New test method

The most important function of a fridge-freezer is keeping food fresh. So we’ve changed the way we test – our focus is now on temperature performance and energy efficiency. We no longer assess ease of use.

To reflect the changes to our testing method, we’ve revised the scores of previously tested models that are still available. This means some of our recommendations have changed since our earlier reports.

Our new test

As fridge manufacturers come under pressure to increase energy efficiency, they look for ways of saving energy. One way of doing this is by having longer “compressor-off cycles” – and this can cause temperature fluctuations. But consistent temperatures are important for maintaining food quality, so we assessed temperature fluctuations as the compressor stopped and started.

For optimum food storage, your fridge should be running at 3°C and your freezer at -18°C  – at the same time. We checked whether each compartment could be independently set to a range of different temperature combinations.

Ideally, you want each compartment’s temperature to be the same throughout: if the bottom of the fridge is too cold your leafy greens will freeze; and if the door-shelf is too warm your milk will go off faster. That’s why we’ve measured temperature uniformity throughout each compartment.

Fridge and freezer temperatures can be affected by a change in the surrounding air temperature. So we tested each fridge-freezer’s ability to deal with seasonal change. A low score means you’d need to adjust that model’s temperatures when the weather turns cold or becomes warmer.

We used the manufacturer's recommended settings to assess how close the fridge and freezer were to optimal food-storage temperatures. If there wasn’t a recommended setting, we used the mid setting. A poor score for recommended settings means you’d have to use a fridge thermometer to get optimum temperatures (but we recommend you do this for any fridge).

Finally we measured energy use for each model – we then adjusted this for different fridge and freezer volumes and calculated energy efficiency.

See the Test results for details of how all the fridge-freezers performed.