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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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The {{product.name}} features a brushed stainless steel facade with a water/ice dispenser in its left door.

While it looks nice, we found the {{product.name}} tends to pick up fingerprints pretty easily and the fridge's glossy surface makes sure they're noticeable. If obvious fingerprint smudges get on your nerves, you might want to steer clear of stainless steel.

The fridge's handles have squared tops and are round for easy gripping.

The handle meets the fridge at a gradual slope, with rounded edges.

The water dispenser is located on the left door.

The controls let you pick the between crushed and cubed ice.

The water is dispensed through a small white tube; the ice comes down from a chute.

Interior

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The inside of the {{product.name}} is separated into two halves: the left is the freezer and the right is the refrigerator.

The interior of the CDWT980VSS.

The top half of the refrigerator has three shelves and a wavy wire shelf that's ideal for holding bottles. All of the shelves can be removed, but there's not a whole lot of additional options for placement.

The bottom half of the refrigerator features three drawers: two vegetable and one fresh drawer.

The right door has a lot of storage options: most of the shelves can accommodate a two gallon jug of milk.

The top half of the freezer features three shelves that have a lot of room to move around. If you need another couple inches to fit something in, you'll be able to shift your shelves without wasting too much space.

The bottom part of the freezer has two drawers.

The left door contains three shelves below the ice maker. These shelves can tilt outwards slightly, but can't be repositioned.

The ice maker takes up the majority of the freezer door and can be removed. Below it are its instructions, which is handy should you need some quick help.

Back

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The back of the fridge is pretty featureless. It features a water hookup that drops from the top left corner and a power plug that extends from the lower right. The included water connection cable is fairly long, so it should reach most water outlets. Adapters to plumb the water line into the refrigerator are included.

Sides

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The sides of the fridge don't have any interesting features.

Olympus SZ-31MR iHS side views

Running Cost

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This refrigerator uses an average amount of electricity: we calculated the cost over a year to be about $54, assuming that electricity costs about 9.1 cents per Kilowatt.

Power Use Per Cu Ft

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So we can compare refrigerators of different sizes, we also calculate the cost per cubic foot of usable interior space. For this device, this worked out at 0.1 KWh per cubic foot, which is a little higher than other refrigerators of this type.

Fridge Temperature

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A good refrigerator should take your food to the required temperature and hold it there without much variation. To find out if it does, we put dummy food packages into the refrigerator fitted with temperature sensors at several locations, and measure how the temperature of these varies over time, which is shown below.

In the graph above, the yellow zone is the optimal range for food to be stored at: the red is too hot, and the blue is too cold. As you can see, the temperature in the fridge compartment of this refrigerator remains pretty constant, although it does get a little warm on occasion (the graph shows a typical 12 hours from our test, which runs over several days). This consistency of temperature is partly because this refrigerator has two compressor systems (the component that does the actual cooling), one for the fridge and one for the freezer. Other refrigerators with one compressor have to use the same cooling system to cool both the freezer and the refrigerator, but the {{product.name}} can pump cold air into both compartments separately.

Freezer Temperature

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As well as keeping the food in the fridge compartment cool, your refrigerator has to keep the frozen food at a constant temperature: variations here can cause freezer burn and ruin your food. So, we test this by putting several temperature sensors inside simulated food packages and placing them at various points in the freezer compartment, so we can monitor the temperature in different locations and at different times.

The {{product.brand.name}} had the same strong performance for the freezer compartment as it did for the fridge. We found that, once our test foods had frozen, the temperature remained pretty constant at both of the points within the freezer that we tested, with the variations being less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The graph above shows a typical 12 hour period from our tests, which run over several days.

Vegetable Drawer

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A vegetable drawer is supposed to keep your fruits and veggies cool and crisp, but without drying them out. So, we test the performance of the vegetable tray by putting a mock vegetable (made of floral foam) into the tray and monitoring how much water is lost over time. A good veggie tray will cool the veggies without much water loss. We found that this refrigerator kept our test food cold, but didn't dry it out overly: the amount of water lost from our food was about 0.11 grams per hour, which is less than most refrigerators.

Power Loss

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If your power goes out, the food in your fridge is in danger of being damaged. A good refrigerator should keep your food cool for a few hours, though, so we test this by disconnecting the power from the refrigerator and monitoring how the temperature rises over time in our test food. We found that the {{product.name}} had no issues here: our test food in the freezer section stayed below freezing for over 36 hours, so unless the power goes out for more than a day and a half, your food should remain frozen. That is assuming that you don't open the door and let all the cold air out, of course.

Freezing Performance

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Professional chefs use freezers that can freeze food very quickly, so the ice crystals are small and don't damage the texture of the food. That's not a luxury that most of us amateurs have, but we do need a refrigerator to freeze food quickly. So, we test this by putting a block of fake food with a temperature sensor inside it into the freezer section on the shelf closest to the cold air output (or in the designated fast freeze section if there is one) and monitor how quickly the food freezes: the faster, the better.

We found that our test package took 1 hour and 46 minutes to go from the room temperature to being frozen in the center of the package, which is a little slower than we like to see. This refrigerator does also offer a turbo freeze mode if you want to freeze a lot of food quickly, but this comes at the cost of extra energy use.

Usable Space

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The right side of the fridge is the refrigerator portion. There are two fixed and two removable shelves, plus a removable wine rack that can hold up to 5 bottles.

There are three drawers in the fridge space, one of which is described as a Fresh Tray. Below this are two vegetable and fruit drawers. Neither of these offers a humidity control, but we found that they performed well in our tests on the water loss of a fake vegetable stored in this space.

The right door of the refrigerator has four shelves. At the top is a small dairy tray and a removable can rack. All of the shelves are removable and can be reslotted into grooves spaced three inches apart. This gives a good degree of granularity, letting you create shelves with a lot or a little vertical space.

The freezer is rather tall and thin: at 12.5 inches wide, it is going to be a squeeze to get larger packages in here. There are two utility drawers at the bottom of the freezer section.

The left door is for the freezer, and most of the door is taken up by the icemaker and the ice holding tray. Below this are three small trays, none of which offers much space. This limits the amount of space in the freezer significantly.

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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All of the features and spaces in the {{product.name}} are fairly easy to access. The water and ice dispenser at the door is placed at a good height to maximize usability. All of the drawers and shelves are removable and can be repositioned. The drawers slide open easily, even when they carry a lot of weight. Even the typically hard to reach areas, like the ice maker, are easy to access. You shouldn't have any accessibility issues with this fridge.

Controls

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The controls for this refrigerator are a series of buttons around a display which shows the current settings. The buttons control features such as switching from ice to water (and the type of ice dispensed). The on-screen icons are large enough to be visible, so it is easy to see how the refrigerator is running at a glance.

It is also simple to switch from ice to water: just press the appropriate button above the dispenser. The ice button also changes the type of ice dispensed.

Water Dispenser

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The water dispenser outputs cool water (it is chilled in a reservoir inside the fridge), and it stays cold for a good long time. The flow rate is pretty high: it took only about 20 seconds to dispense a pint of water.

Ice Maker

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The ice maker takes up the majority of the freezer door and can be removed. Below it are its instructions, which is handy should you need some quick help.

Cleaning

Noise

Other Features

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Conclusion

Energy Efficiency

The {{product.name}} should cost about $54 a year to run, which is very acceptable for a device of this size.

Performance

Both the freezer and refrigerator temperatures were pretty constant, so food should keep well in this refrigerator. We also found that vegetables in either of the vegetable drawers did not loose much water, so they too should keep well. The ice maker is a little small, though, and does not keep as much ice on tap as some other devices.

Storage Space

The {{product.name}} offers a good amount of fridge space, with several shelves that can be removed or relocated as required. There are also three drawers (two vegetable and one fresh drawer) and plenty of space in the fridge door. This door can also hold larger items such as gallons of milk and large bottles, and there are two wire trays: one for cans, and one for bottles to keep a bottle of white wine nice and chilled. The refrigerator is a little more cramped, though, with the icemaker taking a lot of space in the door and the shelves not being overly wide. It should be big enough for most users, but big families and bulk buyers will quickly fill it up.

Usability

The {{product.name}} is an easy to use refrigerator, with easy opening doors and easy to slide drawers. The ice maker is a bit noisy, however, and larger spills have a tendency to fall behind the rear drawers.

Meet the tester

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff

Editor

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