Mini Refrigerator Freezer Choices

A mini refrigerator freezer can be useful if you have run out of space with your existing fridge, havelimited space but need some refrigeration capacity or if you lead amobile lifestyle and want a refrigerator that can be thrown in theback of a car and transported with the minimum fuss.

You may have seen the little portablenovelty fridges that hold a pack of cans, these are not therefrigerators we are discussing here. Those fridges are portable minirefrigerators, and despite their odd look they can be very useful inthe right conditions. Unfortunately they do not come with freezercompartments and due to size can be very limiting.

The mini refrigerator freezers we arelooking at are very similar to under counter refrigerators but aregenerally half the size and smaller. They do not come with carryhandles so aren't portable in the obvious sense but are portable inthe as much as they are easy to lift and can fit in the smallest carboots.

If you are looking on the internetyou'll often see these fridges called compact mini refrigerators orcompact fridges. They start in size at about 1.4 Cu ft and rangethrough to about 4.0 Cu ft. Above this size refrigerators tend to becalled under counter refrigerators and below they are portablerefrigerators.

Most compact mini refrigerator freezerswill weigh in at about 35-45kgs depending on smaller to larger modelchoices. At the smaller end you can expect the refrigerator to have asingle wire shelf with door storage capacity for a 2l bottle size.You are unlikely to get much in the way of can dispensers and thefreezers tend to be optimistically named. The freezer compartments onsmall models are generally only enough to hold an ice tray giving yousome ice cubes and are usually half width set ups.

At the larger end of the scale,refrigerators between 2.5 Cu ft and 4 Cu ft tend to offer a littlemore versatility. You'll get two interior shelves and an icecompartment that is usually full width. You'll find at the large sizeend of the spectrum you get more storage options in terms of candispensers, door storage and freezer compartment sizes. You could optfor a small freezer or a larger freezer at the expense of therefrigeration compartment.

You would think that prices would varydramatically across the size and storage option ranges, but you willtend to find that $150 will cover most size and storage choices. Youwill find that most of the big brands such as Haier, Magic Chef andDanby are quite competitive on price, but then brands such as Sanyoappear to price on brand value.