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  • Introduction

  • Design & Usability

  • Features

  • Performance

  • Conclusion

  • Science Introduction

  • Temperature Performance

  • Freezing & Thawing

  • Moisture Retention

  • Storage Space & Energy Use

  • Other Tests

  • Introduction
  • Design & Usability
  • Features
  • Performance
  • Conclusion
  • Science Introduction
  • Temperature Performance
  • Freezing & Thawing
  • Moisture Retention
  • Storage Space & Energy Use
  • Other Tests

Introduction

All these extras don't justify spending $2,399— or even the RSG257AARS's $1,999 sale price. It's this fridge's iceberg-solid performance that makes it worth the money, however. Superb food preservation and temperature control are the hallmarks of a good fridge, and this Samsung has both. If you're in the market for a side-by-side, it's unlikely you could find a better refrigerator at any price.

Design & Usability

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A handsome, well-built refrigerator that is easy to use

The RSG257AARS features a brushed stainless steel facade. This is a handsome appliance, but it tends to collect fingerprints—and the glossy surface puts them on display.

This is a handsome appliance, but it tends to collect fingerprints.

Open the doors and you'll find a well-designed, if simple, interior. On the refrigerator side, there are a number of shelves and drawers, some of which can be moved around—although the available combinations for rearrangement are few. A raised lip around the edge of the shelves should help contain small spills, door shelves can each accommodate a two-gallon jug of milk, and fresh produce will have plenty of space in two vegetable drawers and one fresh drawer.

On the freezer's side, there's ample room for long-term food storage, a fair portion of adjustable shelves, a removable ice tray, and a couple of drawers.

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Features

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The RSG257AARS offers easy access to all of its features and drawers.

The Samsung RSG257AARS' control panel is located above the water/ice dispenser. It consists of a series of buttons and a display that shows the current settings for features such as lighting, fridge/freezer temperature, and an energy saving mode. Happily, the digital on-screen icons are quite sizable, so it is easy to see how the refrigerator is running at a glance.

If you want a cold drink late at night, stay away from the ice maker, or risk waking the neighbors.

The water dispenser doles out cool water—it's chilled in a reservoir inside the fridge—and it stays cold for a long time. The flow rate is pretty high, taking about 20 seconds to dispense a pint of water. This Samsung doesn’t make much noise overall—a gentle humming is usually the worst of it—but the ice maker is rather disruptive when in use. It emits a very audible clunking sound as it makes ice, and a very loud grinding noise as it dispenses. The ice crusher further adds to the noise. If you want a cold drink late at night, stay away from the ice maker, or risk waking the neighbors.

Moving along to other senses, your nose will appreciate the dual evaporator and fan system Samsung calls "Twin Cooling Plus." Unlike some refrigerators, which share air between the fridge and freezer compartment, this one has a separate evaporator and fan for each. That means your ice cubes will never taste garlicky when you put leftover pizza in the fridge, and that ripe soft cheese you're storing in the fridge won't stink up the freezer.

Performance

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The Samsung RSG257AARS produces consistent temperatures in both fridge and freezer.

A proper refrigerator should bring your food to an ideal temperature and hold it there without much variation to prevent premature spoilage. This Samsung's fridge compartment does just that, barely fluctuating throughout our testing procedures. It also does a great job retaining moisture in the crisper drawer, which is good news for fans of fresh produce.

The RSG257AARS had the same strong performance for the freezer compartment as it did for the fridge.

As well as keeping the food in the fridge compartment cool, your refrigerator needs to keep the frozen food at a constant temperature: variations here can cause freezer burn and ruin your food. The RSG257AARS 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 inside remained quite constant.

Lastly, the Samsung RSG257AARS costs about $54 a year to run in the Energy Saving mode, which is pretty typical for a refrigerator of this size.

Conclusion

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A top-notch fridge worthy of recommendation to your friends and family

The Samsung RSG257AARS (MSRP $2,399) is an attractive, well built fridge. Both the freezer and the refrigerator temperatures were pretty constant, so food should keep well. We also found that produce in either of the vegetable drawers did not lose much water. The noisy ice maker is a little small, though, and does not keep as much ice on deck as some competing appliances.

The Samsung RSG257AARS is an easy recommendation.

The RSG257AARS 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 a spacious fridge door. The freezer is a little more cramped, though, because the ice maker takes up plenty of interior space and the shelves are not particularly wide. The ice maker can be removed and the freezer should be large enough for most users, but big families and bulk buyers will quickly fill it up.

With its mix of solid performance results and above-average storage space, not to mention a decent annual running cost, the Samsung RSG257AARS is an easy recommendation.

Science Introduction

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We were impressed with the RSG257AARS's performance. This Samsung's fridge and freezer temperatures were consistent, plus it will keep your foods chilled for over a day in case your power goes out. Energy consumption was on the average side and storage space was reasonable.

Temperature Performance

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Temperatures across the board are mostly consistent, with only a few spikes here and there.

The temperature in the fridge compartment remained pretty constant, although it ran just a hair warmer than the 37ºF indicated on the control panel. We put dummy food packages fitted with temperature sensors into the fridge in several locations, and measured temperatures that barely fluctuated over time—with the exception of during the defrost cycle.

The Samsung RSG257AARS had the same strong performance for the freezer compartment as it did for the fridge, with even temperatures from top to bottom. 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. The temperature variations over time were around 1.5ºF on average over time, which is ideal.

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Freezing & Thawing

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We expected foods to freeze quicker for a fridge this pricey.

Professional chefs use appliances that can freeze very quickly to ensure that the ice crystals stay small and don’t damage the texture of the food. That’s not a luxury that most of us amateurs have, but we need a refrigerator to freeze food as hastily as possible, nonetheless. We measure a freezer's speed using a block of fake food that contains a temperature sensor in the middle. This block goes 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 then we monitor how quickly the food freezes: the faster, the better.

The center of our test food took 1 hour and 46 minutes to go from room temperature to frozen, which is average, but a little slower than we like to see on fridges of this caliber. The Samsung RSG257AARS does offer a turbo freeze mode to freeze a lot of food quickly, but this comes at the cost of extra energy use.

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...

When power outages occur, obviously the food in a freezer becomes susceptible to damage. For this reason, a reliable freezer should keep your food frozen for as long as possible, and we test this ability by disconnecting the power and monitoring how the temperature of our test foods rises over time. We found that the Samsung RSG257AARS had no issues here: 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—assuming that you don’t open the door and let all the cold air out, of course.

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Moisture Retention

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A vegetable drawer like this one will keep your veggies fresh.

A vegetable drawer should keep your fruits and veggies cool and crisp 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 and relatively moist: the amount of water lost from our food was about 0.11 grams per hour, which is less than most refrigerators.

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Storage Space & Energy Use

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The RSG257AARS offers a nice amount of fridge space, but a less adequate freezer. Energy efficiency was about average.

The right side of the fridge is the refrigerator portion. It has numerous shelves and there are three drawers as well, one of which is described as a "Fresh Tray." Below this are two vegetable and fruit drawers. Neither of these offer humidity control, but we found that they performed well in our tests. In total, the fridge offers 11.48 cubic feet of usable storage space.

Neither of [the fridge drawers] offer humidity control, but we found that they performed well in our tests.

The freezer is rather tall and thin; at 12.5 inches wide, it is tough to squeeze larger packages into 4.94 cubic feet of storage. There are two utility drawers at the bottom of the freezer section. The freezer door is halved by the ice maker and the ice holding tray. Below this are three small trays, none of which offer much room.

Lastly, this appliance costs about $54 a year to run, which is pretty typical for a refrigerator of this size. This is in the Energy Saving mode. We calculated this cost with the assumption that electricity costs about 9.1 cents per Kilowatt. In order to 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.

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Other Tests

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Meet the testers

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff

RefrigeratorInfo.com Staff

Editor

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

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Josh Fields

Josh Fields

Staff Writer

@reviewedtech

An enthusiast of all things tech, Josh is one of Reviewed.com's resident television experts. When he's not looking at bright TV screens in a dark room, he's probably reviewing a laptop or finding a new snack at 7-11.

See all of Josh Fields's reviews

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