Amana ASD2522WRD Review

Introduction

With an MSRP of just $1,199, you may be tempted to get this fairly spacious side-by-side, thinking you're getting a fancy fridge for a low price tag. What you'd actually be getting is a fridge with temperature control so poor as to be unsettling, a cheap and occasionally awkward design, and a freezer with insulation so ineffective that it failed our power loss test (one of only a handful to ever do so). Even when you consider the online sale prices, which go as low as $989, the glaring flaws in this machine may lead to spoiled food and wasted money.

Design & Usability

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The fit and finish is very middle-of-the-road.

The front of the Amana has an unusual silver finish, a sort of imitation stainless. This could actually be more trouble than you might think, since very few other appliances will easily match something outside of the normal color palette. Additionally, the through-the-door ice and water dispenser, as well as the handles, are all made out of cheap-looking and cheap-feeling black plastic that detract from any positive attributes created by the fancy-looking silver exterior. There is one trait that this fridge shares with actual stainless products: the ease with which it picks up fingerprints and smudges.

While the shelf and drawer layout is familiar to anyone who has looked inside a side-by-side, only one of the three drawers has its own humidity control. The freezer, too, is very straightforward, with wire shelves and pull-out buckets making up most of the storage space. The ice maker is quite large, but for some reason, the manufacturers left a small space above it that's actually large enough to make for viable storage.

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Features

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Easy shelf access makes for a rare positive trait, though the Amana’s controls feel cheap and stiff.

For most of this fridge, food is easy to get at regardless of where it’s placed. The one slight exception is in the freezer: No matter how you position the two adjustable shelves, one of them is going to be very short. Consumers may also find themselves avoiding the crisper drawers unless absolutely necessary, since their plastic-on-plastic design makes them frustrating to open and close.

The temperature controls for both the fridge and freezer are located internally, and have a somewhat lower-end design. They are very easy to use, but it’s not because they’re comprehensive and intuitive—it's because they’re painfully simple. There's no degree listing of any kind, not even a manufacturer’s recommended setting.

The controls for the ice and water dispenser, which allow you to switch ice types or turn on a small light, may look as though they’re back-lit, but that’s not actually the case. The “buttons” actually cover switches that can be clearly felt when pushed upon. As far the paddles are concerned, the one that initiates a stream of water feels well-oiled, while the ice paddle is noticeably stiffer. The cavity itself isn’t very deep, so you’ll likely have to hold any glass that you want filled.

The ice maker is quite large and bulky, and is controlled using an old-fashioned wire switch. If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of removing the giant tray, the Amana has a convenient little flap that you can lift up to provide easy access to bulk ice.

Performance

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This Amana is at the lower end of the fridges we’ve examined.

Side-by-sides frequently fall prey to a design flaw thats causes air to warm as its nears the bottom. The gap in the Amana, however, was much larger than anyone would like. Not only did the temperature steadily increase from top to bottom, it fluctuated a fair amount over time, adding up to a fridge that would cause even heartier foods to spoil faster than they should.

The freezer didn’t have quite as big of a temperature gap as the fridge, but there was still a pronounced shift from top to bottom. The problem here is in the temperature fluctuation over time, which is bad enough that food will be at slightly heightened risk of freezer burn. It's not the worst we've seen, but you won't want to keep any one thing in here for too long. When you throw in the fact that the freezer was one of the few machines that failed our power loss test, you've got an all-around lukewarm product.

Ironically, the best performance involved storage of some of the more sensitive food items. The vegetable drawer did a fine job retaining moisture. It should keep produce fresh and crisp for slightly longer than average, assuming they can stand the temperature shifts in the fridge.

Conclusion

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Don't be fooled! It looks like a good deal, but the flaws definitely outweigh the benefits.

The Amana ASD2522WRD is a rather deceptive fridge. It looks friendly enough: standard layout, simple control scheme, and a very pleasing MSRP of $1,199 (as low as $989 on sale). Beneath that silvery, low-cost exterior, however, is an appliance that will only give you food that spoils faster than it should, high utility bills, and back pain caused by a poorly-placed water filter. There are certainly good budget fridges available on the market today, but quality side-by-sides can be rare even at higher costs. This Amana is a perfect example of what can happen when you jump at a bargain without doing research beforehand.

Science Introduction

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When the best thing going for a fridge is decent moisture retention, you know you have a problem. With poor test results in almost every category and an underwhelming amount of storage, almost none of the numbers collected in our data make this fridge look good.

Temperature Performance

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Big shifts over time and space, and we don't mean that in the astronomical way.

There's almost always a temperature shift from top to bottom in a side-by-side's fridge compartment. The Amana, however, exhibited a shift of 7 degrees. That's absolutely higher than it should be, and indicative of poor temperature output. Adding insult to injury, we noticed temperature shifts ranging from half a degree (acceptable) to a full degree and a half (not acceptable).

The freezer's not really any better, starting at -1 degree Fahrenheit at the top and gradually warming to 3.3 degrees at the bottom. Temperature shifts stayed under a full degree, but only just barely; if you reorganize your freezer very much, or leave things in it for too long, you're definitely going to see an outbreak of freezer burn.

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Moisture Retention

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The only green light this fridge gets

The Amana’s single humidity-controlled vegetable drawer did a surprisingly decent job of retaining moisture. Over the course of three days, it lost an average of 0.15 grams of water per hour. This is much better than a lot of cheaper fridges, and is, in fact, slightly above average.

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Freezing & Thawing

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Food takes too long to freeze, and not long enough to thaw.

The closer you get to instantaneous freezing, the better your food will be when thawed. If it takes a long time to freeze, items like beef and chicken can come out with a rougher, less-desirable texture. Taking 1 hour and 51 minutes to freeze our room temperature materials, the Amana proved to be one of the more inefficient appliances that we’ve tested in this regard.

The worst part about the freezer is how it failed our power loss test. We cut the electricity from the Amana and noticed that frozen foods thawed out after only 19 hours. We expect food to stay frozen for at least 36 hours, making the Amana's performance here truly atrocious.

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Storage Space & Energy Efficiency

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The fridge may only be average for a side-by-side, but the Amana’s freezer actually has a fair amount of room.

The wide open storage spaces in this fridge turned out to be an optical illusion. With 9.9 cubic feet of usable space in the fridge, it has slightly less room than other average side-by-sides in this price range. The freezer's a bit better, clocking in with 5.2 cubic feet of usable space. Proportionally, the freezer is bigger than average, but only by a little.

It may be cold comfort at this point, but at least this fridge doesn't use too much electricity while it's running. Calculated with a standard rate of $0.09 per kWh, we determined that the Amana ASD2522WRD will cost $61.31 per year to operate. The ratio of power to space isn't bad, either, with this fridge requiring 0.12 kWh per cubic foot. In fact, that puts this fridge on the more efficient end of the spectrum. It makes one wonder, though... perhaps a little more power might have made for better temperature control.

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Other Tests

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