French Door Refrigerator With Ice Maker Review
Melding form with function, French-door refrigerators come with stylish double doors that open to an expansive fridge on the top and a freezer drawer beneath. Special features like through-the-door dispensers, high-end ice machines, and customizable flex drawers make them stand out from the rest.
We sought out experts like Ladina Schopf, interior designer, architect, and founder of LS Projects, for tips on how to select the best one. They considered storage capacity, layout and energy efficiency, among other aspects.
GE Profile Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
As the name suggests, the GE Profile series targets the consumer who wants to incorporate cutting-edge technologies in their kitchen. This fridge has them all including the Keurig K cup coffee maker in the door, to a clever 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.
This refrigerator is a good choice, despite the blip. It comes with a huge freezer compartment, which is uncommon in counter-depth French door refrigerators. Additionally, it can hold a decent amount of frozen foods compared to similar models.
The fridge is equipped with 17 shelves and compartments. The fridge compartment offers 18.5 cubic feet of space, which is on what you would expect from an French door fridge costing this much. It also has a decent sized ice maker packed into the left-hand door, although it's not the largest I've seen.
You can adjust the shelving in both compartments to create customized storage arrangement for the items you need to keep. The interior design of the GE PYE22PYNFS is good-looking, too. The LED lighting adds a nice feature. The storage bins in the door come with a third shelf that can be folded down to store tall objects. The drawers come with temperature controls, so you can set them to Meat, Beverage, or Deli settings. The drawers are easy to open and shut however I found the plastic's textured coatings to be a bit rough on my fingers.
The GE PGE29BYTFS Smart Refrigerator comes with the complete set of features you'd expect from a refrigerator in this price range, including Wi-Fi and app support via GE's SmartHQ software. The app, available for iOS and Android devices can let you control your fridge from anywhere in the world, and has many options for customizing. It also gives you notifications when a door is left open, when your fridge or freezer needs to be defrosted and when it's time to change the filter.
It is nice if GE PYE22PYNFS offered Precise fill the option that is that is available in a few GE refrigerators that allow users to set how many cups they want to pour out. It does have a countdown feature on the display of the fridge to show how much water you have left, but it's not as helpful as Precise Fill.
Bosch Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
Designed to look like a seamless piece of your kitchen Bosch's French door refrigerator is an eye-catching piece. The fridge uses fingerprint-resistant stainless steel, which is a great feature for busy households. It also has a veggie compartment that keeps fruits and vegetables fresher for longer periods, and two compressors for preserving food. The ice maker we tested is one of the most efficient and produces pyramid shaped ice using minimal water. This refrigerator is ideal for a small household or a kitchenette that wants an elegant design and top of the highest quality food preservation.
This fridge was the top-rated refrigerator in our Refrigerators test, for a few reasons. Its freezer temperatures held firm at just above 0 degrees Fahrenheit and never fluctuating more than a fraction an inch. This is essential to preventing freezer burn. The fridge's refrigerator section also performed well, achieving the desired initial set temperature within a matter of hours and keeping that temperature steady throughout 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. The app allows you to monitor and control the refrigerator remotely using your smartphone or tablet. The fridge is expensive, but it comes with excellent features and functionality for the cost.
It is important to know the limitations of the fridge. It has a limited space for shelves, so you may have to think creatively when storing tall objects. The shelves are not resistant to spills and are easily damaged or stained by sharp items. It's simple to remove the refrigerator trays However, be sure to clean them regularly to prevent mold growth.
If you are thinking about this refrigerator, make sure you look over our review of the French Door GE Appliances Refrigerator and the Bosch Bottom Freezer Refrigerator.
LG Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
The LG LRFLC2706S is a great counter-depth refrigerator that packs a lot of storage space into 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 door bins on each door as well as two rows of spill-capture shelves, and a set of sleeker drawers. The top shelf on the right can be folded in order to create more space for tall items. There's also a full-width drawer for products from the deli and an inside water dispenser.
One of the nice features of this refrigerator is that the ice maker is inside the freezer, making it easy to move frozen ice to the fridge to use as needed. The freezer also has innovative design features such as sliding drawers that help you organize your items. It also has a large bin that can accommodate plenty of frozen food and a separate container for storing ice.
Another great feature of this refrigerator is its Smart InstaView panel. french door fridge freezers lets you manage the refrigerator's temperature, lighting, and more using your smartphone. It's a great way to control and monitor your refrigerator, especially if you're away from home.
The Smart InstaView feature is neat but it doesn't improve the performance 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 greater capacity.
The doors are another problem with this fridge. The sunken handles allow smaller people to open them from the bottom. However taller people will have a difficult time closing them without slamming. It would have been much better if they came with a front-mounted handles.
The LG Counter-Depth MAX is a good choice for those who want to combine the benefits of a French-door refrigerator's aesthetics with a more efficient layout. Its capacity is higher than average for a counter-depth model, and it cools evenly and has a great layout. It's also a little less than the best counter depth refrigerators that have an ice maker, which makes it an attractive choice.
Frigidaire Counter Depth French Door Refrigerator
If you're looking for an French door refrigerator that won't cost a fortune this Frigidaire is a great choice. It has a simple design that's not as visually striking as other models but it does have enough features to make it a good option. Its most important feature 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.
The "Chill Drawer", which sits above the two crisper bins, is a great feature. This drawer lets you direct the majority of your fridge's cooling power to this area, so it can be used to store food items that require extra attention. You can alter this feature by using a slider that's located right outside of the drawer. You can also use this to set a general cooling setting for the entire fridge though I've found that adjusting the generic settings tends to produce better results than specific ones.
In my tests, the refrigerator's temperatures were fairly constant across the different areas of the refrigerator. Temperatures at the top and bottom of the fridge didn't stray much from 38 degrees, and even the middle of the fridge was within one degree of 36. This is a pretty good performance however it doesn't 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. The fridge can be linked with a smart thermostat to get more accurate readings on the internal temperature of your fridge.
The exterior of the Frigidaire is made from gray-bodied stainless with a "smudge proof" finish. It is capable 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 and product test reviews. She has over 15 years of experience in publishing and commerce mostly in retail and digital. Stephanie is passionate about finding and recommending the best products for consumers, with a particular focus on home items and technology.