NewAir refrigerators are built with the same compressors we found in Magic Chef mini fridges and others owned by Whirlpool. Again, because there are only a handful of big manufacturers, the parts are roughly the same, and so too is the quality. If you really want to step it up and are looking for a wine fridge, we have recommendations here. A mini fridge with a separate freezer is a great package for galley kitchens, dorms, and wet bars where you want to have all possible storage options. ZDNET’s recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites.
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 whirlpool mini refrigerator 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.
And LG doesn’t sell as wide a variety of that type of fridge as other brands do. But judging from the little info we do have, those models seem to be solid, too. LG’s bottom-freezer models also earned high marks in our reader survey. The shelving and organization in LG fridges earned especially high ratings in our reader survey, as LG beat the other major brands in satisfaction with perceived capacity, storage ability, and accessibility of contents. Among refrigerators from the five major brands, LG fridges seem to make their owners the happiest.
(That’s counting the handles in both cases, but not the 2 inches you should leave between the back of the fridge and the wall for circulation). The doors aren’t flush with cabinetry like those of a “true” counter-depth model, but the overall design tends to feel less obtrusive than a standard-depth model, which can jut way out beyond your cabinets. It’s common among models of both types to have separate cooling systems for the fridge and freezer compartments , which their makers advertise as an upgrade over the single systems used in most fridges.
But maybe that’s because the brand’s slightly higher prices discourage people from buying the truly lowest-end models, so they don’t drag down the overall rating. Whirlpool’s reliability for this style also seems to be a little better Frigidaire fridge than that of the other two brands. But we just don’t have enough data to say how these Whirlpools compare to similarly priced models with comparable features from LG or Samsung, so we don’t want to endorse one brand over another.