French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door refrigerators are a perfect blend of form and function. They feature stylish double doors that show a large fridge on top and a freezer drawer beneath. These refrigerators stand out due to their special features, such as door-to-door dispensers and more expensive ice makers.
We asked Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her tips on how to select the right home. We looked at the storage capacity, layout, and energy efficiency, among other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Like the name suggests, GE's Profile series is geared towards those who want to incorporate cutting-edge technology into their kitchen. This fridge is loaded with them all from a Keurig K cup coffee maker inside 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. Given that this fridge costs an extra amount, I'd like to see better.
This refrigerator is a good choice, despite the blip. It comes with a huge freezer compartment, which is quite uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Furthermore, french door fridge freezers holds a good amount of frozen foods as compared to similar models.
The fridge comes with 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment has 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is about what you would expect from a French door fridge that costs this much. It has a decent sized refrigerator with an ice maker in the left door. But it's not the biggest one I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in both compartments for the perfect storage solution. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS also looks attractive. The LED lighting is a nice feature and the storage bins feature the third shelf, which can fold down to make it possible to store tall items. The drawers have temperature controls so that you can set them for Meat, Beverage or Deli settings. The drawers are easy to shut and open, but I found the textured plastic coatings a bit hard on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator is equipped with a all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator in this price range with Wi-Fi and app support through GE's SmartHQ software. The app is available on iOS and Android devices and lets you manage your refrigerator from anywhere across the globe. It also comes with many options for customization. It also alerts you when a door is left open, when your fridge or freezer needs defrosting and when it's time to change the filter.
It would be nice it GE PYE22PYNFS could offer Precise Fill which is a feature found in a few GE refrigerators that allow users to select how many cups they want to dispense. The fridge displays a countdown to display how much water remains, but it's not as useful as Precise fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Created to appear like a seamless piece of your kitchen, Bosch's French-door refrigerator is a standout. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also has a veggie compartment which keeps vegetables and fruits fresher for longer and two compressors for preserving food. The ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient and makes an ice pyramid with only a little water. This refrigerator is ideal for a single household or kitchenette that needs an attractive design and top of the best food preservation.
This fridge was rated the top in our Refrigerators Test for a variety of reasons. The temperature of the freezer remained constant at just above 0° Fahrenheit and never fluctuated more than a tiny fraction - this is crucial to avoid the risk of a freezer burn. The fridge section of the fridge also performed well, reaching the temperature that was set for the initial setting within an hour and keeping the temperature constant over the course of our testing.
Bosch has a reputation for premium appliances which is why it's no surprise that this counter depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance that has the option of connecting to your home Wi-Fi as well as Bosch's Home Connect platform. The app lets you monitor and control your fridge remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The fridge is expensive, but it offers great features and capabilities for the price.
It is important to know the limitations of the fridge. You may need to get inventive with tall items since the fridge has a small shelf space. Additionally, the shelves are not impervious to sprills and could be damaged or stained by sharp objects. It's easy to remove the refrigerator trays however, you must clean them regularly to prevent mold growth.
If you are considering this refrigerator, you should also 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 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 features the standard French door design, with two rows of spill-capture shelving and a set crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give tall items more room. You'll also find a full-width deli drawer and an internal water dispenser.
One of the nice aspects of this refrigerator is that the ice maker is in the freezer, which makes it easy to transfer frozen ice to the fridge to be used when it is required. The freezer features thoughtful design elements, too, like sliding drawers that can help you to organize the place of items. It also has a large container to store frozen food items, and a separate bin for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is a cool feature of the refrigerator. It lets you manage the refrigerator's temperature as well as lighting via your smartphone. It's an easy way to keep track of your fridge and manage it, especially when you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat but it doesn't improve the performance of the fridge. The refrigerator took longer to defrost food and chill it than the other fridges we tried. This is likely due to the greater capacity.
The other issue we have with the door of this refrigerator. The handles that are sunken allow shorter people to open them from the bottom. However taller people struggle to close them without slamming. It would have been much better if they had handles mounted on the front.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a good option for those looking to combine the benefits of a French-door fridge's aesthetics with a more efficient layout. It has a capacity that is above average for counter-depth models and also cools evenly. It's also a bit cheaper than the most expensive counter depth refrigerator that comes with an icemaker, which makes it an attractive choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a good choice for those looking for a French-door fridge that doesn't break the budget. It's a basic refrigerator which may not be as eye-catching as some of its competitors however, it does have enough features to make it a an excellent option. Its most important characteristic is the adjustable temperature drawer, which helps keep foods like meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also comes with a huge water dispenser and a decent ice machine that works fast.
The "Chill Drawer", which is located above the two crisper bins, is a nice feature. The drawer lets you use a portion of the fridge's cooling power to this area, so it can be used to store food items that require extra attention. This feature can be adjusted by 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 work better than the specific ones.
During my tests, the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly constant across the different areas of the fridge. Temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge didn't stray significantly from 38 degrees, and the middle of the fridge was within a degree of 36. This is a great performance however it doesn't 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. You can also pair this fridge with a smart thermometer for more precise measurements of your fridge's temperature.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made from gray-bodied stainless with a "smudge resistant" finish. It does an excellent job of preventing streaks and fingerprints from appearing even when compared to the shiny 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 publishing and commerce experience, mostly in digital and retail. Stephanie is passionate about finding and recommending the top products for consumers, with a a focus on home goods and tech.