And again, if you ever need to make a claim under the warranty, you’ll be dealing with LG’s below-average customer service. The big caveat with LG fridges is that some of its larger fridges are more likely than those of other brands to stop cooling. But there are some rules of thumb to follow if you want to maximize your energy savings, such as choosing a smaller capacity, passing on a door dispenser, and avoiding side-by-side models. We asked 5,000-plus readers how satisfied they are with their fridges and the appliances’ reliability, as well as which features matter. It has two adjustable shelves in the fridge and one in the freezer, and its crisper drawer keeps produce fresh.
Having a small refrigerator in your dorm room makes it easy to keep fresh food and cool drinks on hand between classes or when you just can’t bring yourself to eat another meal in the dining hall. Mini fridges are also great for use at home when you might need a bit of extra cold storage for groceries like meat, drinks, and vegetables. The LED interior light uses a motion sensor to automatically turn on as you approach.
Customer ratings for these pricier models often reach 4.7 stars out of five on Home Depot’s site, whereas the midrange models tend to earn closer to 4.4 stars. And according to our reader survey, brands that exclusively sell premium fridges have higher owner satisfaction than brands that sell fridges at a mix of prices. Whirlpool was one of the few brands that had enough survey responses about bottom-freezer models to be statistically significant, and the ratings were strong.
Maybe the fridge will be in a galley kitchen or pantry, or maybe an island stands tight to the fridge cutout, and it’s going to be a pain to deal with a fridge that takes up too much room. Some “counter-depth” fridges really stretch the definition, sitting at more than 30 inches deep—they’re shallower than similar standard-depth models from the same brand, but not by much. So you should double-check any counter-depth fridge’s actual dimensions. We don’t have perfect information about the best brands or models, but we do have a few leads. Top-freezer fridge owners are more likely to complain that their fridges are loud, though it’s still a relatively low percentage, even among the noisiest models. IKEA’s house-brand refrigerators are manufactured by Whirlpool and have mostly similar characteristics.
If you need a fridge on short notice and a Samsung model looks like a top bet, it probably won’t be a disaster. But most people seem to think that a built-in ice maker is worth having. Some upscale fridges even have specialty ice features, like LG’s Craft Ice clear spheres (38% of the owners of one model whose reviews we analyzed cited Craft Ice as one of their favorite features). Normally priced at $139.99, the mini fridge can hold just about anything with its two shelves, such as cans of soda, two-liter bottles, and even frozen pizza and ice cream.
The customer ratings for these models are solid and sometimes even great, though these owners are more likely than normal to complain about noise, lack of shelving, and lack of capacity. The barebones GE GTE17DTNRWW, for example, has an average rating of 4.5 stars on Home Depot’s site, beating out most side-by-side models, but a whopping 18% of recent reviewers write that it’s noisy. We also found through our survey and customer-review analysis that Whirlpool’s French-door and side-by-side reliability was similar to that of the other brands—although notably, the rate of major problems seemed especially low. As a brand, Whirlpool had the fewest complaints in our survey about truly bad reliability .
All of Whirlpool’s freestanding refrigerators were transitioned to the climate-friendly R600a refrigerant by the end of 2021. Senior staff writer Liam McCabe has covered home appliances since 2011, including a stint at Reviewed, and has worked on versions of this Wirecutter guide since 2014. Skip to content HUGE SALE – 50% off all retail items online and in-store. If that does not help, clean the inside of the unit by following the cleaning instructions included in the owner’s manual.
Think through what you want for capacity, shelving, and organization. These closely related qualities are highly important to most fridge owners. For higher-end models with specialized organization features (such as a door-in-door system or a two-drawer French-door model), size and layout were usually cited in more than 50% of reviews, and the sentiment was largely positive. If you find yourself in constant awe at how fast your fridge fills up, it may be time to consider investing in some extra real estate with a mini fridge. These compact appliances can suit any space and still have ample room to comfortably house everything from extra soda cans and wine bottles to leftovers and groceries.
Looking to past performance also can’t account for changes in the way refrigerators are currently manufactured. We’ve learned from talking to manufacturers and touring appliance factories that components and processes and employees can change as often as every few weeks, yet the product’s model name remains the same. In other words, today’s fridge might not be whirlpool mini refrigerator exactly the same product as last month’s fridge, and there can be bad batches. You can spend a lot more than $4,000 on a fridge if you’d like to. At these high prices, you can find plenty of notable brands, some of which are sub-labels of the major brands, like JennAir , Monogram , Thermador and Gaggenau (both under Bosch’s parent company, BSH), and Dacor .