Consumer reports best refrigerator with bottom freezer

Most refrigerators work fine. And fridges come in so many different looks and layouts that we can’t pick the “best” ones. But based on a survey of more than 5,000 Wirecutter readers and an AI-assisted analysis of 28,000 customer reviews, we can give you guidance on how to find the fridge that’s right for you.

LG refrigerators seem to make the most owners the happiest, at least among major-brand models, which usually cost less than $4,000. Whirlpool and GE are pretty good, too. Among the most popular fridge styles, the French-door design (with half-width fridge doors and a pull-out bottom freezer) is the most beloved type. And shallower, counter-depth fridges are big enough for most households.

Beyond that, it’s complicated and mostly a matter of homing in on what fits your space and budget, followed by a bunch of other individual preferences. We’ll walk you through some of the major choices you need to make, and we’ll point out some of the brands, designs, and features that real-world owners tend to like. This guide will be most useful for people who are shopping for a full-size, freestanding refrigerator that costs up to $4,000.

The research

• Why you should trust us
• How to pick a fridge
• LG: The major brand with the highest satisfaction
• GE: Somewhat better customer service
• Whirlpool: Fewer bells and whistles, fewer complaints about bad reliability
• Other major brands
• What about a budget pick?
• What do you get when you pay more for a fridge?
• Why are so many fridges out of stock?
• Door styles: French-doors lead in popularity and satisfaction
• What about counter-depth fridges?
• Reliability: Hope for the best
• Efficiency and sustainability: Much better than they used to be

Why you should trust us

Our advice is based mostly on two big fact-finding projects we conducted to collect feedback from people who use refrigerators and then quantify and analyze that feedback. We did not physically test any refrigerators for this guide, but we think that our extensive research actually helped us identify important trends that we never would have found with testing alone.

Our first major research project was a survey of Wirecutter readers, with more than 5,000 completed responses. This survey gave us solid data on overall satisfaction by brand and door style, an idea of the refrigerator features that make the most people the happiest, and some info about refrigerator reliability.

This survey wasn't perfectly representative: For example, top-freezer refrigerators were massively underrepresented in our sample (10%) compared with their popularity in the US (40% of all full-size fridges sold in 2021, according to statistics provided by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers). And we collected statistically significant data on only seven or so brands (out of dozens). But we’re confident that the survey results point toward some broader truths about the category, particularly among the best-selling styles and brands. (Massive, massive thanks to Wirecutter user research lead Raquel Hamias, who conducted the survey for us and crunched the results into usable numbers.)

The other major source of information was an analysis of 28,000 customer reviews on Home Depot’s site, across 34 different refrigerator models from all the major brands and spanning door types and prices, conducted with the aid of an artificial-intelligence-driven tool called FindOurView. Though this analysis looked at only a small fraction of all the fridges that are available, it gave us loads of detail about the features that owners appreciate most, as well as some idea of the things that specific models do particularly well or poorly. (For example, the platform helped us quickly figure out which LG fridges are especially prone to problems with their cooling systems.)

We also read a slew of other refrigerator reviews, info about reliability, and guides on how to pick and install fridges. For previous versions of this guide, we also spoke to several industry experts, including brand representatives, dealers, and repair technicians.

To be very clear: We haven’t done any hands-on refrigerator testing of our own. That’s largely because of logistics and pandemic protocols, and because there’s simply not a ton to glean objectively from hands-on use. We have, however, touched most of the fridges we mention in this guide at appliance showrooms—we’ve yanked the handles and wiggled the shelves and so on.

This guide doesn’t have all the answers. We haven’t yet done as much research as we would like into topics such as built-in fridges, newer brands and those that sell small or moderate volumes of fridges, dual-evaporator cooling systems, mini fridges, all-fridge (no-freezer) models and other less-common refrigerator types, smart fridges, and best practices for maintenance. We plan to examine some of those topics in greater depth in the future. In the meantime, we think the research we’ve done can help a lot of people find a good fridge.

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.

Why we don’t have refrigerator “picks”

We don’t have “official” recommendations for specific refrigerator models. If this were a typical Wirecutter guide, we’d highlight a handful of the “best” refrigerators that, based on our research and testing, would make the most people the happiest. Earlier versions of this guide took that approach, but it never felt like the optimal way to tackle the topic, so we’re trying something different these days.

In this guide we still point you toward brands and general styles that stood out in our research, and we link to examples of specific models (and we may still earn a commission if readers end up making a purchase through those links, which is standard for Wirecutter). But for now we aren’t calling anything a “pick” or “the best.”

This approach feels appropriate for a few reasons. For one, refrigerators are so diverse, even just in terms of size, that we’d struggle to fit a representative list of “picks” onto one page that’s easy to read. In older versions of this guide, we tried to work around that challenge by picking just a handful of the most popular sizes and types, but we heard from readers who couldn’t use those fridges and felt left out or confused. For perspective: As of late February 2022, the 10 best-selling models on Home Depot’s website included three different widths, four different door styles, and a variety of heights, depths, and ice-dispenser designs.

It’s also a very subjective category, and reasonable people can come to different conclusions about all kinds of features: door ice versus freezer bin, counter-depth versus standard-depth, French-door versus side-by-side, to name a few. There’s not really a useful performance metric that would separate good fridges from bad fridges, and there’s not enough strong data about reliability or longevity to make good predictions, either.

So you can use this guide to find a fridge in a couple of different ways. You might go with one of the specific models we mention, or you might use the filtered search function on a retailer’s website: Home Depot, Best Buy, Lowe’s, AJ Madison, Appliances Connection, and many, many others offer handy tools.

How to pick a fridge

First, find the right size. Tons of articles about this are all over the internet, though this video from Home Depot is especially helpful. Here’s our advice, with a couple of tips that are often missing from other guides:

• Take multiple measurements of your space (rather than the existing fridge) to find the maximum width, depth, and height. Seriously—take multiple measurements of each dimension in case your floors turn out to be crooked. Remember to measure any baseboards or trim.
• Build in some buffer space for ventilation. Make it about 1 inch on the top and sides and at least 2 inches at the back. If you jam your fridge in tighter, the fridge’s heat exchange might have to work harder than it was designed to. That can hurt its ability to hold the proper temperatures and might wear out the cooling system faster than its intended lifespan (usually 10 years, according to most manufacturers we’ve talked to).
• Think about measuring the rest of your kitchen. The layout of the rest of your kitchen matters, too. If you have a kitchen island, measure the distance from the wall to the edge of that counter to account for the door swing. In this situation, a counter-depth model, or one with half-width doors (like a French-door or side-by-side model) might make the most sense. If your fridge will sit close to a wall, think about whether the door will be able to swing open wide enough for you to pull out crisper drawers or deli trays. A single-door fridge (like a top-freezer or bottom-freezer model), with the hinge on the opposite side from the wall, might be your best bet.
• Measure your doorways. You can take the doors off the fridge to get a few extra inches, but there are some fridges that you just cannot get inside of certain kitchens.

As long as a fridge fits your space, there’s no wrong size. You can put a small, affordable top-freezer fridge in a big cutout meant for a humongous, expensive French-door model. It might look a little odd, but it’ll work fine. 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 (often 36 inches) and often one that’s very deep (34 inches or more), too.

Determine the depth you want. Although bigger fridges tend to make people happier than smaller ones, customer reviews indicate that the benefits peter out around 20 cubic feet, which is roughly the size of a fridge that’s 36 inches wide but slightly shallower than usual—also known as counter depth. So, even if a deeper, standard-depth fridge fits your space, we think a counter-depth refrigerator is worth considering. According to our analysis of customer reviews, people who own counter-depth fridges (most models, anyway) usually find that the fridges have plenty of capacity, and they tend to be equally happy with their fridges overall. Counter-depth fridges are also arguably easier to organize and look better in most kitchens, plus they tend to use a bit less energy.

After size, you get to decide what else is important to you, in whichever order you choose. Here are the rest of the criteria that most people seem to focus on when they’re thinking about their fridges (in declining order of popularity, roughly), with some advice on how to navigate the choices:

Decide between freestanding or built-in. The only true difference between these types of fridges is that freestanding models have finished sides, while built-in fridges do not because they’re designed to sit flush with and attach to (or even blend in with) cabinetry. Built-ins also cost at least $4,000, can be much wider than freestanding fridges, and are rarely available in top-freezer configurations (but much more commonly available in all-fridge or all-freezer columns). This AJ Madison primer has some additional details on style and sizing options for built-ins. (AJ Madison is a major appliance retailer that carries most brands of refrigerators, both freestanding and built-in.)

Freestanding full-size fridges can be as cheap as $650 or cost thousands of dollars like some built-ins. Since freestanding fridges are much, much more affordable, that’s the type that the overwhelming majority of people buy, so that’s what we focus on in this guide. But some of this guide applies to built-in fridges, too.

Choose a door style. French-door models always dominate the best-seller lists at major retailers, and they were by far the most widely liked of the most popular types in our reader survey. Most people seem to prefer this style because the layout is convenient, and possibly because it looks trendy. But any style can be a good fit for the right kitchen and owner. Some people prefer a side-by-side model’s no-bend freezer access and ample shelving. Top-freezer models are a lot more affordable and can fit really small spaces. Bottom-freezer fridges usually lack the high-end look of French-door models but have a lot of the same practical advantages. Four-door models (equal-size half-width, half-height, swing-open doors) and column designs (all-fridge no-freezer, and vice versa) have their place, too.

Consider reliability. More than half of the respondents in our reader survey said that reliability was one of the top three most important things they wanted in a new fridge. Unfortunately, nobody has a crystal ball that can predict which brand or model—or especially individual refrigerator units on sale today—will last the longest and have the fewest problems. However, after digging through Wirecutter survey responses and retail customer reviews and examining other publicly available data, we have some leads about the brands, fridge types, and even specific models that may be most prone to problems.

Think through what you want for capacity, shelving, and organization. These closely related qualities are highly important to most fridge owners. More than half of the readers who filled out our survey cited one of these three things as a top priority in their fridge, and size or layout was mentioned in at least 25% of the customer reviews we analyzed for any individual fridge. 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.

French-door models earn much more praise and less criticism related to shelving, storage, and organization than side-by-side or top-freezer fridges. One review (collected as part of a promotion) that encapsulates a lot of the praise: “I save on groceries because I can actually see everything,” writes JManigault201 about a French-door model on Home Depot’s website, adding, “I don't have to bend so low to get items out of my fridge. The [drawers] on the freezer make it easy to see my food without having to reach so far back.” The exception here is counter-depth French-door fridges with door dispensers: Owners are more likely to cite these models as being cramped or hard to organize, we found.

In general, we learned that most people are comfortable with the size of their fridge. Complaints about small capacity are just as common among huge 26-cubic-foot models as they are among 16-cubic-foot models, for example. It really has more to do with the shelving and layout. If you want an enormous fridge, by all means, get one. But you might not need quite as much space as you think. (Just to put the idea in your head: We think that if you’re looking for a 36-inch-wide fridge, you’ll probably be happy with a counter-depth fridge.)

Think twice about an ice maker and door dispenser. Automatic ice makers, especially the kind that dispenses ice through the refrigerator door, are both wonderfully convenient and one of the most finicky, problem-prone parts of a fridge. In our reader survey, 24% of respondents said that their ice maker had jammed or completely broken, by far the most common hardware-based failure. That’s particularly notable considering that 17% of respondents didn’t even have an automatic ice maker in the first place or said that they didn’t think about this feature.

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).

We looked for patterns in the types of fridges that are most prone to ice-maker problems, but we couldn’t find any. Ice-maker reliability, as far as we can tell, depends on the specific model of refrigerator, not its brand, door type, or price.

For example: One Samsung French-door fridge, the RF28R7201SR, has a terrible ice maker, with 40% of owners complaining that it jams regularly, according to our AI-assisted analysis of customer reviews. (It was by far the worst service record we came across.) But the similar Samsung RF27T5201SR has far fewer complaints, with 10% of owners complaining about ice jams (still a bad rate). And then the nearly identical-looking Samsung RF28R7551S has essentially no complaints about its ice maker jamming. Similar trends play out among other brands (though none even come close to the failure rate on that first Samsung model).

Consider the finish. Stainless steel is still the trendy-yet-attainable choice, as it has been for a few decades, and is widely regarded as an option that looks good in most kitchens. (Though a common complaint is that it’s a pain to keep fingerprint-free, even for models with supposedly fingerprint-resistant finishes.)

Different brands have slightly different looks to their stainless—some are more reflective, some have more pronounced brushed-metal grooves, some are more fingerprint resistant. If this matters to you, check out some fridges in person.

There are plenty of other finishes to pick from, though they’re available on fewer models. Other neutral, brushed-metal finishes such as black stainless or slate are common. Glossy black and white are still widely available, particularly on cheaper fridges. Whirlpool and GE sell a bisque finish, though we aren’t sure whether this cream color is a throwback to or a holdover from the ’80s. Bolder, brighter colors (or even prints) are available, too, though they tend to be reserved for upscale models and only from certain brands.

Choose a model that maximizes efficiency and sustainability. Refrigerators are much more energy efficient than they were 15 and especially 30 years ago due to stricter efficiency regulations from the Department of Energy, as well as stronger incentives from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program. And as of summer 2021, all of the major brands now claim to use a climate-friendly refrigerant in at least some of their lineups—and a couple have transitioned all of their new fridges in that regard. So without even trying hard, you’ll probably end up with an environmentally sound refrigerator.

Less important factors

Cooling performance and food preservation: Some fridges are probably better at keeping foods fresher and more appetizing for longer, but we haven’t yet looked into the science of how that works or which features to look for. Consumer Reports tests and rates refrigerators for temperature consistency, defined as how quickly (and accurately) each fridge reaches the temperature on its thermostat and how well it holds that temperature as the ambient temperature around the fridge changes. This capability probably has something to do with maintaining freshness, so you could check Consumer Reports’s reviews if you think this will matter.

What we can tell you is that after analyzing more than 28,000 customer reviews across 34 different fridges, it is very uncommon to find criticism of fridges for doing a poor job keeping foods fresh, outside of cases where the cooling system was obviously defective or broken.

When people do complain, it’s usually because the temperature throughout the fridge compartment is uneven: Portions of the door are too warm for milk, for example, or the very top or bottom of the cavity gets so cold that lettuce freezes and turns into disgusting mush. This happens with only some fridges, even if they’re working properly. The problem seems more common among lower-cost top-freezer models, and higher-end models with a door-in-door feature might struggle to hold dairy-safe temperatures in their door shelves. Consumer Reports also tests for this type of temperature uniformity, if you’d like to see performance results for specific models.

Noise: When refrigerators are functioning properly, they do not make enough noise to irritate the vast majority of people. But any refrigerator can become kind of noisy when it’s malfunctioning, and certain models seem more prone to developing these nuisance noises than others. Low-cost top-freezer models tend to run a little louder in the first place and seem to be a bit more prone to nuisance noises, too. But certain larger, pricier models seem more likely to whine or thunk or whirr, and there’s no obvious reason that we’ve been able to discern. We’ve tried to avoid linking to those models in this guide.

LG: The major brand with the highest satisfaction

Among refrigerators from the five major brands, LG fridges seem to make their owners the happiest. In a Wirecutter reader survey, far more real-life LG owners said they were satisfied with their fridges than owners of other brands did, and fewer said they hated their fridges.

On the downside, LG’s customer service is bad (though its fridge reliability is above average, so you have a lower chance of needing to interact with customer service). A handful of specific models (all side-by-sides) have major reliability problems.

But on balance, LG as a brand stands out a bit from the other major manufacturers.

Reader survey: Overall satisfaction by brand

LG’s customer ratings on big retailers’ websites tend to be slightly better than other brands’ too, and other major appliance reviewers generally rate LG fridges at or near the top of the pack.

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.

LG is also a front-runner in quietness and ice-maker quality, and owners are also very satisfied with the temperature accuracy and consistency—a finding backed up by Consumer Reports’s laboratory testing (“Refrigerators,” Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2021, pages 54–61).

Reader survey: Satisfaction with performance and features by brand

Shelves (storage ability and organization)

Overall capacity

Accessibility of contents (in terms of height and depth)

Noise level

Ice maker

LG doesn’t sell as many cheap refrigerators as some of the other brands, particularly Frigidaire, GE, and Whirlpool, so maybe it’s more accurate to compare the satisfaction with its higher-end French-door and side-by-side models against those of other brands. But even then, LG’s fridges make their owners happier than the other major brands’ fridges do.

Reader survey: Satisfaction among French-door refrigerator owners by brand

The premium features on some of LG’s higher-end models are especially popular among owners. The Craft Ice feature on the LG LRFVC2406S, for example, earned high praise from nearly 40% of owners according to our customer-review analysis, and only a few instances of criticism. The door-in-door feature (also available from a couple of other brands) was widely liked, as well. (Reviewers didn’t remark on the InstaView translucent door nearly as often.)

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. 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.

LG models you may want to consider

The following models received generally positive customer reviews, according to our review analysis, and may be a good place to start in your search:

• LG LFCC22426S
• LG LRFVC2406S

• LG LRDCS2603S

• LG LRSES2706V

• LG LTCS20020S

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The big caveat with LG refrigerators is that some of its larger fridges are more likely than those of other brands to stop cooling. It has been a big problem over the past decade, and although the company seems to have corrected the issue with most of its current models, there are still some side-by-side models with a really poor track record.

We found some evidence of this compressor problem in our reader survey: More LG owners (3.8%) than average (2.5%) said that their fridge or freezer had stopped cooling. (Samsung was the only major brand with a worse track record for cooling failures, at 4.6%.)

And when we analyzed customer reviews in 2021 for nine then-available LG models, we saw clear evidence that two of them seem to have this same compressor-related no-cooling problem: the LSXS26326S and LSXS26366S, both of which are side-by-sides with the older bar-style handles (rather than pocket-style handles like those of the newer LRSES2706V). More than 15% of the reviews for those bar-handle side-by-sides cited compressor problems or cooling failures, which is a ton. When we asked LG for comment on this finding, representatives replied: “​​In this industry as a whole, refrigerator service issues often relate to cooling performance. When, on occasion, any such issue arises, LG is committed to taking care of its customers.” The reps also referenced LG’s warranty coverage. (For what it’s worth, as of February 2022, none of these three models appears to be available for sale anywhere but on LG’s own site.)

For other current LG fridges (including the French-door models we analyzed) and other major brands, we saw those kinds of problems cited in only about 3% of reviews, give or take. So we’d guess (hope?) that as long as you avoid the older side-by-sides, the chance of a cooling problem with an LG is about the same as with refrigerators from other brands.

LG customer service is worse than average, with one quarter of all owners who reported interacting with the company in our survey citing a negative experience. Not great! That’s about twice the rate of bad service compared with the results for Whirlpool or GE. One Wirecutter reader’s experience is representative of many complaints we read: “It took almost 2 months for a warranty repair, many service companies no longer handle LG, and we almost lost the one repair person due to LG’s poor response. LG was very bureaucratic and we spent at least 8 hours on phone calls and emails. Unresponsive.” LG told Wirecutter in a statement that the company was “surprised to hear this.”

LG’s warranty coverage is pretty typical for the industry now, with one year comprehensive parts and labor, and five years parts and labor for the compressor and cooling system. The company will also provide a replacement compressor for up to 10 years (as a couple of other brands will), though you’ll have to cover the cost of labor, which will be high. And again, if you ever need to make a claim under the warranty, you’ll be dealing with LG’s below-average customer service.

We did find that LG fridges were slightly less likely to break in minor ways that are annoying (though often tolerable). So with an LG refrigerator, you might be less likely to deal with nuisances like broken shelves, handles, doors, lights, ice makers, or water dispensers. Owners also cited temperature inconsistencies less often and were notably less likely to say that organizing the fridge and keeping track of items was difficult. Consumer Reports puts LG near the front of the pack for reliability, too.

GE: Somewhat better customer service

Editor’s note: GE issued a recall for six French-door models (model numbers GFE26JYMKFFS, GFE26JYMNFFS, GNE27EYMKFFS, GNE27EYMNFFS, GNE27JYMKFFS, and GNE27JYMNFFS) in April 2022. Those models have a freezer-door handle that may detach, which can pose a fall hazard for anyone pulling the freezer door open. One of the French-door refrigerators we list below, the GNE27JYMFS, is affected by the recall (specifically, all of the models manufactured from February 2020 to August 2021). Those with a recalled model can contact GE to schedule a free service call to replace the handle fasteners. More information, including the affected serial numbers, can be found at the GE recall page.

GE refrigerators are another good option if you don’t want an LG for whatever reason (fear of compressor failures, can’t find one you want in your area on your schedule, long-standing feud with the company over past transgressions).

Among the top five brands, GE’s French-door fridges earned the next-best ratings behind LG’s in our reader survey, with high overall levels of satisfaction and strong ratings for important characteristics such as capacity, organization, perceived reliability (with the fewest complaints about bad reliability), looks, temperature control, and ice-maker performance. These fridges also score very well in Consumer Reports’s ratings (“Refrigerators,” Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2022, pages 23–27), and their average customer ratings on major retailers’ websites are similar to those of LG’s refrigerators.

GE’s higher-end French-door models are particularly impressive. The GE Profile PVD28BYNFS earned massive praise in customer reviews for its versatile ice and water dispenser, which has auto-fill as well as a sensor that triggers a light when someone comes near it. According to our customer-review analysis, more than 25% of reviewers also said they loved the interior lighting, which shines from the back wall of the fridge (most models have strips of LEDs on the sides instead). And the PVD28BYNFS has a door-in-door feature, though owners seem to be less enthusiastic about it than LG owners are about their door-in-door features.

But the basic French-door models still earn great ratings, too. And GE also makes some premium models under the Café label that are less gadget-y and more design-y and earn strong reviews for their bold style. (The company also makes the luxury-level Monogram brand, which we didn’t research closely.)

GE is also one of the handful of brands whose customer service seemed to generate fewer negative sentiments among our survey respondents, especially compared with LG and Samsung. GE has its own repair fleet in some metro areas, which might have something to do with it. To be clear, our data suggests that GE French-door fridges need repairs at a rate similar to that of LG French-door models, and we did see some complaints about customer service among the analyzed reviews. Minor problems like noise may be slightly more common, and a small percentage of customer reviews still cite major cooling failures. But you might have a better chance of getting a repair done promptly under warranty.

GE’s side-by-side models received a notably mediocre satisfaction rating in our survey, and other reviewers are lukewarm on them, too. Our data suggests that these models have more nuisance-type problems with reliability than most other brands’ side-by-sides. However, most side-by-side owners in general aren’t exactly thrilled with their fridges (they’re content, maybe, but not “very satisfied” at nearly the same rate as French-door owners), and GE’s rating in this category is in the middle of the pack among the major brands.

Top-freezer models from GE are decent and can be some of the very cheapest full-size fridges available. We have more on these below, in our section about budget-friendly options.

GE also sells a bunch of affordable bottom-freezer models, such as the GBE21DYKFS, though we don’t have enough data on this category to have a clear picture of how they stack up against those of other brands.

Most current GE fridges (PDF) use the climate-friendly R600a refrigerant, and GE told us it plans to transition all of its freestanding models by the end of 2021 and its built-ins by the end of 2022. (We’ve reached out for an update on those plans—stay tuned.)

GE Appliances is owned by Haier, which also sells the budget Hotpoint and city-sized Haier brands, though we don’t have much info about those.

GE models you may want to consider

The following models received generally positive customer reviews, according to our review analysis, and may be a good place to start in your search:

• GE GNE27JYMFS (see note above about the recall concerning this model)
• GE Profile PVD28BYNFS

• GE GSS25GYPFS (This is a model similar to the one we had originally analyzed, which has since been discontinued.)

• GE GTS17DTNRWW

Whirlpool: Fewer bells and whistles, fewer complaints about bad reliability

Whirlpool’s French-door refrigerators (and Maytag’s, and to a lesser extent KitchenAid’s—same parent company and very similar products) are totally solid, though they don’t generate the same level of enthusiasm as those of the other brands we’ve covered. 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.

We also found in our survey that, despite what looks like a similar capacity across the lineup, Whirlpool owners tend to be less satisfied with their fridges’ capacity, storage, and organization than owners of most other major brands’ models. Their ratings of the organizational features weren’t quite as high, either.

Satisfaction with Whirlpool Corporation’s side-by-sides followed a similar pattern: well behind the enthusiasm for LG and more neutral than GE, with fewer people very satisfied or very dissatisfied with their Whirlpools.

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 (like cooling failures) seemed especially low. As a brand, Whirlpool had the fewest complaints in our survey about truly bad reliability (though compared with LG, it had fewer reports of good reliability and more for okay reliability, which is a sign of annoying problems but not critical failures). In our analysis of customer reviews, we found very few reports of cooling-related failures—we actually found no such complaints reported in the past year for the WRF535SWHZ French-door model, which we had previously highlighted in this guide as a big, basic option that should work well for most people. Whirlpool earned solid marks for customer service in our survey, too, though we didn’t find customer reviews actively praising the service the same way that we did for GE.

Bells and whistles aren’t really Whirlpool’s thing: It doesn’t have models with a door-in-door option or spherical ice molds or a tablet built into the door. Its highest-end fridges, under the KitchenAid brand, are more about style than flashy features—a perfectly respectable approach.

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. Bottom-freezer fridges are a bit of a hidden gem, offering a lot of the same advantages of French-door models but for a much lower price. We can’t say with confidence how Whirlpool’s bottom-freezer models (like the WRB322DMBM) compare to those of other brands in the eyes of most owners, but Whirlpool’s options seem like a solid choice if you need one.

All of Whirlpool's freestanding refrigerators were transitioned to the climate-friendly R600a refrigerant by the end of 2021.

And while few buyers are truly excited about top-freezer models, we have some evidence from our reader survey and customer-review analysis that a small, budget-friendly Whirlpool might be a slightly more satisfying, or at least a more reliable, option than other brands’ top-freezer fridges.

IKEA’s house-brand refrigerators are manufactured by Whirlpool and have mostly similar characteristics. They’re often on sale for lower prices than similar Whirlpool models, so if you see one you like for a good price, go for it.

Whirlpool models you may want to consider

The following models received generally positive customer reviews, according to our review analysis, and may be a good place to start in your search:

• Whirlpool WRF535SWHZ
• Whirlpool WRF767SDHZ

• Whirlpool WRS315SDHM

• Whirlpool WRB329DMBW

• Whirlpool WRT318FZDW

Other major brands

Samsung

Samsung makes some good-looking refrigerators with some flashy features at lower prices than other brands’. But across its popular French-door models, we found double the rate of dissatisfaction compared with LG, GE, and Whirlpool models in our reader survey. It also had the highest percentage of owners who rated their French-door model’s reliability as bad overall (more than 14%). The ice makers seem especially failure-prone: More than a third of reviewers said they had problems with the ice maker on the popular RF28R7201SR, and the RF27T5201SR also had ice-related complaints in nearly 20% of its reviews. A class-action suit regarding the faulty ice makers is close to being settled via mediation as of February 2022.

One high-end feature that owners like a lot is the Family Hub, a giant tablet built into the door of a big fridge. Owners say they find it useful for all kinds of reasons: It’s good for managing grocery lists, monitoring a doorbell camera, looking up recipes, using it as a mirrored TV or digital picture frame, and so on. A few owners cite glitchy behavior, but for the most part, satisfaction seems pretty high. I remember scoffing at the idea of a tablet in a fridge when Samsung launched the first version about six years ago, assuming that it would be a reliability nightmare. But there are far fewer complaints about the tablet (or related software support) than I’d have assumed there would be by now. There are also several options for putting a screen in your kitchen that offer more flexibility than a giant panel mounted vertically to an immovable appliance that you’ll own for about a decade. But in general, people who have a Family Hub like it.

And in general, plenty of people are perfectly happy with their Samsung fridges. The side-by-sides in particular earned the second-best satisfaction ratings among the top five brands in our survey, behind LG’s (though they still had the worst rating for reliability). The premium Bespoke line is one of the few true counter-depth offerings we know of. If you need a fridge on short notice and a Samsung model looks like a top bet, it probably won’t be a disaster. It’s just not the first (or second, or third) brand we’d recommend.

Frigidaire

According to our reader survey, this is the major brand with the lowest overall owner satisfaction, as well as the lowest satisfaction for each individual type of refrigerator (though it’s not far behind GE for basic top-freezer models). Frigidaire’s lineup really has no standout trait, except that some of its top-freezer models offer stylish pocket handles and glass shelves for lower prices than other brands’ top-freezer models with less-nice features. Some professional reviewers like some of the brand’s fridges (USA Today’s Reviewed, for example, has a Frigidaire French-door model at the top of its rankings as of February 2022), but generally the company doesn’t rate as well as the other big brands among owners or pro reviewers.

Smaller brands

Beko and Blomberg are both made by one of Europe’s largest appliance companies (Arçelik) and have been nibbling at the fringes of the US market for about a decade. Our reader survey didn’t turn up any useful information on how they compare to other brands in the US, but the parent company has a good reputation in other countries. The challenge with these brands might be getting service under warranty or spare parts for repairs in the future.

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 (such as IKEA or Kenmore) 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.

Based on the look and layout of the fridges, Kenmore’s basic top-freezer models appear to be made by Frigidaire, most of its other midrange models are probably made by Whirlpool, and its higher-end models seem to be LGs. Kenmore products can vary a bit from the major-label versions—sometimes they earn different performance ratings from pro reviewers, for example—but generally you can expect the same experience.

Brands like Hisense, Galanz, and Midea are less known in the US (at least for refrigerators) but are major players overseas. Unfortunately we just don’t have enough info about how they compare to the major brands. Are they probably fine? Yeah, they’ll keep your food cold as long as they aren’t defective. The real question: At what rate are they defective or prone to malfunctions? We don’t really know.

What about a budget pick?

If you’re looking for a fridge that works for the lowest possible price, get a top-freezer model. It’s okay to pick the cheapest model that’s readily available and fits your size requirements. It’ll do the job just fine.

Small models (10 cubic feet) from smaller brands, such as the Magic Chef MCDR1000WE, start around $400. The customer ratings for these lowest-end fridges tend to be decent, though some models (like this retro-styled Galanz) seem more prone to cooling failures than a typical fridge. You can find even cheaper fridges, but they tend to be very small, almost like mini fridges.

Family-size models (16 cubic feet or larger) from major brands including Frigidaire and GE start around $600. 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 (out of five) on Home Depot’s site, beating out most side-by-side models, but a whopping 18% of recent reviewers write that it’s noisy.

If you have a little wiggle room in your budget, you could consider stepping up to a model with glass shelves (rather than wire), recessed pocket-style handles, or a stainless-steel finish—something like the Frigidaire FFTR1835VS. You can find some higher-capacity models, too. 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.

Refrigerators from store brands, such as Best Buy’s Insignia label, can cost a little less than fridges from the major brands while offering similar features and similarly solid owner reviews, though we haven’t dug into the customer reviews as closely, so we’re not sure how they compare.

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.

We did spot a few patterns among Frigidaire, Whirlpool, and GE top-freezer models, though we’re not sure how conclusive they are. Whirlpool top-freezer fridges, for example, have significantly higher owner satisfaction and a very low rate of utter hatred. 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 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.

• 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.
• Some of the lowest-end models technically do not meet the Energy Star efficiency benchmarks, but they still use less energy than most refrigerators because they’re relatively small, the top-freezer design makes thermodynamic sense, and they don’t have through-the-door ice dispensers.
• Most models, at least from the major brands, have reversible doors, so you can set them up to open in whichever direction works better for your kitchen layout.

What do you get when you pay more for a fridge?

The Café CVE28DP4NW2 has LED lights across its back wall for better visibility, an auto-fill water dispenser, and compartments with humidity controls. Photo: Café

A basic, 36-inch French-door fridge from a major brand starts around $1,500. Nice-to-haves, such as a through-the-door ice dispenser and a second drawer, can each add a few hundred dollars to the price, as can a counter-depth design. Then around $2,500, you start to move into truly premium territory. (For side-by-sides, the basic range is more like $1,100 to $2,000.)

Premium fridges come in a couple of different flavors that sometimes mix together. But roughly speaking, you can get a fridge that’s:

• Well equipped, with performance- and convenience-related upgrades. These include a second swing-space drawer (great for deli items and kids’ snacks), door-in-door compartments for easy drink access, high-end ice makers, translucent door panels, dispensers that can make tea and coffee, or a giant tablet built into the door.
• Well appointed, often counter-depth and without a dispenser. This style is more focused on an upscale design with sharper lines, bolder colors, or textured and accented handles. The doors can feel heavier (which some people associate with sturdiness), the shelves are more likely to have metal trim, and the crisper drawers might be glass instead of plastic.

It’s common among models of both types to have separate cooling systems for the fridge and freezer compartments (dual evaporators), which their makers advertise as an upgrade over the single systems used in most fridges. This design may improve food preservation, but we haven’t looked into the topic and can’t verify that that’s the case.

The lines between these styles are blurry and pretty much disappear around $4,000, where many freestanding fridges are both well equipped and well appointed.

In general, people who spend this much on a refrigerator tend to be even happier with their fridges, surpassing the already higher level of satisfaction among owners of the basic models. 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 (such as Bosch and KitchenAid) have higher owner satisfaction than brands that sell fridges at a mix of prices.

Premium fridges do not seem like they’re built to last longer than basic models: The warranties are similar if not the same, the brands make no claims about longevity, and we’ve come across plenty of stories about expensive fridges breaking down within a few years. We couldn’t find clear evidence that premium models have fewer nuisance-type problems, either. Some of them work smoothly, others have bells and whistles that seem prone to malfunctions. So in general, when you buy a premium refrigerator, you’re paying for the look or the features, not a more reliable product.

You’ll find some different brand names between the well-appointed and well-equipped styles, though they often come from the same parent companies. KitchenAid is a Whirlpool Corporation label that makes good-looking but feature-light fridges. GE has its Profile line, which is feature-heavy, and the Café brand, which is style-forward. Electrolux is Frigidaire’s parent company. Samsung has its Bespoke series, and LG has the Studio and Signature lines.

So, what’s good in this price range? We don’t have perfect information about the best brands or models, but we do have a few leads.

If you want something well equipped, LG and GE (or the GE Profile sub-brand) are good choices. LG’s door-in-door and spherical-ice features (both found on the LRFVC2406S, among other models) and GE’s auto-fill dispenser (found on the PYE22KMKES and more) earn wide praise from their owners.

If you want something well appointed, we don’t have as much information. But Bosch seems like a category leader, with very high owner satisfaction and excellent reviews from owners—the 800 Series B36CT80SNS is one of its popular models. Owners like this Bosch model’s style and often say it seems to keeps food fresher a little longer (we have no clue whether this is true). The main complaint is that the doors feel heavy to shut. The GE Café line is also well liked among owners who have left reviews, mostly for its style. The CVE28DP4NW2 is one popular model and has strong reviews (though many owners find the interior water dispenser to be awkward).

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 (Whirlpool), Monogram (GE), Thermador and Gaggenau (both under Bosch’s parent company, BSH), and Dacor (Samsung). Sub-Zero, Liebherr, Smeg, Miele, and Fisher & Paykel are some other notable names, and there are plenty more. Since these lines are all sold in such low volumes, we weren’t able to gather useful amounts of info about most of them from our reader survey or our analysis of customer reviews. Other pro reviewers don’t have much info about them, either. So we can’t make good comparisons between brands.

What we can say, based on the limited data we collected, is that people who own luxury brands tend to be really happy with their refrigerators. Sub-Zero owners, for instance, gave the highest satisfaction rating in our reader survey, with 77% of owners answering that they were very satisfied with their fridges (LG French-door models earned such praise from 58% of their owners, for comparison’s sake), and another 16% said they were somewhat satisfied. Fisher & Paykel earned similar ratings. It wouldn’t surprise us if other luxury brands had similar ratings, but we just don’t have reliable information about enough of these brands to offer much specific, comparative advice.

What about built-in fridges?

As with luxury fridges in general, we don’t know enough about built-ins to offer useful advice, unfortunately.

Why are so many fridges out of stock?

As of February 2022, the US is still dealing with some shortages of new appliances, a downstream effect of worldwide supply-chain disruptions. Our advice: You don’t need to stress out or overthink your new refrigerator, especially if you’re in a rush to replace a broken fridge. Most people are mostly happy (or at least not unhappy) with most fridges, so as long as you pick something that fits and won’t break (which is almost entirely out of your control anyway), you’ll probably think your new fridge is at least okay. In our reader survey, 78% of all respondents were somewhat or very satisfied with their fridges, while less than 5% were very dissatisfied, and no brand or style of fridge was immune from serious dissatisfaction. You may not be able to get the specific fridge you want in a timely manner, but you can probably get something similar. And after a week or two passes, you might forget you ever wanted something different.

Door styles: French-doors lead in popularity and satisfaction

You can find four popular styles of freestanding refrigerators, plus a few less-common types, all with some aesthetic and functional differences. Certain types aren’t available in certain sizes or at certain prices, so in choosing a model you don’t quite have carte blanche, but you usually have some wiggle room. Here’s what you should know.

French-door

This style has dominated the best-seller lists of most major appliance retailers for more than a decade, and in a lot of important ways, it’s the most comfortable and convenient type of refrigerator for most people (if it fits your kitchen, anyway).

In our reader survey, French-door fridges almost always had better ratings for owner satisfaction than the other two most-popular styles, side-by-sides and top-freezers, in everything from perceived capacity to storage and organization to temperature control to looks. Overall satisfaction is where we saw the most dramatic difference: All the little ways that French-door fridges are more comfortable to use and convenient for more people add up to a huge statistical advantage.

(Bottom-freezer models that don’t have French doors actually had the highest satisfaction of any type. But they just aren’t popular—constituting only 4% of fridge sales in 2020, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers—for reasons that we don’t fully understand. It could be that they aren’t available in a 36-inch width, which is highly popular.)

Reader survey: Owner satisfaction by door type

Size range: 36 inches is the most common width, while 33-inch and 30-inch models are also easy to find. A few 42-inch built-in models are available from luxury brands. Regular-depth and counter-depth models are widely available. Freestanding models are most common, but plenty of high-end built-ins are available, too.

Pros: All fresh foods stay near eye level for people of a wide range of heights, and you get easy wide-item storage (pizza, deli trays). The half-width doors are convenient in tight kitchen layouts, and models have a trendy look. You also have tons of options, such as two drawers, door-in-door features, premium dispensers, specialty ice makers, translucent panels, and door tablets.

Cons: The bucket-style freezer can be hard to organize, and retrieving frozen items requires bending. Tall-item storage is sometimes limited. Models are relatively expensive.

The most consistent complaint about the French-door design concerns the bucket-style freezer. One Wirecutter reader writes: “At first it seemed appealing, but I think the lower ‘chest type’ freezer compartment is really hard to organize and keep clean. It seems we only use the top 6 inches and the rest is a deep freeze that we never dig into. Who knows what’s at the bottom?!”

However, some upscale French-door variants (like the Whirlpool WRX735SDHZ) 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” 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. Usually such models let you adjust the temperature independently of the fridge or freezer, so you can turn it down a tick to help preserve meats and cheeses or nudge it up a bit to keep produce more appetizing or drinks at a better serving temperature.

Side-by-side

Although side-by-sides tend to create much less satisfaction than French-door models, some people genuinely prefer this layout. Arguably the best part is that they tend to cost much less than French-door fridges while offering similar capacities and feature sets. “A $2,000 side-by-side is an amazing fridge. A $2,000 French-door is not as nice,” said Richard Hughes of Appliance Factory.

Price range: At this writing, side-by-sides cost between $1,100 and $1,350 for a basic model with or without through-the door ice, up to $3,000 for well-equipped freestanding models from major brands, and up to $15,000 for built-in models from luxury brands.

Size range: For freestanding models, 36 inches is the most common width, and some 33-inch models are available, standard-depth and counter-depth. For built-ins, 36-, 42-, and 48-inch widths are available.

Pros: Side-by-sides offer eye-level access to both the fridge and the freezer, plus plenty of shelf space in the freezer. Big capacity and cool features are available at reasonable prices, and the half-width doors are convenient in tight kitchen layouts.

Cons: The wide-item storage is limited, and the design is less energy efficient than other styles. Owner satisfaction is mediocre overall.

While some French-door owners dislike their fridge’s bucket-style freezer, the numbers suggest that a higher rate of side-by-side owners really dislike their half-width freezers. One Wirecutter reader sums up the common sentiment: “I hate the side by side style. There’s no room for anything—a frozen pizza doesn’t even fit flat in the freezer!”

Top-freezer

People buy top-freezer models mostly because they’re affordable and can be compact (which also means they tend to use less energy). The downside is that owners tend not to be all that happy to own them. These fridges do their job efficiently, but they aren’t that ergonomic and tend not to have any upscale features or designs.

Size range: You get roughly 8 to 22 cubic feet of storage (anything smaller is really a mini fridge). These come in widths of 22 inches to 33 inches, and similar depths (most are roughly square-shaped).

Pros: Top-freezer models are affordable, available in a wide range of sizes, and efficient. No bending required to reach frozen items. These fridges are also more reliable than other types, according to some sources, though we found that they might be more prone to minor, nuisance-type problems.

Cons: Owner satisfaction is low. Fresh foods sit below waist height for most people, and the full-width doors may be hard to open completely in some kitchens.

Bottom-freezers

Bottom-freezer refrigerators are a bit of a hidden gem. They aren’t as popular in the US as other types, so we haven’t seen as much feedback about them. But from what we can tell, owners tend to be really happy with them. They offer some of the same practical advantages as basic French-door models, for significantly lower prices.

Size range: A 30-inch width and standard depth is the most popular size in the US for affordable freestanding models, though they get as narrow as 22 inches and as wide as 33 inches. There are plenty of counter-depth models, as well, though these tend to be on the thinner side. Built-in models are 24 inches to 36 inches wide.

Pros: High owner satisfaction, especially relative to the price. All fresh foods stay near eye level for most people, and wide-item storage (pizza, deli trays) is easy.

Cons: The full-width doors on wider models may be hard to open completely in some kitchens. These fridges also have fewer premium features than other styles. Bucket-style freezers (on some models) can be hard to organize, and swing-open freezers (on other models) are very low to the ground. Retrieving frozen items requires bending.

Other styles

Four-door: Some brands sell upscale fridges with four equal-size doors. Not to be confused with two-drawer French-door fridges, these models have a full-width refrigerator compartment on top and two half-width compartments on the bottom. At least one of the bottom cavities is a dedicated freezer, and on some models one of them might be a “flex” space that can switch between a fridge or freezer (or in-betweener) compartment depending on what you need at the time. These fridges are still uncommon, and we don’t have a ton of info about how much their owners like them or whether they perform well, but the large handful of models for sale (Whirlpool, Samsung, and Haier all sell some) have decent (though not always great) customer reviews.

Column or all-fridge/all-freezer: These are units with a single cavity that sits at (roughly) a single temperature. When they’re built-in units, they’re called columns, and they come in a huge variety of widths and finishes from tons of upscale and luxury brands. Freestanding models are usually known as all-fridge or all-freezer units, and although most of them are the kinds of utilitarian machines you’d find in a workshop or garage, you can find some sleeker-looking models that you could put into a kitchen as a thrifty alternative to a true built-in column. There aren’t very many statistics available, so we don’t have anything to share for now (maybe in a future update to this guide).

What about counter-depth fridges?

Counter-depth, in the strictest sense, means that a refrigerator is shallow enough to sit flush with typical cabinets or countertops, so roughly 24 inches from the front edge to the back wall. These “true” counter-depth models are almost always very expensive built-in units.

But in the looser, more common definition, a “counter-depth” fridge is a freestanding model that’s noticeably shallower than a standard-depth fridge. You can find tons of these models for sale at any typical big-box appliance retailer, from every major brand, in most door configurations, at a range of prices. They do tend to cost a little more than standard-depth fridges with similar specs, likely because they’re less popular and viewed in some sense as being more upscale.

The shallowest freestanding counter-depth fridges measure about 27 inches deep, as much as 9 inches (25%) shallower than a standard-depth model. (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.

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.

Many people buy counter-depth fridges because that’s what fits into their kitchen. 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.

Others genuinely prefer having a shallower fridge because they find it easier to keep organized. It’s one less row of half-eaten, long-forgotten pickle and salsa jars piled up in the back.

For many buyers, it’s more about the aesthetics. True counter-depth fridges can blend into their surroundings, but even the pseudo-counter-depth freestanding fridges from mainstream brands don’t feel so dominating or imposing in a room.

Mainstream brands often sell standard-depth and counter-depth variants of similar fridges, and the models tend to have a lot in common, apart from the shallower dimensions and smaller storage of the counter-depth versions. Counter-depth models are very common overall: In a Wirecutter reader survey, more than 30% of the 5,000-plus respondents said that they owned a counter-depth fridge.

Counter-depth fridges have less capacity than standard-depth models, but their owners generally seem content with the storage space, judging from the satisfaction ratings in our reader survey and the customer reviews we’ve analyzed. In other words, it’s more about the layout and use of space than the sheer volume, and most counter-depth models use their space very well. Complaints about lack of space were equally uncommon for counter-depth and standard-depth fridges, with low single-digit percentages of owners complaining about that on average. (One outlier in this regard was the KitchenAid KRFC300ESS counter-depth fridge, which 16% of reviewers criticized for its cramped space, particularly in the freezer.)

We think most counter-depth models from the brands we highlight above should work well for most people.

Reliability: Hope for the best

We don’t know what the most reliable fridges are. We’re reasonably confident that Miele and Sub-Zero fridges, which are very expensive, should last significantly longer than a typical refrigerator—both brands told us that they build their products to last for at least two decades, about double the typical lifespan for this category. Other high-end brands may make fridges with above-average reliability and longevity, too; we don’t know. And we do not think it’s possible to predict which major brand makes the most reliable fridges.

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. 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 exactly the same product as last month’s fridge, and there can be bad batches.

There is some data, however, to suggest that some brands have been slightly less problematic on average than others over the past handful of years, and we’ve incorporated those findings (from our reader survey, the blog of Boston-based retailer Yale Appliance and Lighting, and Consumer Reports’s “How The Brands Stack Up” from its August 2021 issue, pages 48–49) into our buying advice. But even then, the gap between the most-reliable and least-reliable brands looks pretty narrow. And any company can sell you a dud and drag its heels on customer service, even if it has the best reputation. You might be able to protect yourself by purchasing from a local store with good customer service, but that probably won’t work in all cases.

That said, we analyzed more than 28,000 customer reviews for 34 fridges, and we were able to pick out a few models that seemed especially prone to major malfunctions within the first few years of ownership. We’ve pointed them out wherever relevant throughout this guide.

We can also tell you that just a small percentage of most fridge models we analyzed suffered from a major cooling failure—it’s uncommon. Similarly, in our reader survey, just 2.5% of respondents said that their current (or most recent) refrigerator had suffered a cooling failure.

Side-by-sides and top-freezer models were somewhat more prone to minor, nuisance-type problems like noise, broken shelves or handles, and flickering lights than French-door or bottom-freezer models.

In addition, we haven’t seen any proof that spending more on a fridge means it will be more reliable, at least not among non-luxury freestanding fridges. A $4,000 LG French-door fridge seems just as likely to suffer mechanical and electrical problems as an $1,800 LG French-door fridge because they’re built around similar components—and some of those pricier models have higher rates of problems than the midrange models simply because they have more parts that can fail.

Efficiency and sustainability: Much better than they used to be

The first, simplest step toward picking a more sustainable fridge is to make sure it uses climate-friendly R600a refrigerant, as many current models do. If the refrigerant leaks, it’ll have no effect on the ozone layer and a negligible effect on global warming.

R600a is a huge improvement over R134a, which is 1,430 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and was the most common refrigerant for household refrigerators through 2019 (some popular models still use it).

If your top priority is to use as little energy as possible, check out the Energy Star Most Efficient list. The models there are the most energy-miserly fridges you can buy in the US. They’re mostly small, bland-looking top-freezer models, but the list also includes a few bottom-freezer and French-door models that are sizable and stylish.

Judging by this list, the most efficient style of fridge (in terms of energy use per cubic foot of storage) tends to be a large top-freezer model, which should have plenty of storage for a couple but might feel cramped for a household of four. But the list has plenty of other efficient models in other styles, as well.

We have to note that the Energy Star Most Efficient list feels a little incomplete, or maybe built around questionable criteria. When you do the math on energy use per cubic foot of storage, there are plenty of big, stylish French-door models (for example) that beat out some of the smaller, more homely top-freezer models. Large fridges can also mean fewer trips to the store, which might mean less driving (and almost always energy and emissions savings as a result). Then again, huge fridges also have a way of turning into graveyards for lost, wasted food.

(The standard Energy Star list—not the Most Efficient list—is basically useless. About 3,000 refrigerators fit the program’s voluntary but overly broad criteria, which haven’t been updated since 2014.)

Finally, a long-lasting fridge tends to have less environmental impact than a fridge that breaks quickly, assuming that the energy use is similar. It’s hard to know which modern fridges will last the longest, though. And longevity isn't everything: A reliable, decades-old fridge uses a lot more energy than a new one, and sticking with it could potentially have a bigger environmental impact than replacing it.

In the bigger picture of your overall household energy use and emissions, choosing a low-energy fridge has a small impact compared with other upgrades such as choosing a highly efficient electric heating and cooling system, or an electric car, or a source of clean energy like rooftop solar panels. And today’s fridges are much, much more efficient than models were 15 years ago and earlier.

But over a refrigerator’s lifespan (10 years, on average, according to most manufacturers we’ve talked to), you might actually save a few hundred dollars in energy costs if you pick a small, notably efficient model instead of a large, relatively inefficient type. Even among big fridges, like 36-inch, standard-depth French-door refrigerators, the most efficient models could save $100 over the product’s lifetime compared with a less-efficient version.

If you want to try to thread the needle with a big, good-looking fridge that isn’t on the Energy Star Most Efficient list but is still pretty efficient, here are some rules of thumb to help you narrow your search.

• Side-by-side fridges are the least efficient style. None are on the Most Efficient list. (It’s a matter of thermodynamics.)
• Through-the-door ice and water dispensers tend to make a fridge less efficient, partly because they’re essentially a hole in an otherwise insulated box, and partly because the ice maker has extra work to do. It’s usually a difference of a few dozen kilowatt-hours per year compared with fridges of a similar size and style. You can find a few models with door dispensers on the Energy Star Most Efficient list, but they’re the exception.
• 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.
• When in doubt, check the yellow Energy Guide sticker on any model to get an idea of its energy consumption and estimated costs of operation. The stickers all have text and graphics to represent the range of operating costs within a category; look for a model with a cost on the lower end of the scale.

This article was edited by Winnie Yang and Christine Cyr Clisset.