The freezer doesn’t have its own door, but it’s wider than the ones found in most minis. It will come in handy if you need a lot of ice or frozen treats for a party, but it’s not a good idea to keep meat or other highly perishable items for more than a day. Mini fridges are great for keeping beverages and snacks in a family or rec room or stashing brought-from-home lunches in an office. If space and the school allow, they’re super useful in dorm rooms for dinner fixin’s and midnight munchies. However they vary in size, features and how well they keep foods cool. We’ve rounded up a selection of models that maintain safe temperatures for food safety in a variety of sizes so there’s one to select regardless of your needs.
Freezer temperatures in all mini fridges tend to fluctuate a lot. That’s probably because it’s fundamentally inefficient to have an unsealed freezer shelf inside a compartment that’s mostly just a fridge. In our tests, we recorded pretty wide temperature fluctuations in the WHS-65L’s freezer, which jumped from 11 to 21 degrees Fahrenheit, and 10 to 20 degrees at a lower setting. Those shifts in temperature are substantial enough to cause slight freezer burn within a few days, affecting the taste and texture of food. And because the freezer never came close to reaching the 0-degree threshold for safe, long-term meat storage in our tests, you’ll have to find a better place to keep your venison steaks for the winter. To select our best mini fridges, we relied on our years of experience testing refrigerators and in-depth knowledge of the category.
Fortunately, because its fridge temps are consistent, once you calibrate the compartment to be cooler the fridge will work just fine. Compact and versatile as a fridge or freezer, Avanti’s Dual-Function mini fridge has a single shelf for easy storage and cleaning. This fridge has a separate freezer and plenty of smartly-designated space for cans, food, and more.
Generally, the larger the refrigerator, the greater the energy consumption. 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. And the video included on the page actually “slips up” and opens saying 3.5 cu.ft, while showing the WH43S1E model number (later in the video is says “4.3 cubic feet” when showing the closed fridge box). The extra 0.8 cu.ft might only be good for obliquely packaged food. Based on other mini fridges posted, this looks to be a pretty good deal.
After taking apart fridges and talking to expert technicians, we found that there’s little difference between mini fridges. In addition to fitting easily in a dorm room, this little fridge provides a bottle opener conveniently located on the side of the fridge. On the door, there’s shelving for a 2-liter bottle as well as for soda Frigidaire fridge cans or peanut butter and jelly jars. On top, there’s a small freezer compartment for making a tray of ice cubes or keeping a frozen dinner icy for a day or two. If you’re primarily looking for a fridge to keep fruit, drinks and maybe cheese in the den and don’t want to spend a bundle, this square little fridge is your best bet.