GE has its Profile line, which is feature-heavy, and the Café brand, which is style-forward. Samsung has its Bespoke series, which allows you to swap in color panels on your refrigerator doors, or even custom ones printed with your own designs. LG, which already has the Studio and Signature lines, recently revealed a futuristic new fridge series called MoodUp, featuring doors (actually LED light panels) that you can customize on the fly in thousands of colors. We don’t have enough evidence to say with confidence that one brand of top-freezer fridges is significantly better than others.
The cooling technology, including the number of compressors and evaporators, tells you how well a refrigerator will maintain the ideal temperature throughout the kitchen appliance. Opt for a multi-evaporator system to ensure that every shelf is cooled to the same temperature. Upfront electronic temperature controls are used to keep everything at the perfect temperature. Effortless glide crispers drawers provide a smooth slide every time, while our even temp system keeps every part of your refrigerator at an ideal temperature.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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. Their ratings of the organizational features weren’t quite as high, either. But even then, LG’s fridges make their owners happier than the other major brands’ fridges do. Beyond that, it’s mostly a matter of homing in on what fits your space and budget, followed by many other individual preferences.
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 GE Café line is also well liked among Frigidaire fridge 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). 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.
A handful of specific models (all side-by-sides) have major reliability problems. Fridges come in so many different looks and layouts that we can’t pick the “best” ones—and most do a fine job of keeping your food cold. 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.
Color is one of the primary considerations when choosing a refrigerator, as it will be central to your kitchen design and will also determine how it fits into your existing decor. Other cooling technologies like Humidity-Controlled crisper drawers and Adaptive Defrost help ensure that produce stays fresh longer. Electrolux USA is based in Augusta, Georgia, United States, and manufactures some of Frigidaire’s appliances. For example, the dishwasher line is manufactured at its Springfield, Tennessee plant. Originally owned by Sweden’s AB Electrolux since 1986, in North America, the brand was acquired by AB Electrolux subsidiary Electrolux USA in 2001. Liam McCabe is a former senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since 2011.