French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Melding form with function, French-door refrigerators offer stylish double doors that open up to a spacious fridge up the top and a freezer drawer below. Special features such as through-the-door dispensers, high-end ice machines, and customizable flex drawers make them stand out from the crowd.
We asked Ladina Schopf - an interior designer, architect, and the founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the right home. They weighed storage capacity, layout, energy efficiency, and other aspects.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Like the name suggests, the GE Profile series targets consumers who want to incorporate cutting-edge features in their kitchen. This fridge is loaded 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. This refrigerator is costly and I was expecting better.
Aside from that blip however, this refrigerator is a great choice. It has a large freezer compartment, which is uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Furthermore, it can hold a decent amount of frozen food as compared to similar models.
The fridge has 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment is 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is about the same as the size of a French door fridge that costs this much. It comes with a decent size refrigerator with an ice maker in the left door. But, it's not the largest one I've seen.
You can alter the shelves in each compartment to create a customized storage arrangement for what you want to store. The GE PYE22PYNFS's interior design is stylish, too. The LED lighting is an attractive accent. The storage bins in the door come with a third shelf that can be folded down to store tall objects. The drawers have temperature controls so you can set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, although I found their plastic textured coatings to be a bit hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with the complete set of features you'd expect from a refrigerator in this price range with Wi-Fi and app support via GE's SmartHQ software. The app, available for iOS and Android devices allows you to control your fridge from anywhere in world, and offers numerous options for customization. It will also send you notifications when the door is unlocked, when the fridge or freezer needs to be defrosted, and when the filter requires a change.
It is nice to have GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill which is a feature found in a few GE refrigerators that allow users to set the amount of cups they wish to pour out. The fridge shows a countdown to display how much water remains however 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 appear like a seamless piece in your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also comes with a veggie compartment that helps keep fruits and vegetables fresher longer and dual compressors to ensure maximum preservation of food. The Ice maker is among the best we've ever tested, and it produces a pyramid-shaped form of ice with a low water consumption. This refrigerator is the ideal option for households with a single member or kitchenettes that want a built-in look and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was the top-rated refrigerator in our Refrigerators Test for various reasons. Its freezer temperatures remained constant at just above 0°F and never changed more than a tiny fraction - this is essential to avoid freezing burn. The fridge's fridge section also performed well, achieving the desired initial set temperature within an hour and maintaining that temperature steady over the course of our testing.
Bosch is a household name for its top-quality appliances. Therefore, it's no surprise that Bosch's counter depth fridge Bosch counter depth refrigerator can be connected to your home Wi Fi and Bosch's Home Connect. french door fridge freezer allows you to monitor and control the refrigerator remotely using your smartphone or tablet. The fridge is expensive, but it offers top-quality features and functions for the price.
It is important to know the limitations of the fridge. It has a limited space for shelves, so you'll need to be creative when it comes to storing large items. The shelves are not spillproof and can easily be damaged or stained by sharp objects. The trays are easily removed from the fridge. However, they must be cleaned frequently to stop the growth of mold.
If you're considering this refrigerator, make sure to also review our opinions on 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 plenty of storage in an extremely compact frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. Inside, the fridge features the standard French-door layout, with gallon-sized bins for the doors 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. You'll also find a full-width deli drawer and an internal water dispenser.
One of the great things about this refrigerator is that the ice maker is inside the freezer, which makes it easy to move ice into the fridge for use when needed. The freezer has thoughtful design elements, as well, such as sliding drawers that help better organize the position of your items. It has a large bin to store frozen food items, and a separate container for ice.
Another great feature of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. You can manage the temperature, lighting, and more of your fridge from your smartphone. It's a great way to control and monitor your refrigerator, particularly if you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat, but it doesn't necessarily enhance the performance of the fridge. This fridge took longer to defrost food and chill it than some others we test. This is likely due to its bigger capacity.
The doors are a different issue with this fridge. They have handles that are sunken on the front, which allow smaller people to pull them open from the bottom, however they're still difficult for taller people to steer closed without slamming the doors. It would have been better if these had front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is a great choice for those looking to combine the look of a French door refrigerator with an efficient design. Its capacity is above average for a counter-depth model, and it cools well and has a nice layout. It's also a little cheaper than the top counter-depth refrigerator that has an ice maker, which can make it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for an French door fridge that doesn't break the bank, this Frigidaire is a great choice. It's a basic design that's not as visually striking as some of the competition however it comes with enough features that make it a great pick. Its most significant feature, the adjustable temperature drawer helps to keep food like vegetables and meat fresher longer. It also has a large water dispenser, as well as an excellent ice machine that works fast.
Another great feature is the "Chill Drawer" that sits over the two crisper bins. This drawer lets you redirect some of the refrigerator's cooling power directly to this area, which means you can put away food items that require extra attention. This feature is adjustable using an outside slider that is located inside the drawer. It is also possible to use this to set a general cooling level for the entire fridge, but I've noticed that adjusting the general settings tends produce better results than specific ones.
During my experiments, I noticed that the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly consistent in various parts of the fridge. The temperatures in the top, bottom and middle of the refrigerator did not differ much from 38 degrees. That's a good performance, but it doesn't quite be among the top in 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 to gain more precise information on the internal temperature of your fridge.
The Frigidaire FGHB2866PF's exterior is made of grey-bodied stainless steel that has a "smudge-proof" finish. It does a great job of preventing streaks and fingerprints from appearing even when compared to the glossier stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tried.
Stephanie Cronk, executive editor of Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews Team, oversees the site's buyer's guides as well as product test reviews. She has more than 15 years of publishing and commerce experience, with a focus on retail and digital. Stephanie is committed to finding and recommending the top products for consumers, with a focus on home goods and tech.