French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Combining form and functionality, French-door refrigerators have stylish double doors that open to an enormous fridge on the top and a freezer drawer below. These refrigerators stand out due to their special features, like through-the-door dispensers as well as higher-end Ice makers.
We consulted Ladina Schopf - an interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her advice on how to choose the right home. We looked at the capacity of storage, layout, and energy efficiency, among other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As the name suggests, GE's Profile series is targeted at those who want to incorporate cutting-edge technologies in their kitchen. The refrigerator is brimming with them, from an in-the-door Keurig K-cup coffee maker to a smart water dispenser. 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.
Other than that the fridge is a great option. It has a large freezer compartment, which is quite uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Furthermore, it holds a good amount of frozen foods as compared to similar models.
The fridge has 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment has 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is about the same as the size of a French door fridge that costs this much. It has a decent sized freezer in the left side. But it's not the most spacious one I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in each compartment to create a custom storage setup for what you want to keep. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is good-looking, too. The LED lighting is a nice touch and the inside storage bins feature an additional shelf that can fold down so that you can store large items. The drawers have temperature controls that let you set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, but I found their plastic textured coatings a bit hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator includes the complete set of features you'd expect from a fridge at this price that includes Wi-Fi as well as app support through GE's SmartHQ software. The app, which is available for iOS and Android devices allows you to control your fridge from anywhere in the world, and it has many options for customizing. It will also send you notifications when the door is unlocked and when the fridge or freezer needs to be defrosted, and when the filter has to be changed.
It is nice if the GE PYE22PYNFS had Precise Fill it's an option in other GE refrigerators that allows you to set the number of cups of water you'd like to dispense simultaneously. It does offer a countdown on the fridge display to display how much water have left, but it's not as helpful as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
It is designed to look as a seamless element of your kitchen, Bosch's French-door refrigerator is an eye-catching piece. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also boasts a veggie compartment that helps keep vegetables and fruits fresher longer and dual compressors to ensure maximum food preservation. The Ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient and makes an ice pyramid with only a little water. This fridge is perfect for a small household or a kitchenette with a built-in appearance and top-of-the highest quality food preservation.
This refrigerator was rated as the best in our Refrigerators Test for several reasons. french door refrigerator freezer remained steady at a level that was just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and never changing more than a fraction of an inch. This is essential to avoiding freezer burn. The fridge's refrigerator section also performed well, achieving the desired temperature for initial set within an hour and maintaining that temperature steady over the course of our tests.
Bosch is known for its top-quality appliances. It's therefore no surprise that Bosch counter depth refrigerator is one of them. Bosch counter depth refrigerator can be connected to your home Wi Fi and Bosch's Home Connect. The app lets you monitor and control your fridge remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The refrigerator is costly however, it offers excellent features and functions at a fair price.
While the fridge is an amazing appliance, it's important to know the limitations. It has a limited space for shelves, so you may require some creativity when storing tall objects. The shelves are not spillproof and can easily be damaged or stained by sharp items. It's simple to remove the trays in the fridge However, be sure to clean them regularly to prevent the growth of mold.
If you are thinking about this refrigerator, be sure to look over our review of the French Door GE Appliances Refrigerator and 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 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 has a standard French door design, and two rows of spill-capture shelving and a set of crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give taller items more space. There's also a full-width storage drawer for food items and an internal water dispenser.
This refrigerator has a freezer with an ice maker making it simple to transfer frozen ice as needed. The freezer is designed with thoughtful elements, for instance, sliding drawers that help better organize the placement of items. It also has a large bin that holds plenty of frozen food items as well as a separate container for storing ice.
Another awesome feature of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. It allows you to control the fridge's temperature and lighting using your smartphone. It's a great way to control and monitor your refrigerator, especially if you're away from home.
Although the Smart InstaView is a neat feature, it does not necessarily improve the overall performance of the refrigerator. In fact it took a bit longer to defrost and chill foods in this refrigerator than other refrigerators we tried. This could be due to the bigger capacity.
Another issue with this refrigerator is its doors. The handles that are sunken allow smaller people to open them from the bottom. However taller people will have a hard time closing them without slamming them. It would have been more effective to have front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is a great choice for those looking to combine the look of a French door refrigerator with more efficient design. Its capacity is superior for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a good layout. It's also a little cheaper than the top counter-depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which helps make it a desirable choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for a French door refrigerator that won't cost a fortune, this Frigidaire is a great choice. It has a simple design that's not as visually striking as other models but it does have enough features to make it a good choice. Its most important feature is the temperature adjustable drawer, which helps keep foods such as meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also comes with a huge ice maker as well as a water dispenser.
The "Chill Drawer", which sits over the two crisper bins, is a great feature. This drawer lets you redirect a portion of the refrigerator's cooling power directly to this area, which means you can keep food items that need extra attention. This feature can be adjusted by using a slider located outside the drawer. You can also use this feature to set a general cooling setting 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, I found that the temperatures in the refrigerator were fairly consistent in various parts of the refrigerator. Temperatures at the top and bottom of the fridge didn't stray very far from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within a degree of 36. This is a solid performance, but does not quite make it to 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. This fridge can be connected 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 gray-bodied stainless with a "smudge proof" finish. It does an excellent job of repelling fingerprints and streaks even when compared with glossy stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tried.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor of Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guides as well as review of test products. She has more than 15 years of commerce and publishing experience, mostly in digital and retail. Stephanie is passionate about finding the top products and recommending them to consumers. She is particularly interested in home goods and technology.