Customer Reviews

Compact Freezer Refrigerator with Lock - Stainless Steel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The EdgeStar has much to boast of: it is lightweight, easy to carry and move, roomy, attractive, and versatile as both a refrigerator and (marginally) as a freezer. Setup is simple, and the price is excellent. Strongly tainting this appliance however, is a thermostat dial which is either incompetently designed, incompetently calibrated, or both

Before continuing, let's not fail to note the advertised description for this product: "Just turn the thermostat to select the appropriate temperature for your application!"

Falling with equal snugness on the Things That Make You Go Duh list is the instruction manual telling us that "The knob has markings to indicate the relative temperature settings, but in general, turning the knob counter-clockwise corresponds to colder temperatures."

So if we turn the dial one way, it gets colder. Turn it the other way it gets warmer. We can handle that. The markings on the dial bear witness to and confirm this elegant conception of appliance design:

regrigeration------> MIN......OFF.....MAX

freezing-----------> MIN......||......MAX

Interesting then, that in practice there is *no* temperature change in the freezer when dialed to "MIN", or dialed to "MAX". I measure both at a steady 20 degrees.

With some playing, one discovers that colder temperatures are achieved, erratically, within the petite 1.5 millimeter space between the two vertical lines separating "Min" and "Max".

Moving counter clockwise per instructions along the dial after the arrow marked "Freezer", the temperatures I normally get are, in order:

20 (when dialed to "Min")
15 (when dialed to the left vertical line)
4 or 12 degrees (when between the two vertical lines)
10 (when dialed to the right vertical line)
20 (when dialed to "Max).

Perhaps the advertised 0 degree capability is buried someplace within the 1.5 mm space between the two vertical lines, but after several days of moving the dial minutely to the left or right, I'm unable to find it.

Additionally, after reaching the coldest discernable temperature of 4 degrees once, it took me 2 days to find it again while continuing my hunt for the elusive advertised 0 degrees.

This is especially frustrating since it takes about half a day or more for a temperature change to be reached within the freezer after moving the thermostat dial -- and when you move it, you don't know for certain if you're making it colder or warmer.
Which is to say, this isn't a particular fast appliance: The manual recommends not introducing frozen food to the freezer until it's been turned to the coldest setting (wherever that is) for at least 2 hours after turning it on. That seems wildly optimistic to me. In practice, it takes roughly 5 hours to freeze undersized 1" ice cubes from power-up using the tray bundled with this freezer.

To its credit, the EchoStar is fine as a refrigerator, and fine as a freezer as long as you aren't picky about hitting the the normally recommended 0 degrees for frozen foods.
But sorry, it should not require several days to find the coldest temperature on a device by nudging a dial back and forth within a space of a milimeter. And oddly enough, even without the instruction booklet telling me to do so, I fully expect "Max" to be colder than "Min", and not be actually located at some microscopicly ambiguous point between the two.

"Just turn the thermostat to select the appropriate temperature for your application!"
Yeah. Duh.

Good points-
1) Small enough to carry up the stairs without help
2) Quieter than expected
3) Unlike a chest freezer, this one lets you have easy access to the contents
4) Low cost for electricity

Bad points
1) This is not for you if you're looking for something big enough to store a deer or other large item. For me, it's just the right size.

I was concerned when I ordered this product based on other feedback. I let the freezer sit for a couple hours after unpacking. I turned it on and set to max freeze and placed an icecube tray inside. It took 75 minutes for the water to freeze. We took it camping with us and after unplugging camper it took six hours for the ice cubes to melt.

Just got this little beauty around 5:00pm today and plugged it in shortly after with freezer temp set to max and putting in a new Freezer thermometer. I read the post about defective temp control, but saw that others had 'no problem' so I played dumb and just cranked it up. Just as well, as it is now 7:30pm and I heard the freezer pump go off. I looked in the door and the thermometer was at rock bottom minus 20 degrees. Wow am I happy. My main refrigerator freezer is set well enough to keep frozen foods at 0 degrees and that's what I want this little model to do also. I turned the thermostatic control back a quarter turn to rest it between max and min on the freezer side. I'm thinking that it will now level out at zero.

How it works was my first concern, so now that that is settled I can only also add what others have said: It looks great!

It looks beautifully made and I won't be surprised to have this unit for many years to come. I got it to hold frozen foods I take out of my main refrigerator while I am thawing out my main refrigerator. I'll bet I start cheating now and start using this little gem to horde my favorite Ice Creams or stock up on meats or who knows what. A very good purchase at a very good price. I would highly recommend to a friend.

I've had this freezer for two weeks and am very happy with it. It got cold very quickly and reached a steady zero degrees with only two or three adjustments. (I've checked it repeatedly with a refrigerator/freezer thermometer to be sure it stayed there.)

I long wished I had a very small freezer in my room to hold ice packs when ill or recovering from surgery, because a small refrigerator doesn't get cold enough. It seems extravagant, but is well worth the cost when your family fridge and freezer are down the stairs and at the other end of the house. (Foot surgery finally drove me to buy this.) I use it for frozen foods as well.

It looks good, too - I only wish the door had a brushed stainless steel instead of a dull mirror finish.

Two weeks is not long for rendering judgment (or I'd probably give it five stars) but I'm delighted to have it. It's good for recovery and makes things much easier for other family members while you're laid up.

We live our RV and there is very little more space. It works great and keeps everything frozen while we are traveling without AC power during the day. We can also run it from our 2000 watt inverter if we needed too. It works great and it looks good.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which one of the compact Freezers to buy..... none of the review sections were convincing. I went with the Edgestar because of the option of being a freezer OR a refrigerator.

It does come double boxed, mine had no marks on it. Cut the straps, take out the foam corners remove the first box. Then LIFT the second box right off the unit (it has not fixed bottom) - it couldn't easier. I then put the thermostat on max and 45 minutes later my new analog Taylor refrigerator/freezer non-calibrated thermometer said -15 degrees. It never got colder on THAT thermometer (rightly or wrongly). For the reviews where some of these units never worked....... it crossed my mind, before I noted the bottom of the box design, to tip the box over and get the unit out that way until I remember being told years and years ago(rightly or wrongly) that if the compressor/gas goes "upside down" it is then ruined....... So maybe that is why some of these units aren't working out of the box?

So far so very good.

Larry

I bought this product on a Friday and received it the following Tuesday; pretty fast I think for the size of the package. But the only shipping option the merchant made available for this compact freezer is some $65 fedex crap. So the lack of realistic shipping rates or amazon's phenomenal free shipping makes this cost just about the same as competing $190 freezers.

I'm not disappointed however, the price was too good to be true for this product as it is everything it says to be. I plugged it in 3 hours ago and it has already frozen my h20 cubes rock hard in the included cube tray. The entire thing is pretty light and fits aesthetically under my desk.

The lock is pretty dinky, still allowing the door to be opened a half-inch when locked. I'm guessing this is for child-safety because there were a lot of pamphlets included on keeping children away so they don't become entrapped in the freezer.... Anyway the keys work and it's not something that can be easily picked without force.

It also gives off an ambient hum. Too early to say if it will become annoying.