Review: Electrolux Fridge Freezer (ENT8MD36B)

Sometimes a fridge freezer just wants to be a fridge freezer. And so will this one from Electrolux.

There’s no Wi-Fi, no advanced drawers with almost magical properties or a built-in speaker to tell you how many eggs are left in the carton.

Here are a few doors, some shelves and drawers. And then there’s the stainless steel back panel, which ensures that the cold is evenly distributed in the fridge and that the temperature is quickly re-established once the door has been opened.

The fridge freezer works and delivers what you would expect from such a fridge. So basically, it’s a good choice for those who need an extremely tall fridge-freezer with a full 202 cm and a lot of litres.

And yet.

Space problems

The freezer consists of three drawers and with its 103 litres should be able to hold just about anything. So we stock up on frozen vegetables, bags of French fries and frozen pizzas.

But two of the pizzas are apparently marginally over standard size and we simply can’t fit them in the freezer. Necessity teaches the hungry woman to find a solution, so we pull the pizzas out of the cardboard boxes and now they can just about slide into the drawer. But who stores frozen pizzas without boxes in the freezer? Electrolux, you could have just given us those missing centimetres.

Design

From the outside, the fridge is quite handsome in a masculine way with its charcoal grey steel surface (the manufacturer calls it black, but it’s actually dark grey). Inside, we are greeted by white and grey steel. Here, things look like on most other refrigerators these days.

Two drawers, one for vegetables and one for cold cuts and cheese, which Electrolux calls Extra Chill, and otherwise shelves. While other manufacturers fill the cabinet with special devices for bottles and small mini drawers for snacks, Electrolux gives us two drawers and shelves for the rest. On the other hand, the door holds even more shelves, right up to the top, which is a full 205 cm above the floor. In other words: Truly a spacious fridge.

During the test period, we got a little annoyed with one of the shelves that can be split in half in the centre to make room for taller items on the shelf below. It’s a nice feature, but in this fridge the flexible shelf seems strangely unstable. And when it’s not split in two, we constantly bump into it, causing it to split down the middle and have to reassemble. It’s probably something you get used to.

Shelf life We’ve already talked about the stainless steel back plate, which means food lasts longer than it did when refrigerators were only made of white plastic. We also find that the food stays fresh for a long time while we test the fridge.

In the Greenzone drawer, Electrolux has inserted a barrier that ensures stable humidity in the drawer, and we can see that it works. We leave a bag of spinach in the drawer for almost two weeks and when we take it out, the spinach looks pretty much the same as when we put it in the drawer. That’s impressive.

The rest of the fridge is equipped with 360 Cooling, which we understand means that there are small air holes that ensure cooling in all corners. The technology is activated when the door is closed and also ensures a quick cooling of the food you have just placed in the fridge. This is an example of the kind of invisible technology that manufacturers have developed in recent years that actually reduces food waste.

The freezer

Another of these invisible technologies is Electrolux’s TwinTech Nofrost technology, which ensures that the air in the freezer and the air in the fridge do not mix and that the right humidity is maintained in both parts of the cabinet. All we can say is that this is a technology that is very difficult to verify.

On the other hand, we test the Extra freeze function, which must be activated four hours before you want to freeze something quickly in the top drawer of the freezer. (It automatically switches off after 24 hours). A small light flashes and this is the only indication that the function is on.

We bake a plate of buns and place them in the top drawer. And sure enough, the buns seem frozen when we check them after an hour or so.

The technology is obviously intended for more perishable foods such as meat, fish and ready meals, and for those, it’s nice to have on hand.

Conclusion

Four solid stars for a neat and spacious fridge-freezer that keeps food fresh for a long time. However, we could do with a bit more interior space in the fridge and a freezer with room for our boxed frozen pizzas.