrigerator in our Refrigerators test for a few reasons. Its freezer temperatures held firm at a level that was just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and never moving by more than a fraction an inch. This is essential in preventing freezer burn. The fridge section of the fridge also did well. It reached the temperature it was set within a matter of hours, and maintained that temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch is known for its top-quality appliances. It's therefore no surprise that the Bosch counter depth fridge can be connected to your home Wi Fi and Bosch's platform Home Connect. The app lets you monitor and manage your fridge remotely using your tablet or smartphone. The fridge is a bit expensive, however it has top-quality features and functions for the cost.
While the fridge is an amazing piece of equipment, it's important to know the limitations. It has a limited space for shelves, so you'll need to be creative when storing tall objects. Additionally the shelves aren't completely sprillproof, and can easily be stained or damaged by sharp objects. It's simple to remove the trays in the fridge however, you must clean them regularly to prevent mold growth.
If you're thinking of buying this refrigerator, be sure to review our opinions on the GE Appliances French Door Refrigerator as well as the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S is a great counter-depth refrigerator that packs a lot of storage space into the frame's compact size. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. The fridge features a standard French door layout, with two rows of spill-capture shelving and a set of crisper drawers. The upper right shelf can be folded down to give taller items more headroom. There's also a full-width drawer to store products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
The refrigerator comes with an ice maker making it easy to move the frozen ice as needed. The freezer also features innovative design features like sliding drawers that allow you to sort your things. It also has a huge bin that can accommodate plenty of frozen food items as well as an additional ice storage bin.
explanation of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. You can control the temperature, lighting, and more of your fridge from your smartphone. It's a great way to control and monitor your refrigerator, especially if you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat, but it doesn't necessarily enhance the performance of the fridge. The refrigerator took longer to chill food and defrost it than some others we test. This is likely due to its bigger capacity.
The doors are another problem with this fridge. They have sunken handles on the front that allow shorter people to easily open them from the bottom, however they're not easy for taller people to pull closed without slamming them. It would have been better if they had handles mounted on the front.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a good option for those looking to combine the benefits of a French-door fridge's aesthetics with a more efficient layout. It has a capacity that is higher than average for counter-depth models and also cools evenly. french door fridge freezer 's also a little cheaper than the top counter-depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which helps make it a popular choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a great choice for those looking for a French-door fridge that doesn't break the budget. It has a simple design that's not as striking visually as other models however it comes with enough features to make it a good choice. Its most notable feature is the adjustable temperature drawer, helps to keep food items such as vegetables and meat fresher longer. It also has a large water dispenser, as well as an excellent ice maker that operates quickly.
Another feature that is worth mentioning is the "Chill Drawer" that sits above the two crisper bins. This drawer allows you to redirect the majority of the refrigerator's cooling power to this area, so that you can store foods which need extra attention. This feature can be adjusted by using a slider on the outside 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.
During my tests, the refrigerator's temperatures stayed fairly consistent across different areas of the fridge. Temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge did not vary significantly from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within a degree of 36. This is a good performance, but it 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. You can also combine this fridge with a smart thermometer to get more precise readings of your fridge's temperature.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made of gray-bodied stainless with a "smudge resistant" finish. It does a great job of repelling fingerprints and streaks even when compared to the glossy stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tested.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor on Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guides and test-product reviews. She has more than 15 years of experience in publishing and commerce mostly in retail and digital. Stephanie is adamant about finding the best products and recommending them to consumers. She concentrates on home and technology.