Cold quiet functional

My unit came in pretty sturdy packaging. The unit works well and is fairly quiet. No issues. Have not seen any frost accumulate after 6 weeks either.More detail ...

Gets cold in the back-- REALLY cold

For the most part this refridgerator has done a good job keeping the drinks cold and the size is reasonable: small on the outside big on the inside perfect for the dorm room. The interior is sound and the temperature is very cold even on the minimum setting.



So why did it lose three stars? Because of one minor flaw and one serious problem. The minor flaw is that while the fridge keeps the things inside cold the top and sides get uncomfortably warm. Not enough to set anything on fire but definitely not the thing you want to put your bare hand on for long. Good if you want to keep lunch warm though.



As for the serious problem-- the pipe in the back gets really really cold. After running this for three weeks my mother noticed that the fridge was leaking water. Upon further inspection I noticed that it wasn't a leak...it was water dripping from MELTING ICE THAT HAD FORMED around one of the pipes in the back of the fridge just outside of the insulation that had wrapped around the pipe. The chunk was about an inch and a half in diameter and looked like a chunk of white foam wrapped around the pipe.



It took me 15 minutes to ease the ice off then as I was inspecting the pipe under the insulating cover another chunk of ice popped out. All told it took about 20 minutes to get the mess handled but I'm glad my mother noticed the water dripping when she did otherwise I fear that the fridge might have short circuited and cost us $100 in the process.



EDIT: In regards to the ice--the refridgerator's parts seem to be watertight so you don't have to worry about the ice harming it. I do recommend that should you buy this fridge to either put some foam/insulation around the pipe to reinforce the one already present or more simply just putting a tray under the ice to catch the drips.More detail ...

Just Turn The Thermostat To The Desired Temperature !

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.More detail ...

Second Time Around

I purchased this refrigerator for my office. It is to be shared by a group of 5 people so I wanted one that was a little bigger than the typical compacts. I paid for overnight deliverly as others had suggested. The unit arrived in a box that had been previously opened. I was a bit worried when I removed the item from the box. It had some large dents on the side but was otherwise ok. Once I plugged it in I realized there were bigger issues. The motor was very loud and was cycling constantly. It would run for seven minutes and then would be off for four minutes then on for seven off for four - yes I actually timed it. Everytime the unit came on it startled me. At first I thought that once the motor broke in that it would become quiet. That did not happen. After having the unit for 24 hours and spilling a cup of coffee on my desk from my rattled nerves I called Amazon for a replacement unit.



The new refrigerator arrived the next day. Once again it arrived in a box that had previously been opened. The replacement had a large dent on the door but otherwise works great. It is so quiet. I barely notice it when the motor is running. What a difference! I actually check it on occasion to make sure that it is working because I don't notice it at all. I switched doors with the first refrigerator and now I have a unit that has no significant dents and it doesn't interrupt my work environment. The actual refrigerator is nice looking and has a lot of interior space. After the experience with the first one I am a bit concerned about the reliability but for now I am satisfied.More detail ...

Great bargain

It's on sale this week at Target for $109 so I thought I'd write a review in case anyone wants to get one cheap without having to pay shipping.



Perfect size for one person--maybe even 2. I would have liked a bigger freezer compartment but it's bigger than it looks. At a medium setting the frozen foods stay frozen and the refrigerated foods are plenty cold. The thermostat actually works.



This is a real fridge with a compressor not some cheap piece of junk.More detail ...

Will almost certainly arrive damaged with ground shipping...

... foregoing the two reviews about shipping damage I thought I'd try ordering this product for several reasons:



1) The hi-res dealer images of it from Sanyo.com made it look like one sexy fridge

2) The energy rating was good

3) I knew if the product did arrive damaged Amazon would replace it or refund my money anyway

4) I have Amazon Prime so I figured paying $3.99 for overnight shipping would also make the delivery people think this was a special product since it was going overnight and not being sent across the country via Ground shipping and abused in the process.



Well the product arrived today and initially I thought "This can't be good."



The box was extremely tattered... and the top was ripped open. I also heard rattling as the FedEx man helped me carry it up the stairs. Then he left without even getting a signature. Oh and at my front door the FedEx man just dropped the box on the ground in front of me.



I opened the box upstairs and saw horrible horrible packaging as others have mentioned. The box was all beat up and several of the inch or less thick padding was cracked and damaged.



Luckily the fridge seemed to make it through intact... no dents and it worked. The rattling as I carried it was the compressor... I still don't know if this is normal though.



These fridges are indeed shipped on a pallet you can see that from the shipping sticker from Sanyo to Amazon's Nevada warehouse. Three fridges per pallet. All Amazon does is stick a FedEx/UPS sticker on these boxes and ship them off. If I didn't get this sent overnight I can almost guarantee the fridge would've beat beat to hell going ground from Nevada to New York.



As for this part of the item description

"To keep the refrigerator looking brand new its stainless-steel door has a clear acrylic coating that eliminates fingerprints and is easy to keep clean."



Well it won't be happening for me as the clear acrylic coating came ripped halfway down the upper right corner of the fridge so I really had no choice but to rip all the rest of it off.



The fridge works and it DOES look amazingly sexy but unless you have Prime or want to pay for expedited shipping this will almost certainly come damaged until Amazon decides to start packaging these adequately. And really I don't see why they don't because it's just a hassle for the end customer and an expensive dime on their end to pay for return shipping and then shipping again for a replacement.More detail ...