5 Qualities That People Are Looking For In Every French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker
French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Combining form and function, French-door refrigerators offer stylish double doors that open up to a spacious fridge up top and freezer drawer below. Special features like door-to-door dispensers, higher-end ice machines and adjustable flex drawers make them stand out from the rest.
We contacted Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her tips on how to select the best one. We looked at storage capacity, layout and energy efficiency, among other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Like the name suggests, the GE Profile series is targeted at the consumer who wants to incorporate cutting-edge features into their kitchen. This refrigerator has it all, from a 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. Since this refrigerator is a premium, I expect higher quality.
Aside from that blip however, this refrigerator is a great choice. It comes with a huge freezer compartment, which is uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Additionally, it holds a good amount of frozen food when as compared to similar models.
Inside the fridge, there are 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment has 18.5 cubic feet, which is typical for a French-door fridge at this price. It has a decent sized freezer in the left side. However it's not the most spacious one I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in both compartments to create a custom storage setup for what you want to store. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is also attractive. Its LED lighting is a nice touch and the inside storage bins come with a third shelf that folds up beneath itself to make it possible to store items that are tall. The drawers come with temperature controls, so you can set them to Beverage, Meat, or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, although I found their plastic textured coatings a bit difficult on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator has all the features you'd 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, lets you control your fridge from anywhere in the world, and offers many options for customizing. It also alerts you when a door is left open, when the refrigerator or freezer is in need of defrosting, and when it's time to change the filter.
It is nice if the GE PYE22PYNFS included Precise fill it's an option in a handful of other GE fridges that allow you to preset how many cups of water you'd like to pour out at a time. The fridge shows a countdown to display how much water is left but it's not as useful as Precise fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
It is designed to look like a seamless piece 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 has a vegetable compartment that helps keep vegetables and fruits fresher for longer and dual compressors for maximum preservation of food. The ice maker we tested was one of the most efficient and produces pyramid shaped ice using minimal water. This refrigerator is ideal for a small household or a kitchenette with an elegant design and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was the top-rated refrigerator in our Refrigerators Test for a few reasons. The freezer temperatures remained steady at just a few degrees Fahrenheit and never moving more than a fraction of one degree. french style fridge freezer is crucial to avoiding freezer burn. The fridge section of the fridge also did well. It reached the initial temperature within an hour, and remained at that 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 of connecting to your home Wi-Fi and Bosch's Home Connect platform. The app allows you to control and monitor your refrigerator remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The fridge is expensive, but it comes with top-quality features and functions for the cost.
It is important to know the limitations of your fridge. It has a small shelf space, so you'll have to think creatively when storing tall items. The shelves aren't spillproof and can easily be stained or damaged by sharp items. It's easy to remove the trays from the fridge however, you must clean them regularly to prevent mold growth.
If you're considering this refrigerator, make sure to also read our reviews of the French Door GE Appliances Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S is an excellent counter-depth refrigerator that packs a lot of storage in an extremely compact frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. Inside, the fridge features an ordinary French-door design with gallon-sized bins for the doors on each door and two rows of shelves for spill-capture and a set crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to make space for tall items. There's also a full-width deli drawer and an internal water dispenser.
This refrigerator is equipped with an ice maker, making it simple to transfer ice when needed. The freezer also comes with innovative design features such as sliding drawers that can help you organize your items. It comes with a large bin to store frozen food items, and a separate bin for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is a cool feature of the refrigerator. It allows you to control the fridge's temperature as well as lighting via your smartphone. It's a simple method to keep track of your fridge and manage it, especially when you're not at home.
However, while the Smart InstaView is a neat feature, it does not necessarily improve the overall performance of the refrigerator. The refrigerator took longer to defrost food and chill it than other models we tried. This could be due to the larger capacity.
The doors pose a problem with this fridge. The sunken handles allow smaller people to open them from the bottom. However taller people have a difficult time closing them without slamming them. It would have been better if they had handles mounted on the front.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a ideal choice for those who want to combine the benefits of a French-door refrigerator's aesthetics with an efficient layout. It has a capacity that is superior to counter-depth models, and it cools evenly. It's also a little less than the most expensive counter depth refrigerator with an ice maker, which makes it a great choice.
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 has a simple design that's not as striking visually as other models however it comes with enough features to make it a good option. Its main feature is the temperature adjustable drawer that helps keep food items like meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also has a large water dispenser, as well as an excellent Ice machine that is fast.
The "Chill Drawer", which is situated over the two crisper bins, is another excellent feature. This drawer allows you to direct the majority of the fridge's cooling power to this area, so that you can keep food items which need extra attention. You can adjust this feature using an adjustable slider that is located just outside of the drawer. You can also set the general cooling settings for the entire fridge. I've noticed that the general settings work better than the specific ones.
In my tests, I found that the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly consistent in various parts of the fridge. The 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 good performance, but it doesn't 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. french style fridge freezer can be connected with a smart thermostat to gain more precise information on the internal temperature of your fridge.
french door refrigerator freezer is made of stainless steel with a grey body which has a "smudge-proof" finish. It repels fingerprints and streaks better than other stainless steel finishes I've tested.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor of Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guides as well as product reviews for test products. She has more than 15 years of publishing and commerce experience, with a focus on retail and digital. Stephanie is adamant about finding the most effective products and recommending them to consumers. She is particularly interested in home goods and technology.