French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Melding form with function, French-door refrigerators come with elegant double doors that open up to a spacious fridge up the top and a freezer drawer beneath. french door fridge and freezer as through-the-door dispensers, higher-end ice machines and adjustable flex drawers make them stand out from the crowd.
We contacted Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the right one. They weighed the capacity of storage as well as layout, energy efficiency, and other aspects.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Like the name suggests, the GE Profile series targets the consumer who wants to incorporate cutting-edge technologies into their kitchen. This fridge has them all, from the 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. This fridge is expensive, so I expected better.
Apart from that minor flaw however, this refrigerator is a great choice. It has a large freezer compartment, which is quite uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Additionally, it holds a fair amount of frozen foods in comparison to similar models.
Inside the fridge, there are 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment offers 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is on what you would expect from a French door fridge that costs this much. It also has a decent sized ice maker in the left door, but it's not the largest I've seen.
You can adjust the shelves in each compartment to create a customized storage arrangement for what you want to store. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS also looks attractive. Its LED lighting is a nice addition, and the in-door storage bins have a third shelf that can fold down to allow you to store large items. The drawers include temperature controls that let you set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, but I found their plastic textured coatings a bit hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator is equipped with a all the features you'd expect from a fridge in this price range with Wi-Fi and app support through GE's SmartHQ software. The app is compatible with iOS and Android devices and lets you control your refrigerator from any place in the globe. It also has many options for customization. It also sends you notifications when doors are left open, when the refrigerator or freezer needs defrosting and when it's time to change the filter.
It would be great if GE PYE22PYNFS could offer Precise Fill, an option found in a few GE refrigerators that allows users to set the number of cups they would like to pour out. It also has an indicator on the fridge's display to display how much water have left, but it's not as useful as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Designed to look like a seamless part 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 vegetable compartment that keeps vegetables and fruits fresher longer, and two compressors for maximum preservation of food. The ice maker we tested was one of the most efficient and produces an ice pyramid with only a little water. This fridge is the perfect choice for single household or kitchenettes that want a sleek design and top of the line food preservation.
This fridge was rated as the most efficient in our Refrigerators Test for several reasons. Its freezer temperatures held firm at a level that was just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit and never changing by more than a fraction a degree--this is key to preventing freezing burn. The fridge's refrigerator section also performed well, reaching the desired temperature for initial set within a matter of hours and keeping that temperature steady over the course of our testing.
Bosch is known for its top-of-the-line 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 lets you monitor and control your fridge remotely from your smartphone or tablet. The refrigerator is expensive, but it comes with top-quality features and functions for the price.
It's important to understand the limitations of the fridge. It is possible to be inventive with tall items since the fridge has a small shelf space. Additionally the shelves aren't completely sprillproof, and can easily be stained or damaged by sharp objects. It's easy to remove the refrigerator trays however, you must clean them frequently to prevent mold growth.
If you're considering this refrigerator, make sure to read 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 is an excellent counter-depth refrigerator that packs plenty of storage into the frame's compact size. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. The fridge features a standard French door design, and two rows of spill-capture shelving and a set of crisper drawers. The upper right shelf can be folded down to give tall items more space. You'll also find a full-width drawer for deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the nice things about this refrigerator is that its ice maker is inside the freezer, which makes it simple to move the ice to the refrigerator for use when needed. The freezer is designed with thoughtful elements, too, like sliding drawers that can help you to organize the place of your items. It also comes with a large bin that can accommodate plenty of frozen food and an additional storage bin for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is a cool feature of the refrigerator. It allows you to manage the refrigerator's temperature as well as lighting using your smartphone. It's a nice method of monitoring and managing your refrigerator, particularly if you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat however it doesn't enhance the efficiency of the fridge. In fact it took longer to defrost and chill foods in this fridge than some of the others we tested. french door fridge freezer is likely due to the bigger capacity.
The doors are another problem with this fridge. They have handles that are sunken on the front that allow smaller people to open them from the bottom, but they're still difficult for taller people to guide closed without slamming the doors. It would have been much better to have front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is a great choice for those who want to combine the look of a French door refrigerator with a more efficient design. Its capacity is superior for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a good layout. It's also less expensive than the most expensive counter depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which makes it an attractive option.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a good option if you want a French-door refrigerator that doesn't cost a lot of budget. It's a basic fridge that might not be as eye-catching as some of its competitors, but it still has enough features to make it a an excellent option. Its most important feature, the temperature adjustable drawer, helps to keep food items such as vegetables and meat fresher longer. It also comes with a huge ice maker as well as a water dispenser.
The "Chill Drawer", which sits above the two crisper bins, is a great feature. The drawer allows you to divert part of the refrigerator's cooling power directly into this area, which means you can keep food items that require extra attention. You can alter this feature using a slider that's located right on the outside of the drawer. You can also use this feature to adjust the general cooling settings for the whole fridge, though I've found that adjusting the generic settings tends to have a better effect than specific ones.
During my tests, I discovered that the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly consistent in different parts of the fridge. The temperatures in the top and bottom of the fridge didn't stray very far from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within a degree of 36. That's a good performance however it doesn't rank among the best 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 with a "smudge-proof" finish. It is capable of preventing streaks and fingerprints from appearing, even compared to shiny stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tested.
Stephanie Cronk is the executive editor on Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guides as well as product reviews for test products. She has over 15 years of experience in commerce and publishing including retail and digital. Stephanie is committed to finding and recommending the top products for consumers, with a a focus on home goods and tech.