For a limited time only, discounts are as high as 27 percent off, which can save you up to $50. However, some upscale French-door variants have a fourth door, in the form of a second drawer, usually a small tray between the fridge and freezer. Owners tend to find this style easier to organize, judging from what we’ve seen in our reader-survey results and customer-review analysis. It’s often used as a “kid’s drawer” Arctic King for parent-approved snacks at a tyke-friendly height, but you can use it for anything you’d usually stick in a fridge—produce, deli items, canned or bottled or boxed drinks, whatever. One owner commented in our reader survey that it’s easier for small people to open lighter, separate drawers than one large bucket drawer. Family-size models from major brands including Frigidaire and GE start around $600.
Wide but shallow fridges, like counter-depth French-door models, might represent a happy medium. These fridges are big enough to help minimize shopping trips, they might reduce the amount of time you spend looking for items, and they are compact enough to save some energy. Any prediction about reliability is based on data about older fridges. That’s a reasonable way to try to do it, but there isn’t much of that historical data to begin with, especially outside of the five major brands.
Our overall pick is the most versatile mini fridge we could find, with room for everything from cans and condiments to takeout boxes, as well as a pint of ice cream or a couple of ice trays in the freezer section. If you’re looking for a mini fridge that you can put to work in a pinch as either a fridge or a freezer, this is the easiest, most compact and stowable option around, and came recommended to us by the experts at Liberty Home Guard. I looked at this fridge this morning, and I found the specs (4.3 cu.ft) suspect. Target has another Whirlpool with the exact same dimensions listing 3.5 cu.ft.
You can put a small, affordable top-freezer fridge in a big cutout meant for a humongous, expensive French-door model. Bigger fridges do tend to make people much happier than smaller ones, according to our reader survey and analysis of customer reviews. Many people buy the widest fridge that fits their space and budget and often one that’s very deep , too.
Why go all the way to the campus cafeteria or dorm lobby for a cold drink when you can easily just get it out of this mini fridge in the corner of your room? Trust us, your kids will thank you and so will their new roommate. However, units can be built in as long as the space/ventilation requirements Frigidaire fridge indicated in the owner’s manual are met. The front of the appliance should be left open so that air can circulate around the appliance. In the age of TikTok, aesthetics are king, and while this may seem frivolous to some, a mini fridge can also be used to elevate a small space.
Owners like this Bosch model’s style and often say it seems to keeps food fresher a little longer . The GE Café line is also well liked among owners who have left reviews, mostly for its style. We don’t have enough evidence to say with confidence that one brand of top-freezer fridges is significantly better than others. In our reader survey, we didn’t receive enough responses about LG or Samsung top-freezer models, for example, for the results to be statistically significant, let alone for smaller brands like Insignia or Magic Chef. Even with all those upgrades, a top-of-the-line top-freezer model will almost always still cost less than any other style of refrigerator of comparable size. We don’t have great data on LG’s reputation for top-freezer models—we got too few survey responses regarding such models to reach statistical significance.
Their ratings of the organizational features weren’t quite as high, either. At less than 20 inches wide and 36 inches tall, the beauty of this mini fridge is that not only does it take up very little space, but it can hold a deceptive amount of food. It comes with a removable, slide-out glass shelf, which allows you to organize the fridge according to your needs.
Insignia is Best Buy’s house brand, and you can get some great deals on basic (but often big!) fridges. We did a little digging, and unlike refrigerators from other big store brands Insignia fridges don’t seem to be made by any of the other major manufacturers. The customer ratings are solid, though we didn’t get enough info from our reader survey to understand how Insignia models compare to those of other brands. According to our reader survey, slightly fewer Whirlpool French-door owners than their GE counterparts said they were very or somewhat satisfied, and they trailed even further behind LG French-door owners.
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