French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Combining form and functionality, French-door refrigerators have elegant double doors that open to an expansive fridge on top and freezer drawer below. Special features such as through-the-door dispensers, high-end ice machines and flex drawers that can be customized make them stand out from the crowd.
We consulted Ladina Schopf - an interior designer, architect, and the founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the right home. They evaluated the capacity of storage and layout, energy efficiency, and other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Like the name suggests, GE's Profile series is geared towards the consumer who wants to incorporate cutting-edge technology into their kitchen. This refrigerator is packed with features, 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 expected more.
This fridge is a great choice, despite the blip. It has a large freezer compartment, which is unusual for counter-depth French-door refrigerators. It also holds a lot of frozen food, which is a big difference from other models.
The fridge comes with 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment is 18.5 cubic feet, which is standard for a French-door refrigerator at this price. It has a decent-sized refrigerator with an ice maker in the left door. However, it's not the largest one I've seen.
You can adjust the shelving in each compartment to create a customized storage layout for whatever you have to keep. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS also looks attractive. The LED lighting adds an attractive accent. The storage bins in the door include a third shelf that can be folded down to store large items. The drawers come with 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 a bit hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator has all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator in this price range. It has Wi-Fi as well as app support, and GE's SmartHQ Software. The app, which is available for iOS and Android devices can let you control your fridge from anywhere in world, and it has numerous options for customization. It will also send you notifications when the door is left unlocked, when the freezer or fridge needs to be defrosted, and when the filter requires a change.
It would be nice if GE PYE22PYNFS included Precise fill, an option available in a few other GE fridges that allows you to choose how many cups of water you'd like to disperse at a time. It does have a countdown on the display of the fridge to show how much water you have remaining, but that's not as effective as Precise fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is an impressive product. It's designed to appear like it's a seamless component of your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also comes with a veggie compartment to keep fruits and vegetables fresher longer, and two compressors to ensure the best preservation of food. The Ice maker is among the top we've tested and produces a pyramid-shaped ice with a low use of water. This refrigerator is the ideal option for households with a single member or kitchenettes looking for a built-in look and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was rated as the top in our Refrigerators Test for several reasons. Its freezer temperatures remained constant at just above 0° Fahrenheit and never changed more than a fraction - this is crucial to avoid freezer burn. The fridge section of the fridge also did well. It reached the temperature it was set within an hour and maintained that temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch is a household name for its top-quality appliances. It's therefore no surprise that Bosch's counter depth fridge Bosch counter depth fridge can be connected to your home Wi Fi and Bosch's Home Connect. This app lets you monitor and control your fridge remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The refrigerator is pricey and has great features and capabilities at a reasonable price.
While the fridge is an amazing appliance, it's important to know the limitations. It has a small shelf space, which means you may need to be creative when it comes to storing large items. The shelves are also not impervious to spills and could easily be stained or damaged by sharp objects. The trays can be easily removed from the fridge. However, they should be cleaned frequently to stop the growth of mold.
If you're thinking about buying this refrigerator, be sure to check out our reviews of the French Door GE Appliances Refrigerator as well as the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S counter-depth refrigerator is a great option for those who require lots of space within the space of a compact frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. Inside, the refrigerator has a standard French-door layout with gallon-sized door bins on each door as well as two rows of shelves for spill-capture and a set sleeker drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to make space for taller items. There's also a full-width deli drawer and an internal water dispenser.
This refrigerator is equipped with an ice maker making it easy to move the frozen ice as needed. The freezer features thoughtful design elements, too, like sliding drawers that can help you to organize the place of your items. It also has a large bin that holds plenty of frozen food items as well as a separate storage bin for ice.
Frydge is another awesome feature of the refrigerator. You can manage the temperature, lighting and other aspects of your refrigerator from your smartphone. It's a simple way to keep track of your refrigerator and manage it, especially when away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat but it doesn't improve the efficiency of the fridge. The fridge took a bit longer to defrost food and chill it than other models we tried. This could be due to its bigger capacity.
Another issue with the door of this refrigerator. They have handles that are sunken at the front, which allows shorter people to easily open them from the bottom, but they're not easy for taller people to guide closed without slamming the doors. It would have been better if these had front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is an excellent option for those looking to combine the look of a French door refrigerator with more efficient design. Its capacity is above average 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 refrigerator with an ice maker, which helps make it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a great choice for those looking for a French-door fridge that won't break the budget. It's a basic refrigerator which may not be as eye-catching like some of its competitors however it has enough features to make a good option. Its most important feature, the adjustable temperature drawer helps to keep food like vegetables and meat fresher for longer. It also comes with a huge ice maker as well as a water dispenser.
The "Chill Drawer", which is located over the two crisper bins, is another excellent feature. This drawer lets you redirect a portion of the refrigerator's cooling power directly to this area, which means you can store foods that require special attention. This feature can be adjusted using a slider on the outside of the drawer. You can also set the general cooling settings for the entire fridge. I've noticed that the generic settings are more effective than the specific ones.
During my tests, the temperatures of the refrigerator stayed fairly consistent across different areas of the fridge. Temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge didn't vary very far from 38 degrees, and the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. That's a good performance, but it doesn't quite be among the top in 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 in order to get more accurate readings on the internal temperature of your fridge.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made from gray-bodied stainless with a "smudge resistant" finish. It blocks streaks and fingerprints 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 guide and review of test products. She has more than 15 years of commerce and publishing experience, mostly in digital and retail. Stephanie is enthusiastic about finding and recommending the top products for consumers, with a an emphasis on home products and technology.