5 Cool Refrigerator Features Worth a Look

After a refrigerator gets wired up with temperature sensors, we monitor it for more than a month in a temperature-controlled chamber. We collect more than 5.4 million temperature readings for each model to detect warm and cold spots and to determine which refrigerators will keep your food fresh longer.

All that data—and then some—inform CR’s refrigerator ratings, which include more than 400 models.

Below you’ll find some of the most interesting refrigerator features from our latest tests, ranging from practical five-door configurations to bold 21-inch touch screens. For more innovative models, check out our full refrigerator ratings.

Adding hot items to the refrigerator (say, a warm pot of chili or chicken stock) can send its internal temperature soaring. Even room-temperature items from the supermarket can cause fluctuations, which is bad for foods already in the refrigerator.

To mitigate those temperature swings, manufacturers have created quick-chill settings, such as the Maytag PowerCold feature. To test it out, we loaded a 24-pack of room-temperature half-liter bottles of water into the French-door Maytag MFT2778EEZ, $3,000.

Without the PowerCold feature enabled, the average temperature in the refrigerator went to 43° F—that's 6° F higher than what's recommended for food preservation. With PowerCold enabled, the average temperature maintained a safe 37° F.

This test was a kind of worst-case scenario, because the refrigerator was empty; if it had been full of chilled items, the temperature swing would have been less dramatic. Still, quick-chill settings can be useful, especially if you often put hot or warm food into the refrigerator.

Four-door refrigerators are now commonplace. The KitchenAid KRMF706EBS, $4,000, was the first model in our ratings with a five-door configuration: two pantry-style French doors for the fresh-food compartment; two pull-out drawers, including one with multiple preset temperatures; and a pull-out freezer drawer.

The five-door refrigerator also has an unusual interior platinum finish. For the exterior, you can choose between traditional stainless steel and fingerprint-resistant black stainless steel.

Linear compressors limit temperature swings inside the refrigerator. That not only decreases power consumption but can also help preserve food.

The innovation used to be reserved for pricier models, but we’re seeing this refrigerator feature on less-expensive top-freezers, including the highly rated LG LTCS20220S, $900. Thanks to the technology, this 30-inch-wide top-freezer has one of the best efficiency scores of all tested models.

Some top-freezer and French-door refrigerators, primarily from Samsung, are now flexi-fridges, meaning they offer convertible compartments that you can change from freezer to refrigerator and back again.

The Samsung RT21M6213SG top-freezer, $900, is one such refrigerator, featuring a flexible freezer compartment—in addition to a sleek, black stainless steel finish—that gives consumers extra refrigerator space for party platters and produce with the flick of a switch.

These machines make for great second refrigerators in the garage or basement, and you can even find flexible upright freezers, too.

Samsung pioneered this feature in 2016 with its bold (and expensive) Family Hub French-door refrigerator. Now entering its third generation, Samsung is offering a variety of touch-screen-ladened fridges at ever-lower prices.

Last year’s Samsung RF265BEAESG offers the Family Hub 2.0 touch screen and software at a more palatable $2,400 price (the original model’s price was $5,000). It’s also a strong performer in our ratings, earning high marks across all of our tests.

Not to be outdone, LG will be debuting its own touch-screen refrigerator with Amazon Alexa built in, called the LG LNXS30996D InstaView ThinQ French-door refrigerator, later this year. We look forward to testing the model and learning how these rival smart fridges stack up, when the LG becomes available.