Kenmore 79432 Top Freezer Refrigerator Review

The 79432's report card wasn't all A's—the freezer got a little warm for our liking—but overall, this fridge is a top-freezer to keep an eye on.

Design & Usability

Don't judge this fridge by its front.

A glossy, sleek exterior gives a modern touch to this classic top-freezer, but inside is where this fridge differentiates itself. The 79432 features an interior water dispenser—a cool feature that does eat up some space in the top shelf. LED lighting, reflected through the prismatic designs in the door shelves' glass, adds a touch of luxury.

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In use, the fridge had few usability hangups, including impressively smooth-sliding drawers. Like most top-freezers with full-width shelves, we had trouble getting to items at the rear of the fridge. It also might be difficult to access the back of a packed freezer, which is also where the controls are.

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Performance

Better for fresh foods than frozen ones

This is a great fridge. In our lab tests, the 79432 consistently kept the temperatures right where they should be, and were warmest at the bottom—which benefits the produce in the crisper drawers. But despite the excellent fridge performance, the freezer's temperature fluctuated and never quite got cold enough. That could lead to freezer burn, so make sure not to store anything in here long-term.

For in-depth performance information, please visit the Science Page.

Our Take

Does almost everything well

The Kenmore 79432 has a lot to love. We're big fans of the interior water dispenser, luxurious design, and great fridge performance. We weren't thrilled with the freezer, but nearly everything else about this Kenmore was ideal. It's not often that you can find a feature-laden top-freezer, and it works well if you're short on space but still want a roomy fridge with a water dispenser.

If you can find it on sale for around $200 below its MSRP—which we have—the Kenmore 79432 isn't a bad choice at all.

The Cold Hard Facts

We've got good eyes and hands, but our temperature sensors are a little better at judging fridge performance than we are. For an in-depth look into our testing, we go into detail below.

Temperature Performance

The Kenmore 79432 has a phenomenal fridge. In our tests, it averaged a very consistent 38.1°F when set to normal—very close to the 37°F recommended temperature for a refrigerator. The cavity averaged 41.8°F at the bottom and 36.1°F at the top, a gradient that benefits produce, which doesn't need to be kept quite as cold.

It was hard to believe the freezer and the fridge were the same unit. In contrast to the excellent fridge performance, the freezer averaged 7.37°F, a full seven degrees off the 0°F normal temperature. Large fluctuations compounded freezer performance further, as our sensors recorded temperatures between 3°F and 14°F. Even if it had averaged 0°F this would be an unacceptable temperature window for a fridge. If you like to keep food in deep freeze for a while, it's at risk for some serious freezer burn.

Moisture Retention

The crisper drawers lost 0.18 grams of moisture per hour, which is about average for a fridge. Lettuce isn't going to keep forever in there, but this fridge doesn't speed up any expiration dates.

Freezing & Thawing

While the freezer's temperature regulation demonstrated its incompetence, it did quite well in the freezing test, bringing our 500-gram block of food substitute below 32°F in just an hour and 23 minutes. The fridge's insulation showed its abilities in the thawing test, where it held onto a sub 32°F temperature for over 36 hours of no power, a required characteristic for anyone who might get snowed on.

Storage Space & Energy Efficiency

This fridge made excellent use of its freezer cavity, converting 5.9 of its 6.2 cubic feet into usable space. With all its shelves and features, the fridge couldn't convert as much of its 17.3 cubic foot volume, but still wound up with 11.6 cubic feet. Since it only drew 3.5 kilowatts-hours over our four day test, that's a very efficient usable space to power ratio. A year of using this fridge shouldn't cost much more than $28, if your power is close to the national average of $0.091 per kilowatt hour.