French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Combining form and function, French-door refrigerators offer elegant double doors that open up to a spacious fridge up top and freezer drawer below. These refrigerators stand out due to their unique features, like through-the-door dispensers as well as higher-end Ice makers.
We consulted Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her tips on how to select the right home. They weighed storage capacity and layout, energy efficiency, and other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As the name suggests, GE's Profile series is geared towards consumers who want to incorporate cutting-edge features in their kitchen. This refrigerator has it 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. This refrigerator is costly, so I expected better.
Apart from that minor flaw however, this refrigerator is a great choice. It has a large freezer compartment that is not common for counter-depth French door fridges. It also holds a lot of frozen food items compared to other models.
The fridge comes with 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment has 18.5 cubic feet, which is the 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 both compartments to create customized storage layout for what you want to store. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS also looks attractive. The LED lighting adds an appealing feature. The storage bins in the door come with a third shelf that can be folded down to store tall items. The drawers have temperature controls that allow you to set them to Meat, Beverage or Deli settings. The drawers are easy to shut and open however I found the textured plastic coatings a bit hard on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator includes all the features you would expect from a refrigerator in this price range. This includes 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 world, and it has numerous options for customization. It also gives you notifications when a door is left open, when your fridge or freezer needs to be defrosted and when it's time to change the filter.
It is nice to have GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill which is a feature available in a handful of GE refrigerators that allows users to set the number of cups they would like to pour out. The fridge displays a countdown timer to reveal how much water is left however it's not as helpful 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 veggie compartment that keeps fruits and vegetables fresher for longer, and dual compressors to preserve food items. The ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient, and it produces pyramid shaped ice using minimal water. This refrigerator is a great option for a single family or kitchenettes looking for a built-in look and top-of-the-line food preservation.
This fridge was rated the most efficient in our Refrigerators Test for several reasons. The freezer temperature remained steady at just above 0°F and never fluctuated more than a tiny fraction - this is essential 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 a matter of hours and keeping that temperature steady over the course of our tests.
french door refrigerator freezer is known for its high-end appliances, so it's no surprise that this counter-depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance with the option of connecting to your home Wi-Fi network and Bosch's Home Connect platform. This app allows you to monitor and control your fridge remotely from your tablet or smartphone. The refrigerator is pricey, but offers great features and capabilities at a fair price.
It is important to know the limitations of your fridge. It has a limited shelf space, which means you'll need to be creative when it comes to storing large items. The shelves aren't spillproof and can easily be stained or damaged by sharp items. The trays are easily removed from the refrigerator. However, they must be cleaned frequently to stop the growth of mold.
If you are considering this refrigerator, you should also read 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 an excellent 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 design, with two rows of shelves that can be used to capture spills and a set of crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give tall items more space. You'll also find a full-width deli drawer and an internal water dispenser.
The refrigerator comes with an ice maker, making it easy to move the frozen ice whenever you need it. The freezer features thoughtful design elements, as well, such as sliding drawers that can help you better organize the position of items. It also has a huge bin that holds plenty of frozen food and a separate container for storing ice.
Smart InstaView panel is another awesome feature of the refrigerator. You can manage the temperature, lighting and other aspects of your fridge using your smartphone. It's a simple method to monitor your refrigerator and manage it, especially when away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat however it doesn't improve the efficiency of the fridge. This fridge took longer to chill food and defrost it than the other fridges we tested. This is probably due to its larger capacity.
Another issue with the doors of this refrigerator. The handles that are sunken allow smaller people to open them from the bottom. However, taller people still have a difficult time closing them without slamming. It would have been better to have front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a ideal option for those looking to combine the benefits of a French-door fridge's aesthetics with an efficient layout. Its capacity is higher than average for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a good layout. It's also a little less than the top counter depth refrigerator that comes with an icemaker, which makes it an attractive option.
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 good choice. It's a simple fridge which may not be as attractive as some of its competitors however, it does have enough features to make a good choice. Its most important feature is the temperature adjustable drawer which helps keep food items such as meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also has a large water dispenser, as well as an excellent Ice machine that is fast.
Another great feature is the "Chill Drawer" that sits above the two crisper bins. The drawer lets you use some of the refrigerator's cooling power into this area so that you can store foods that require extra attention. You can adjust this feature using a slider that's located right in the middle of the drawer. You can also use this feature to set a general cooling level for the whole fridge, but I've noticed that adjusting the general settings tends to have a better effect than specific ones.
During my tests, the temperatures of the refrigerator stayed fairly consistent across different areas of the refrigerator. The temperatures in the middle, top and bottom of the refrigerator did not differ significantly from 38 degrees. That's a good performance however it doesn't make it into the top ten 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 connect this fridge to a smart thermometer to get more precise readings of the internal temperature of your fridge.
The Frigidaire FGHB2866PF's exterior is constructed of stainless steel with a grey body with a "smudge-proof" finish. It is capable of removing streaks and fingerprints, even compared to shiny stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tried.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor on 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 commerce and publishing experience, primarily in digital and retail. Stephanie is adamant about finding the best products and recommending them to customers. She focuses on home goods and technology.