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DEAL WATCH: Keurig K-Express | 22% off $69.99

Keurig has changed the face of coffee, and snagging one of these for less than $70 is a solid deal. Read Review

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  • Introduction

  • Front

  • Interior

  • Back

  • Sides

  • Running Cost

  • Power Use Per Cu Ft

  • Fridge Temperature

  • Freezer Temperature

  • Vegetable Drawer

  • Power Loss

  • Freezing Performance

  • Usable Space

  • Ease of Access

  • Controls

  • Water Dispenser

  • Ice Maker

  • Cleaning

  • Noise

  • Other Features

  • Conclusion

  • Introduction
  • Front
  • Interior
  • Back
  • Sides
  • Running Cost
  • Power Use Per Cu Ft
  • Fridge Temperature
  • Freezer Temperature
  • Vegetable Drawer
  • Power Loss
  • Freezing Performance
  • Usable Space
  • Ease of Access
  • Controls
  • Water Dispenser
  • Ice Maker
  • Cleaning
  • Noise
  • Other Features
  • Conclusion

Introduction

Front

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This rectangular behemoth has a stainless steel exterior. As with all side-by-sides, the freezer is located on the left and the fridge on the right. The control panel is located on the outside of the freezer door, immediately above the ice and water dispenser.

Police could practically use the smears left on this thing to identify who has been in your kitchen. If smudging were a crime, the stainless front of this appliance would be painfully guilty. Keep this in mind, especially if you have a household full of small children.

The control panel is located on the outside of the freezer door, and handles all the temperature regulating and any extra features. It's made of black plastic and uses blue lights to indicate the interior temperature. All features are represented with good-sized pictures accompanied by a text label.

Compared to the overall size of the fridge, the handles look rather thin. They're vertical, have a smooth steel finish, and are very easy to grip.

Water and ice are dispensed from a single cavity located under the fridge's control panel. The cavity is large enough to accommodate an average-sized drinking glass, so you won't have to worry about ice knocking anything out of your hand when it's being filled.

Interior

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The inside of this model is fairly typical for a side-by-side: freezer on the left, fridge on the right. Shelves are made primarily with glass have a thin white plastic trim. Taking a cue from the truly higher-end appliances, the lights inside both apartments come on gradually. This is usually a feature for models that use LED lighting, but this one just has standard light bulbs.

The interior of the CDWT980VSS.

The main portion of the fridge is broken up into three adjustable shelves, one fixed shelf, and three drawers. The shelves mount to the rear using plastic hooks. It's actually the set of drawers that provide the most interesting variation on the traditional fridge design. The top one is labeled the "Chill Zone" and has an adjustable temperature control. The middle is called the "Fresh Zone" and is divided into two sections whose humidity can be adjusted independently of each other. The third and lowest drawer—the least interesting, without any snappy name of its own—serves as a standard vegetable drawer, also with adjustable humidity.

The water filter is located in the upper right corner of the fridge. Unlike many other designs, this one is made to sit up against the side of the fridge, taking up less space than is usual. Right next to it, and protruding out a shorter distance, is the fridge's replaceable air filter.

The fridge door is made up of a dairy bin at the top, three large adjustable bucket shelves below that, and two smaller fixed shelves at the bottom. Nothing remarkable here; just more white and translucent plastic.

A good chunk of the top portion inside the freezer is taken up by the ice maker. Underneath that are the only two regular shelves located in this section. Just below that is a short pull-out drawer. At the very bottom are two taller drawers that, unlike the upper one, are made of wire and aren't completely enclosed.

The freezer door has four rather small shelves, one above the ice maker's dispenser, and three below. None of the shelves are adjustable. Like the fridge, there's nothing terribly unique about this layout.

The ice maker is quite bulky, and is powered on or off using a flip switch located on the actual device. The device and the switch is covered by a removable plastic front. To get at the actual ice, you can either remove the cover or pull out the actual ice tray.

Back

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There's only one tube coming out of the metal back of this appliance. It's green, and connects the hook up to your water source to the ice maker and water filter at the top.

Sides

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If you're kitchen forces you to leave the sides of your fridge visible, don't worry. They're covered with a matte gray finish that complements the stainless front quite nicely.

Olympus SZ-31MR iHS side views

Running Cost

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This {{product.brand.name}} is a fairly large appliance. With all that internal space to cool, it's going to cost a fair amount of money to run. Using a standard rate of $0.09 kW-h, this machine will run up an annual bill of about $61.87. This is higher than average generally speaking, but fridges this size tend create energy bills that are on the higher end of the spectrum.

Power Use Per Cu Ft

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The manufacturer lists this product as a 26 cubic foot appliance; we determined that 15.39 cubic feet out of that 26 is actually usable space. That may seem quite disparate, but 15.39 cubic feet is actually a fair amount when it comes to viable storage. As such, when we proportionately distributed the amount of energy consumed over usable space, we determined that this fridge only requires 0.12 kW-h per cubic foot. That makes this fridge a very energy efficient appliance despite its large size and annual energy cost.

Fridge Temperature

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We set all fridges to their manufacturer recommended temperatures, and in the case of fridges with digital displays this means 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes, however, the air temperature is colder than the internal temperature of our test materials. On average, the inside of our test materials never got colder than about 39 degrees; in order to keep your food at the the perfect temperature, you'll actually have to lower the thermostat of the fridge. Fortunately, temperatures never fluctuated more than a third of a degree, which means your food will remain consistent regardless.

Many side-by-sides suffer from inconsistent temperatures from top to bottom, as well. This particular model did a good job for the top two thirds at remaining fairly even, but the very bottom of the fridge was substantially warmer. The lowest third averaged a surprisingly warm 46 degrees Fahrenheit, much warmer than it should be. Luckily, produce can typically keep at slightly warmer degrees than other refrigerated items, so it may not be too much of a problem.

Freezer Temperature

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Similarly, the freezer suffered from a slightly inaccurate thermostat. Even though the console states the freezer was at a solid 0 degrees, our materials registered an average temperature of two to three degrees. It's still frozen, but the discrepancy is worth mentioning. The real problem is in the temperature consistency over time. The {{product.brand.name}}'s freezer fluctuated just over half a degree over time on average. It's not terrible, but any more of a fluctuation and your food would likely be at a higher risk of freezer burn.

Vegetable Drawer

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An average fridge in this product's price range will possess two separate crisper drawers, each with its own humidity control. The {{product.brand.name}} is unusual in that it has one standard drawer and a second that is divided by a plastic barrier, with the humidity of each half controlled separately. We tested the moisture retention of one of these half-drawers, and the results were so unusually poor that we made sure to double check it by running the test again. Over the course of three days, this fridge's crisper drawer lost moisture at a rate of about 0.35 grams per hour. To put that into perspective, a decent fridge would lose an average of about 0.10 grams less than that per hour. Not the most friendly fridge for produce preservation, you'll want to make sure you use any fresh fruit and vegetables quickly, or buy in slightly smaller quantities than you would otherwise.

Power Loss

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We simulate a power outage simply by pulling the plug on our appliances and seeing how well the freezer insulation does its job. After 36 hours, the {{product.brand.name}}'s freezer was still quite cold, not having even reached the 30 degree mark.

Freezing Performance

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Taking longer than we'd like, the {{product.brand.name}} froze our room temperature materials in one hour and 49 minutes. The longer it takes to freeze an item, especially meat or fish, the greater the chance it will have a diminished texture when thawed.

Usable Space

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Compared to lower-end models, this {{product.brand.name}} has more drawers than you may be used to. Two have humidity controls, while the other—the "Chill Zone"—has a temperature switch for keeping items cool that don't necessarily have to be frozen. The three drawers, along with the four available shelves, offer a total of 11.06 cubic feet of usable space. This is a rather large fridge, and should suit even larger families.

Contributing to that ample fridge space are the storage compartments found on the door. Starting at the top and working down, you have a dairy bin, three larger adjustable shelves, and two fixed smaller shelves all the way at the bottom.

The {{product.brand.name}}'s freezer is also rather drawer-heavy. Only two small shelves are found underneath the ice maker; below those are a single enclosed drawer and two open wire drawers. There's also a space above the ice maker that can be used for storage in necessary. All told, you have access to 4.37 cubic feet of storage here.

The freezer door doesn't contribute as much as the fridge door, but there's still storage to be found. There's a shelf above the ice maker's spout, as well as three more below it.

Below are the manufacturers own figures for capacity, and our own measurements for usable capacity. The manufacturers figures do not take account of the shelves, drawers and other removable features, but our measurements do account for the space these take up.

Ease of Access

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The shelves are all very easy to access in both compartments, and there's even an added accessibility bonus in the fridge. The glass portion of the shelf slides out, allowing you even more easy access to items kept at the back. Drawers in both compartments slide in and out with relative ease, but they're not ideal. They don't line up perfectly straight, and can occasionally get stuck.

Controls

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The control panel is located on the outside of the freezer door, and handles all the temperature regulating and any extra features. It's made of black plastic and uses blue lights to indicate the interior temperature. All features are represented with good-sized pictures accompanied by a text label.

Controls for this fridge are very easy to use, if a bit busy visually. The use of pictures and text labels mean consumers with either preference will be satisfied, but unlike displays that use only digital displays, these pictures and labels never turn off. They don't glow, but they still add a bit of clutter to the front of the fridge. Small red lights are easy to see and indicate which features are currently selected. Despite the smooth console surface, all buttons respond promptly without any forceful pushing, making for a smooth interactive experience. You'll want to make sure you save the manual, though: features like "Vacation Mode" aren't necessarily that common, and you may not remember what it does if you don't use it all that often.

Water Dispenser

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The water and ice come out of the same spout, which depresses smoothly. Your liquid of choice comes out quickly, and the cavity is big enough to accommodate even larger drinking glasses.

Ice Maker

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The ice maker is quite bulky, and is powered on or off using a flip switch located on the actual device. The device and the switch is covered by a removable plastic front. To get at the actual ice, you can either remove the cover or pull out the actual ice tray.

Cleaning

Noise

Other Features

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Conclusion

Energy Efficiency

This product offers average energy efficiency for a fridge of this size. You won't necessarily save any money in your monthly electric statement, but the energy consumption proportional to its size is quite good.

Performance

The {{product.brand.name}} suffered from a slight, albeit common, inaccuracy with its thermostat: while the numbers on the control panel measure the air temperature inside the compartments, the internal sections of our test materials average about two degrees warmer. Luckily, temperature consistency over time was more or less stable, so food should be fairly well cared for. Also of note: the vegetable drawer exhibited surprisingly high rates of moisture loss, so you'll want to keep a close eye on your fresh produce. It may not stay as fresh for as long in this fridge as it would in many of the other models we've tested.

Storage Space

Models with fridges as big as the one found in the {{product.brand.name}} usually come with a frozen sacrifice. Not so here: a fridge that falls on the larger end of average stands side by side with a freezer that should suit the needs of even larger families.

Usability

The nicest design element here is the fact that fridge shelves slide out and the freezer has mostly pull-out drawers. This means getting to food in the back—usually a big hassle for the skinny side-by-sides—is that much easier. Controls come with clear pictures and text, making them a snap to use, though you'll want to hang on to the manual to refresh yourself on all the extra features added into this machine.

Meet the tester

Matthew Zahnzinger

Matthew Zahnzinger

Logistics Manager & Staff Writer

@ReviewedHome

Matthew is a native of Brockton, MA and a graduate of Northeastern, where he earned a degree in English and Theatre. He has also studied at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin and spends most of his free time pursuing a performance career in the greater Boston area.

See all of Matthew Zahnzinger's reviews

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