French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Combining form and function, French-door refrigerators come with stylish double doors that open to an enormous fridge on the top and a freezer drawer below. These refrigerators stand out due to their unique features, including through-the-door dispensers and higher-end ice makers.
We asked Ladina Schopf - an interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her tips on how to select the best one. We looked at the storage capacity, layout, and energy efficiency, among other features.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As its name suggests, the GE Profile series is aimed at people who want to incorporate cutting-edge technology into their kitchen. The refrigerator is brimming with them, from an in-the-door Keurig K-cup coffee maker to a sophisticated 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, so I expected better.
Apart from that minor flaw, this fridge is a fantastic choice. It has a huge freezer compartment that is not common for counter-depth French-door refrigerators. It also holds a lot of frozen food, which is a big difference from other models.
The fridge has 17 shelves and compartments. The refrigerator compartment has 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is on what you would expect from the size of a French door fridge that costs this much. It also has a decent-sized icemaker packed into the left door, but it's not the largest I've seen.
You can adjust the shelving in each compartment to create a custom storage setup for the items you need to keep. The GE PYE22PYNFS's design for the interior is good-looking, too. The LED lighting is an attractive touch. The in-door storage bins come with a third shelf that can be folded down to store tall items. The drawers include temperature controls that allow you to set them to Meat, Beverage or Deli settings. They're easy to open and close, however I found their textured plastic coatings to be a little difficult on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator within this price range. It has Wi-Fi, 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 a ton of customization options. It also gives you notifications when doors are left open, when your fridge or freezer needs defrosting and when it's time to change the filter.
It would be great if GE PYE22PYNFS could offer Precise Fill the option that is available in a handful of GE refrigerators that allows users to select how many cups they want to pour out. The fridge displays a countdown timer to show you how much water is 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 look like it's a seamless part in your kitchen. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also has a vegetable compartment to keep vegetables and fruits fresher longer and has dual compressors to ensure the best food preservation. The ice maker is one of the best we've ever tested and produces a pyramid-shaped ice with a low water usage. This fridge is perfect for a single household or a kitchenette with an attractive design and top of the line food preservation.
The fridge was rated the best refrigerator in our Refrigerators test for several reasons. The freezer temperatures remained steady at just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit, never fluctuating more than a fraction of an inch. This is essential in preventing freezing burn. The fridge's refrigerator section also performed well, achieving the desired temperature for initial set within an hour and keeping the temperature constant over the course of our tests.
Bosch is known for its top-of-the-line appliances and appliances, so it's not a surprise that this counter depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance that has the option to connect to your home Wi-Fi as well as Bosch's Home Connect platform. The app allows you to monitor and control your refrigerator remotely on your smartphone or tablet. The fridge is expensive however, it offers excellent features and functionality at a fair price.
While the fridge is an amazing appliance however, it is important to understand the limitations. It is possible to be inventive with tall items since the fridge has a small shelf space. The shelves aren't resistant to spills and are easily damaged or stained by sharp objects. The trays can be easily removed from the fridge. However, they must be cleaned frequently to stop the growth of mold.
If you are considering this refrigerator, make sure you 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 need lots of space within 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. The fridge has an ordinary French door layout, with two rows of shelving with spill-capture and a set crisper drawers. The top shelf to the right can be folded in order to create more space for taller items. There's also a full-width drawer to store food items and an internal water dispenser.
This refrigerator is equipped with an ice maker, making it easy to transfer the frozen ice whenever you need it. The freezer features thoughtful design elements, for instance, sliding drawers to help you better organize the placement of items. It also has a large bin that holds plenty of frozen food items as well as an ice storage bin.
Smart InstaView panel is another cool feature of the refrigerator. You can manage the temperature, lighting and other aspects of your refrigerator from your smartphone. It's a good way to monitor and manage your refrigerator, especially 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 refrigerator than other refrigerators we tried. This is likely due to the larger capacity.
Another issue with this refrigerator is its doors. They have sunken handles on the front, which allow shorter people to easily pull them open from the bottom, but they're difficult for taller people to pull closed without slamming them. It would have been better if they had front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a excellent option for those looking to combine the advantages of a French-door fridge's aesthetics with a more efficient layout. 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 best counter-depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which can make it a popular choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for a French door fridge that doesn't break the bank, this Frigidaire is a good choice. It's a basic design that's not as striking visually as some of the competition but it does have enough features to make it a solid option. Its most important feature, the adjustable temperature drawer, helps to keep food like vegetables and meat fresher longer. It also has a large water and ice maker dispenser.
The "Chill Drawer", which sits over the two crisper bins, is a nice feature. The drawer lets you direct a portion of your fridge's cooling power to this area so that you can store foods which need extra attention. french style fridge freezer is adjustable using a slider located outside the drawer. You can also use this to adjust the general cooling settings for the whole fridge, though I've found that adjusting the general settings tends to be more effective than specific ones.
In my tests, I discovered that the temperatures of the refrigerator were fairly consistent in different parts of the refrigerator. The temperatures in the top, bottom and middle of the fridge didn't differ much from 38 degrees. This is a solid performance, but isn't quite at the top of 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 combine this fridge with a smart thermometer for more precise measurements of your fridge's internal temperature.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made from grey-bodied stainless with a "smudge resistant" finish. It does an excellent job of preventing streaks and fingerprints from appearing, even compared to glossy stainless steel finishes on other appliances I've tested.
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 over 15 years of experience in commerce and publishing mostly in retail and digital. Stephanie is committed to finding and recommending the most effective products for consumers, with a a focus on home goods and technology.