Skip to main content
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

BUY NOW
  • 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

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

The icemaker is on the left door. Above this is a 7-inch touch-screen LCD which shows the status of the refrigerator, as well as allowing you to show photos, notes or sketches done with the included stylus.

The sleek stainless steel finish of this refrigerator looks great, unless you touch it. If you do, you leave behind nasty fingerprint marks which tend to hang around.

The refrigerator is controlled through a combination of the touch screen display and 6 buttons.

The large curved handle is well designed for easy opening, and looks great.

Below the LCD screen is the water and ice dispenser.

You switch to dispensing ice with the left bottom button. This also switches between cubed and crushed ice.

Water and ice are dispensed through the same opening. To the left of the opening is the holder for the stylus for the touch screen.

Interior

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

This refrigerator has the fridge on the right side and the freezer on the left. The refrigerator offers 4 shelves (2 of which are adjustable), a deli drawer and two fruit & vegetable trays. On the fridge door there are four shelves (2 of which are adjustable), a dairy tray and a removable can rack. On the freezer side, there are 4 trays (2 adjustable ones) and two utility drawers. On the door there are just three trays, none of which are adjustable. Most of the space on this door is taken up by the large icemaker and water dispenser. More details of these are in the usable space section of this review.

The interior of the CDWT980VSS.

At the top of the refrigerator section is a tray and a removable bottle rack, which can hold up to 5 bottles.

Three drawers are on offer, with the top one labelled as a "Fresh Drawer". The other two are standard fruit and vegetable drawers, but with no humidity adjustment.

The water filter is located at the top left of the refrigerator compartment. This is easy to replace: just twist and pull it out.

The refrigerator door includes a dairy tray and a can rack.

There are 4 bins in the refrigerator door, which can be removed and adjusted.

The freezer area is just over a foot wide: a little cramped.

At the bottom are two utility drawers.

The icemaker storage tray takes up most of the freezer door, but there are three small bins at the bottom.

The icemaker tray is located on the freezer door. It does not hold much ice, and is very awkward to take off and replace if you want bulk ice.

Back

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

The only major features on the back of the device are the water line connector and the power cable. Both of these are placed for easy connection and come with good lengths of cable and tube.

Sides

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

This is a counter-depth refrigerator, which means it is thinner (at 29 inches deep, not including the doors) than most.

Olympus SZ-31MR iHS side views

Running Cost

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

We found that this refrigerator used an average of about 67.8 kWh, which means that it would cost about $54 a year to run. That's a fairly average cost for a refrigerator of this type.

Power Use Per Cu Ft

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

We also calculate the amount of power used per cubic foot of space, to provide a measure that is independent of the size of a refrigerator. With 16.42 cubic feet of usable space, this works out to about 0.1 KWh per cubic foot of space, which puts it in the middle of the range.

Fridge Temperature

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

A good refrigerator should take your food to the temperature you set and hold it there without the temperature moving up or down too much. To find how well the refrigerator performs, we put dummy food packages into the refrigerator fitted with temperature sensors at several locations, and measure how much the temperature shifts.

We found that the {{product.name}} had only small variations in temperature during our tests, with the temperature of our test packages remaining mostly constant. It was not perfect, though: we did find that the temperature wen above and below our preferred limits a small amount, which could lead to some food damage, especially to fragile foods like vegetables that are more sensitive to temperature variations.

Freezer Temperature

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

We also test the temperature in the freezer compartment in a similar way, placing a number of fake food packages into the freezer with temperature sensors and monitoring their temperature over time. We found that the temperature here was also pretty constant, but with some minor variations. Over time, these variations can damage food and lead to freezer burn, but we found that the temperature on this freezer section was fairly constant, so food should last a good amount of time in this.

Vegetable Drawer

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

For your veggies to stay fresh and tasty, they have to sit in cool, still air which won't dry them out. We test the vegetable drawer of refrigerators by placing a fake vegetable (made from floral foam soaked in water, to simulate the high water content of vegetables) in the tray and monitoring how much water is lost over time. The more water is lost, the quicker your vegetables are likely to become damaged and inedible. The {{product.name}} did well here: we found that our fake vegetable only lost an average of 0.11 grams of water an hour, which is much lower than the other refrigerators we have tested.

Power Loss

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

Power cuts are a fact of life: foul weather and other problems can cut your power off for anything from a few seconds to several hours. So, we test how quickly the freezer compartment of refrigerators heat up when the power goes out. The {{product.name}} performed well here: in the 36 hours that we allow the test to run, the temperature in the center of our test packages never rose above 30 Fahrenheit, so the damage to food should be minimal. One thing to note here: we keep the doors closed for the entire period of this test, and you should do the same: if the power goes out, never open the door of your freezer.

Freezing Performance

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

When you put food into a refrigerator, you want it to freeze as quickly as possible. We test this by taking one of our fake food packages, putting a temperature sensor in the middle and putting it into the freezer compartment. We then measure the temperature to see when the center of the package freezes. For this test, we found that the Kenmore froze the food in 1 hour and 52 minutes, which is acceptable, but not great. The graph below shows the temperature over time.

Usable Space

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

There are four shelves in the refrigerator section, two of which are adjustable. Below these are three drawers. The top one is labelled "Fresh Drawer", while the bottom two are fruit and vegetable drawers. We could find no discernible difference between the two types.

On the refrigerator door there is a dairy tray, a can rack (which is removable if not required) and four removable bins. These bins can be moved up and down or removed as required.

The freezer section of this model is tall and thin. There are four shelves, the middle two of which are adjustable. Two drawers are at the bottom, which are described as utility drawers.

Most of the freezer door is taken up by the icemaker. Below this are three small bins, which are just 4 inches deep.

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

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

This refrigerator looks somewhat intimidating when you first open it: the sheer number of tray, shelves and door bins could be overwhelming. But it is easy to use when you figure out the layout, and the trays also slid out easily when fully loaded, unlike the ill-fitting, stop-starting drawers of the cheaper Frigidaire and Whirlpool models.

Controls

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

The refrigerator is controlled through a combination of the touch screen display and 6 buttons.

This refrigerator includes a big color LCD screen on the front, and it makes full use of this for the controls. If you want to change the temperature of the freezer, for instance, it shows you the current setting with up and down buttons to change it. Anyone who has used an iPod or smartphone will quickly pick it up, but it might confuse older users (as it presents several options on screen at once) or those with visual disabilities. This screen is surrounded by 6 touch buttons which provide quick access to features such as the

Water Dispenser

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

The water dispenser is located on the left door. It is activated by a button just above the dispenser, and we found that it produced a good flow of water: a pint of water was dispensed in just over TK seconds. The water is chilled in the refrigerator compartment, and we also found that you could dispense a lot of water before it got warm. A water filter is installed in the top right corner of the freezer compartment, which the company claims can filter up to 500 gallons of water. Replacing this filter is easy: you just twist and pull the filter cannister to remove or install it.

We did find that it wasn't easy to fit a larger glass or jug in the cavity of the water dispenser: you have to hold anything more than a few inches tall at an angle to reach the water dispenser output. A light just above the water dispenser illuminates the glass so you can see how full your glass is.

Ice Maker

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

The icemaker tray is located on the freezer door. It does not hold much ice, and is very awkward to take off and replace if you want bulk ice.

Cleaning

Noise

Other Features

{{section_header}}{{section.name}}{{/section_header}}

The 7-inch LCD screen of this refrigerator gives it delusions of multimedia grandeur, allowing it to show photos, drawings and text notes on the screen. Photos can be viewed from an SD card or Memory Stick, but the device has no memory of its own to store photos. You can also create drawings using the included stylus, or text notes with an on-screen keyboard. But if you are expecting an iPad-like experience, you'll be sorely disappointed: the system is simplistic and clumsy compared to the iPad or an Android tablet, and is nothing more than a novelty.

{{product.manufacturer_specs['Other Features Photo BROKEN?']}}

The features this system offers are also limited: you can create text notes, but there is no alarm or notification feature, so you can't use it to remind someone to put the oven on or take something out of the freezer to defrost. Instead, it shows you a slideshow of photos, notes or drawings at a fixed interval.

Is this feature useful? No. Does it add anything to the other features the device offers? No.

Conclusion

Energy Efficiency

The {{product.name}} is in the middle of the range for efficiency: it would cost about $54 a year to run, which is acceptable for a refrigerator of this size.

Performance

Strong performance from this refrigerator: we found that it had pretty consistent temperatures in both the refrigerator and the freezer sections. The temperature did spike occasionally, though, which could lead to some food damage over time. The Ice maker also held a smaller amount of ice than some other refrigerators.

Storage Space

This refrigerator offers a good amount of refrigerator space, with 4 shelves and three drawers. We measured a total of 11.48 cubic feet of usable refrigerator space. The freezer space is much smaller though: we measured this at a rather small 4.94 cubic feet, with only three shelves and two small drawers.

Usability

The shelves and drawers of this refrigerator are easy to slide out and use, with little force required to open the doors and drawers. We did find that the ice holder was very awkward to remove and replace, though, making it rather awkward to take out for bulk ice or cleaning. The LCD screen on the front of the device is pretty much pointless: it adds to the cost of the device, but does not add any features that are really useful or worth having.

Meet the tester

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff

Editor

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.

See all of RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff's reviews

Checking our work.

Our team is here for one purpose: to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and lab technicians obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.

Shoot us an email

Up next