French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Melding form with function, French-door refrigerators come with elegant double doors that open to an enormous fridge on top and freezer drawer below. These refrigerators stand out due to their distinctive features, like through-the-door dispensers as well as higher-end Ice makers.
We asked experts like Ladina Schopf, an interior designer and architect, as well as the founder of LS Projects, for tips on choosing the right model. They looked at storage capacity, layout and energy efficiency, among other factors.
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 integrate cutting-edge features in their kitchen. This fridge is loaded with them all from a Keurig K cup coffee maker in the door to a smart 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 more, I'd expect better.
This fridge is a great option, despite the slight blip. It has a large freezer compartment that is not common for counter-depth French-door fridges. It also has a large capacity for frozen food compared to other models.
Inside the fridge, there are 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment is 18.5 cubic feet, which is the standard for a French-door fridge at this price. It has a decent sized icemaker in the left door. But it's not the most spacious one I've seen.
You can adjust the shelving in both compartments to create a customized storage arrangement for the items you need to keep. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is also attractive. The LED lighting is an attractive feature. The storage bins in the door include a third shelf that can be folded down to 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 textured plastic coatings to be a bit hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator has all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator within this price range. french door fridge freezer 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 refrigerator from anywhere in the world, and it has numerous options for customization. It also gives you notifications when a door is left open, when the fridge or freezer needs defrosting and when it's time to change the filter.
It would be nice if the GE PYE22PYNFS had Precise Fill, an option available in other GE fridges that allow you to preset how many cups of water you'd like to pour out simultaneously. It also has a countdown on the fridge display to show how much water you have left, but it's not as effective as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is a striking piece. It's designed to appear like a seamless piece of your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also has a vegetable compartment that keeps fruits and vegetables fresher longer and dual 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 refrigerator is ideal for a single household or a kitchenette that wants a built-in appearance and top-of-the best food preservation.
This fridge was rated as the most efficient in our Refrigerators Test due to a variety of reasons. Its freezer temperatures remained constant at just above 0°F and never fluctuated by more than a fraction, this is crucial to prevent the risk of a freezer burn. The fridge section of the fridge also performed well, achieving the desired temperature for initial set within an hour and maintaining that temperature steady throughout the course of our testing.
Bosch has a reputation for high-end appliances and appliances, so it's not a surprise that this counter depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance with the option of connecting to your home Wi-Fi as well as Bosch's Home Connect platform. This app allows you to control and monitor your refrigerator remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The fridge is a bit expensive, however it has top-quality features and functions for the cost.
It's important to understand the limitations of the fridge. It has a narrow shelf space, which means you'll have to think creatively when storing tall objects. The shelves aren't spillproof and can easily be stained or damaged by sharp objects. The trays can be easily removed from the refrigerator. However, they should be cleaned regularly to prevent the growth of mold.
If you are thinking about this refrigerator, you should also look over our review of the GE Appliances French Door Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S counter-depth fridge is a great choice for those who require plenty of space in 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 fridge has an ordinary French-door design with gallon-sized door bins on each door, two rows of shelves for spill-capture and a set of more spacious drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give tall items more room. There's also a full-width storage drawer for products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the best aspects of this refrigerator is that its Ice maker is located in the freezer, which makes it easy to move frozen ice to the fridge to use as needed. The freezer also comes with innovative design features like sliding drawers that can help you organize your belongings. It also has a large container to store frozen food items, and a separate container for ice.
Another great feature of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. It lets you control the temperature of your fridge and lighting from your smartphone. It's a good way to control and monitor your refrigerator, particularly if you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat however it doesn't improve the performance of the fridge. This fridge took longer to chill food and defrost it than some others we tested. This is likely due to the greater capacity.
The doors pose a problem with this refrigerator. The handles that are sunken allow shorter people to open them from the bottom. However, taller people still struggle to close them without slamming. It would have been better if they had front-mounted handle.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is an excellent choice for those looking to combine the aesthetics 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 less expensive than the top counter-depth refrigerator that has an ice maker, which can make it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a great choice when you're looking for a French door refrigerator that doesn't cost a lot of budget. It's a basic design that isn't as visually striking like some of the competitors, but it has enough features to make it a solid pick. Its most significant feature, the adjustable temperature drawer helps to keep food items such as meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also comes with a huge water and ice maker dispenser.
Another feature that is worth mentioning is the "Chill Drawer" that sits over the two crisper bins. This drawer allows you to redirect a portion of the refrigerator's cooling power to this area, so that you can keep food items that require special attention. This feature is adjustable using an outside slider that is located inside the drawer. You can also use this feature to adjust the general cooling settings for the entire fridge, however, I've found that changing the general settings tends be more effective than specific ones.
During my tests, the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly constant across the different areas of the refrigerator. The temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge didn't stray very far from 38 degrees, and the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. That's a good performance however it doesn't rank among the best 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. This fridge can be connected 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 that has a "smudge resistant" finish. It wards off 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 guides and product reviews for test products. She has more than 15 years of commerce and publishing experience, with a focus on digital and retail. Stephanie is committed to finding and recommending the best products for consumers, with a focus on home goods and technology.