French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
French-door refrigerators are a perfect blend of form and function. They come with elegant double doors that open to reveal an enormous fridge on top and a freezer drawer below. Special features like through-the-door dispensers, higher-end ice machines and flex drawers that can be customized make them stand out from the rest.
We contacted Ladina Schopf - interior designer, architect and founder of LS Projects - for her suggestions on how to pick the best one. They weighed storage capacity as well as layout and energy efficiency as well as other factors.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As its name suggests, the GE Profile series is aimed at consumers who want to integrate cutting-edge features in their kitchen. This fridge is loaded with 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. Given that this fridge costs more, I'd expect better.
This fridge is a good option, despite the slight blip. It features a large freezer compartment which is uncommon for counter-depth French-door fridges. french door fridge freezers holds a lot of frozen food, which is a big difference from other models.
Inside the fridge, there are 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment offers 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is about what you would expect from the size of a French door fridge costing this much. It also has an adequate-sized icemaker packed into the left door, though it isn't the largest I've seen.
You can adjust the shelves in both compartments to create a the perfect storage solution. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is attractive, too. The LED lighting is a nice addition, and the in-door storage bins feature a third shelf that can fold down to make it possible to store large items. The drawers come with 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 plastic textured coatings to be a bit hard on the fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator includes the all the features you'd expect from a refrigerator in this price range, including Wi-Fi and app support via GE's SmartHQ software. The app, which is available for iOS and Android devices allows you to control your fridge from anywhere in world, and offers a ton of customization options. 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 nice if the GE PYE22PYNFS came with Precise Fill, an option available in a handful of other GE refrigerators that allows you to preset how many cups of water you'd like to pour out at a time. It also has a countdown on the fridge's display to show how much water you have remaining, but that's not as effective as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The Bosch French-door Refrigerator is an impressive product. It's designed to look like it's a seamless part of 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 the best preservation of food. The Ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient and produces an ice pyramid with only a little water. This fridge is ideal for a single household or a kitchenette with an attractive design and top of the highest quality food preservation.
The fridge was rated the best refrigerator in our Refrigerators test, for a few reasons. Its freezer temperatures remained constant at just above 0°F and never fluctuated more than a fraction - this is crucial to avoid freezing burn. The fridge section of the refrigerator also performed well. It reached the initial temperature set within a matter of hours, and remained at the temperature throughout our testing.
Bosch is known for its premium appliances which is why it's no surprise that this counter-depth refrigerator is also a smart appliance with the option to connect to your home Wi-Fi and Bosch's Home Connect platform. The app allows you to control and monitor the refrigerator remotely using your smartphone or tablet. The refrigerator is pricey however, it offers excellent features and capabilities at a reasonable cost.
While the fridge is an amazing appliance, it's important to know the limitations. It is possible to be inventive with tall items since the fridge is limited in shelf space. Additionally, the shelves are not impervious to sprills and could be stained or damaged by sharp objects. It's simple to remove the trays in the fridge however, you must clean them frequently to prevent mold growth.
If you're thinking about buying this refrigerator, be sure to also review our opinions on the French Door GE Appliances Refrigerator as well as the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S counter-depth refrigerator is a great choice for those who require lots of space within a small frame. It has a sleek, fingerprint-resistant stainless-steel finish and features thick handles that make them comfortable to grip. The fridge features an ordinary French door design, and two rows of spill-capture shelving and a set crisper drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded down to give tall items more space. There's also a full-width storage drawer for products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
This refrigerator has a freezer with an ice maker, making it easy to move the frozen ice whenever you need it. The freezer also comes with thoughtful design features, like sliding drawers that can help you organize your belongings. It also has a large container to store frozen food items, and a separate one for ice.
Smart InstaView panel is a cool feature of the refrigerator. It lets you control the temperature of your fridge, lighting, and more using your smartphone. It's a simple method to keep track of your fridge and manage it, especially when not at home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat, but it doesn't necessarily enhance the efficiency of the fridge. In fact it took longer to defrost and chill foods in this fridge than other refrigerators we tested. This could be due to the bigger capacity.
Another issue with this refrigerator is its doors. The sunken handles allow shorter people to open them from the bottom. However taller people will struggle to close them without slamming them. It would have been much better if they came with a front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX fridge is an excellent choice for those looking to blend the look of a French door refrigerator with more efficient design. It has a capacity that is superior to counter-depth models and also cools evenly. It's also a little less than the most expensive counter depth refrigerators that have an icemaker, which makes it a great choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
This Frigidaire French door refrigerator is a great choice for those looking for a French-door fridge that doesn't break the budget. It's a basic refrigerator which may not be as appealing like some of its competitors however, it does have enough features to make a good choice. Its most important characteristic is the adjustable temperature drawer, which helps keep foods like meat and vegetables fresher for longer. It also has a large ice maker as well as a water dispenser.
Another great feature is the "Chill Drawer" that sits above the two crisper bins. This drawer allows you to use some of the refrigerator's cooling power into the area so it can be used to store food items that require extra attention. This feature is adjustable using a slider located outside the drawer. You can also adjust the general cooling settings for the entire fridge. I've found that the generic settings work better than the specific ones.
In my tests, I found that the temperatures in the refrigerator were fairly consistent across different parts of the fridge. The temperatures in the middle, top and bottom of the refrigerator did not differ significantly from 38 degrees. That's a good performance, but it doesn't quite rank among the best 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 combine this fridge with a smart thermometer to get more precise readings of your fridge's internal temperature.
The Frigidaire FGHB2866PF's exterior is constructed of grey-bodied stainless steel which has a "smudge-proof" 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 is the executive editor of Reviewed's Commerce/Product Reviews team and oversees the site's buyer's guides as well as product reviews for test products. She has more than 15 years of publishing and commerce experience, primarily in digital and retail. Stephanie is passionate about finding the most effective products and recommending them to customers. She concentrates on home and technology.