Apartment-Sized Refrigerators: How to Choose

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET whirlpool mini refrigerator nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers. Some of these small refrigerators even come with their own freezers.

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whirlpool mini refrigerator

Fridge temperatures lower than 32°F can cause some food to freeze. The ideal temperature settings for the fridge and the freezer are 37°F and 0°F, respectively. Despite some performance and usability issues, the Galanz GLR31TBEER looks great and offers a ton of usable storage area. If you’re not planning on keeping anything particularly perishable in your freezer, it may still be a good pickup. Looking for an additional refrigerator to hold beverages or meats that take up too much room? Consider this Whirlpool Mini Fridge on sale at BJs for just $119.

A compact mini fridge makes a great addition to your dorm room or work space. Whether it is to store soft drinks or ingredients for your favorite meal, a sleek mini fridge is just what you need. At Target, find a wide range of mini fridges you can choose from.

The handle on top makes it easy to reposition as needed. We love how lightweight it is to carry and that you can even use it in your car thanks to its DC adapter. If you want a wet or mini bar fridge, look for a model with a (double-paned) glass door. This allows you to keep an eye on your inventory and not have to stand there with the door open while fishing around or deciding what you want. As we mentioned earlier, the longer and more often you open your mini fridge door, the more you overwork the poor little built-in compressor, and the faster you shorten the appliance’s life.

If you have a condo, mother-in-law suite, vacation rental, tiny home, accessory dwelling unit or entertainment space, a smaller refrigerator might be right for you. Good Housekeeping participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. We updated this story in November 2022 to ensure all picks tested and vetted by the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab were available, in stock and correctly priced. In addition to red, the Frigidaire 1.6-Cubic-Foot Compact Fridge is available in several color options to match your decor or school colors, including purple, blue, green, and orange.

You have a choice of black or a finish that mimics stainless steel or black stainless steel. You may have to defrost the freezer, an “ancient” procedure that may not be familiar to you. It involves turning the fridge off and allowing all Frigidaire fridge the ice that builds up on the walls of the freezer to melt off. Kyle Hamilton is a product tester at Reviewed, specializing in home appliances and technology. Fridge temperatures higher than 40°F allow bacteria to proliferate quickly.

A mini fridge can be a convenient addition to your dorm, home office, garage, or anywhere else you care to have chilled drinks or assortment of snacks at the ready. When looking for a dorm room refrigerator, it’s important to remember that those freezers are not meant for long-term storage. Unless you’re purchasing something like the SMEG or iio refrigerator on our list, odds are your mini fridge is best for short-term Frigidaire fridge storage. For the folks with a little bit more square footage—maybe you’re living in a small apartment off campus—this fridge is a lot roomier, but it won’t take up half the apartment. It’s got bright LED illumination, three safety glass shelves and a bottom freezer. It also uses frost-free, multi-flow tech to keep the air inside circulating, so you don’t wind up with partially frozen milk or almost-room-temp cheese.

It also has an adjustable shelf, a small freezer compartment, and a temperature control feature. Right now, Target is treating shoppers to markdowns on its home appliances as part of its back-to-school special. That includes best-selling mini fridges from top-rated brands like Frigidaire, Whirlpool, and Sunbeam, each available in a variety of sizes to accommodate your food and beverage storage needs. For a limited time only, discounts are as high as 27 percent off, which can save you up to $50. There’s nothing more valuable than fridge space for home cooks.

What really speaks to your fridge’s longevity is how often you open and close it. The more you do so, the harder the compressor works, and the shorter you can expect it to live. Make sure you maintain a good seal by wiping the gaskets clean every month. The more a fridge leaks air, the more the compressor runs, and the more the compressor has to run, the shorter its lifespan will be. Over time, the wrong mix of spills and ensuing mold can start to damage the components. Our big fridge went out over the weekend during a storm, lost 90% of our food…so I’m alerting on every fridge that gets posted, renting one for now and it’s not cheap.