One of the Arctic King ATMP032AES’s best features is its stainless steel facade, which looks nicer than some of the other, glossy-plastic-facade mini fridges we tested. 4.3 cubic feet is huge for a mini fridge, so this won’t slide under a desk, but $35 per cubic foot is a solid price. That said, colleges are close to summer break, so you might be able to find mini fridges on local listings for much less. The US federal government issues the certification to the most energy-efficient appliances available.
Owen Burke is a Senior Home and Kitchen Reporter at Insider, helping craft a brand new guides section for Insider Reviews. Ever in search of the perfect espresso, he focuses on espresso machines and equipment, juicers, kitchen knives, grills, meat and seafood, and the odd outdoors product. Frigidaire is a solid name in the refrigerator industry, and the 1.6-Cubic-Foot Compact Fridge is a great affordable, no-frills solution. While taking up minimal space, it has enough room for one or two bottles of wine, six packs, and several smaller items. We spoke with several refrigeration experts, including the folks at Liberty Home Guard, to find out what makes a good mini fridge, what to avoid, and how to take care of one in order to ensure it lasts for years.
There’s even a shelf on the freezer door to stock with ice cream or bags of frozen peas. Many mini fridges use between 55 and 85 watts of electricity per hour, which means that over the course of a year, it will cost less than $20 to run one in your home. You can always opt for an Energy Star certified model for even better energy efficiency and lower operating costs throughout the year.
For starters, its fridge ran warm on default settings, hitting an average temperature less than 1°F below the safe zone of 40°F. It was also the least consistent freezer of the group, oscillating between 2°F and 8°F, which is a huge swing when freezers normally deal in wavering by fractions of whirlpool mini refrigerator a degree. This sort of variation means you’ll likely have trouble with freezer burn. While it isn’t one of the bigger models out there, and its door takes some getting used to (if you don’t shut it hard enough it will bounce open again), we do love its retro look and consistent temperatures.
In another test we gauged how much stuff we could fit in, which has as much to do with the shelving layout as with the manufacturer’s claimed capacity. But that isn’t the only experience we’ve had testing mini fridges. Both the editor of this guide and I used to cover appliances for Reviewed.com, and we did a couple of mini fridge roundups together in 2012 and 2013.
The Magic Chef HMBR350SE is one of the cheapest tall mini fridges you can find, and a best seller at Home Depot. It’s significantly smaller than the Danby, with a more-limiting shelving layout, but it is really cheap, so if you’re looking to save a few bucks and don’t care about the design, it’s worth a look. Any fridge needs to keep food safe to eat, mini fridges being no exception. All of our previous experience with these appliances told us that they’re up to that task. But just to be sure, we ran some tests to confirm that each fridge could keep food safe and appetizing.
Most minis have no crisper drawer, so produce will lose its fresh taste and texture after a few days. Freezer burn is common, too, and the freezer compartments don’t reach anywhere near the 0 degree Fahrenheit threshold for safe, long-term meat storage. Standing at just over 27 inches tall, whirlpool mini refrigerator this mini fridge provides enough space for snacks and drinks and can fit nicely under most desks or inside a cubicle. The door also has storage for up to eight canned drinks as well as space for larger bottles. The adjustable thermostat aims to ensure an ideal temperature for your food.
This refrigerator is Energy Star Certified and has a total capacity of up to 5.1 cu. 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. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. If you are interested in purchasing a small orundercounter refrigerator to save space in your home, Whirlpool brand offers a variety of units to suit your needs.
If space isn’t necessarily the deciding factor, and you’re going to be using the fridge a lot, you should consider a full-sized refrigerator on the more affordable side. From stainless steel to beautiful wood to dramatic lighting, you’ll find it here. If you buy a new refrigerator, be sure to recycle your old one. Many appliance retailers will pick up and recycle your old refrigerator when you purchase a new one.
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 whirlpool mini refrigerator recommendations here. The basic wire rack shelf is removable for easy cleaning, and the compact fridge has a chiller for freezing a tray of ice cubes or keeping a small item or two frozen.