French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door refrigerators are a perfect blend of form and function. They feature stylish double doors that reveal the large fridge on top, and a freezer drawer beneath. These refrigerators stand out because of their distinctive features, such as door-to-door dispensers and more expensive ice makers.
We sought out experts like Ladina Schopf, interior designer, architect, and founder of LS Projects, for tips on picking the right one. They considered storage capacity as well as layout, energy efficiency, and other aspects.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As its name suggests, GE’s Profile series is aimed at those who wish to integrate cutting-edge features in their kitchen. This fridge has them all including the Keurig K cup coffee maker on 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. Given that this fridge costs a premium, I expect higher quality.
Apart from that minor flaw, this fridge is a great choice. It features a large freezer compartment that is not common for counter-depth French-door refrigerators. It also has a large capacity for frozen food items compared to other models.
The fridge has 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment offers 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is about what you would expect from a French door fridge costing this much. It also has a decent-sized icemaker packed into the left-hand door, although it isn't the largest I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in both compartments to create a custom storage setup for the items you need to store. The GE PYE22PYNFS's interior design is attractive, too. The LED lighting is a nice addition, and the in-door storage bins feature the third shelf, which folds up beneath itself so that you can store items that are tall. The drawers include 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 to be a little hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with the full suite 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 is available for iOS and Android devices and lets you manage your refrigerator from anywhere in the globe. It also comes with a lot of customization options. It will also send you notifications when the door is left unlocked and when the fridge or freezer requires defrosting, and when the filter has to be changed.
It would be nice to have GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill the option that is available in a handful of GE refrigerators that allows users to select the amount of cups they wish to dispense. The fridge displays a countdown to reveal how much water remains but it's not as helpful as Precise fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is an impressive product. It's designed to look like a seamless piece of 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 two compressors for maximum preservation of food. The ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient and produces an ice pyramid with only a little water. This fridge is ideal for a single family or kitchenette that needs an attractive design and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was rated the best in our Refrigerators Test for a variety of reasons. Its freezer temperatures held firm at just a few degrees Fahrenheit, and never fluctuating more than a fraction one degree. This is crucial to preventing freezer burn. The refrigerator section of the fridge also did well. It reached the initial temperature within an hour and maintained that temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch has a reputation for top-of-the-line appliances which is why it's no surprise that this counter depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance with the option of connecting to your home Wi-Fi and Bosch's Home Connect platform. This app allows you to monitor and control your fridge from your smartphone or tablet. The fridge is a bit expensive, but it comes with great features and capabilities for the price.
french door refrigerator freezer to understand the limitations of your fridge. You might need to be creative with tall items because the fridge is limited in shelf space. Also the shelves aren't impervious to sprills and could be stained or damaged by sharp objects. The trays can be easily removed from the refrigerator. However, they should be cleaned frequently to stop the growth of mold.
If you are considering this refrigerator, you should also check out our review of the GE Appliances French Door 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 space into an extremely compact 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 layout, with two rows of shelving with spill-capture and a set crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded in order to create more space for tall items. There's also a full-width drawer for products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the best features of this refrigerator is that the ice maker is in the freezer, which makes it easy to transfer the ice to the refrigerator to be used when it is required. The freezer features thoughtful design elements, as well, such as sliding drawers to help you better organize the position of your items. It also has a large bin that holds plenty of frozen food items and a separate container for storing ice.
Another great feature of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. You can control the temperature, lighting, and other aspects of your fridge using your smartphone. It's a good method of monitoring and managing your refrigerator, especially if you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat, but it doesn't necessarily improve the performance of the fridge. The refrigerator took longer to chill food and defrost it than some others we test. This could be due to the larger capacity.
The doors are another problem with this fridge. The sunken handles let shorter people open them from the bottom. However, taller people still have a hard time closing them without slamming them. It would have been much better if they had a front-mounted handle.
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 an efficient design. Its capacity is superior for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a great layout. It's also a little cheaper than the top counter-depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which helps make it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for a French door fridge that doesn't cost you a fortune and isn't expensive, this Frigidaire is a good choice. It's a basic fridge that may not be as eye-catching like some of its competitors however, it does have enough features to make a good choice. Its most notable characteristic is the adjustable temperature drawer that helps keep food items like meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also comes with a huge water dispenser as well as a good Ice machine that is fast.
Another nice feature is the "Chill Drawer" that sits over the two crisper bins. This drawer lets you use a portion of the fridge's cooling power into the area so that you can keep food items that require special attention. This feature is adjustable using a slider on the outside of the drawer. You can also alter the general cooling settings for the entire fridge. I've noticed that the general settings work better than the specific ones.
During my tests, the refrigerator's temperatures were fairly consistent across all areas of the refrigerator. Temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge did not vary much from 38 degrees, and the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. This is a great performance but 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. The fridge can be linked with a smart thermostat in order to obtain more precise readings of the internal temperature of your fridge.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made from grey-bodied stainless with a "smudge resistant" finish. It does a great job of repelling fingerprints and streaks, even compared to glossier 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, primarily digital and retail. Stephanie is passionate about finding the most effective products and recommending them to consumers. She focuses on home goods and technology.