A drab college dorm room or a stark office can seem more like home with a snack or cold drink at your fingertips. And adding a compact refrigerator to a media/TV room or home workshop also saves steps to the kitchen. These pint-sized refrigerators can even replace a full-sized model if you're trying to save space in a small apartment or weekend home. Add in easy transport and prices as low as $70, and it's easy to see why Americans buy 3 million of these appliances each year.

But whoever coined the phrase "less is more" couldn't have had compact refrigerators in mind. The largest compacts we tested hold only about one-quarter as much as a typical full-sized refrigerator; the smallest hold one-tenth as much. And none were tops at both refrigerating and freezing.