LG Freestanding French Door Refrigerator, Gray

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] So I bought a bunch of the signature LG devices. The range. The fridge. The dishwasher. The air purifier. Overview This fridge is something special in ways all the reviews miss. NOTHING comes close to the cubic capacity of this fridge, 31cubic ft is crazy for a fridge that fits in a standard 70" height and 36" width. I can put in a full 24 cans of soda into just a single row on the top shelf. In comparison, and over 7' tall and 48" subzero has 29cubic feet. LG just packages their refrigerators way more efficiently than all other brands. The next closest brands for such space density are the Samsungs, and then it drops off a cliff. Oh, it also looks better and costs half the price of the subzero. Fridge part The door within a door, I thought was a gimmick. It's useless on the sub zeros because it makes the low storage space even worse because the glass door on a sub zero has no inner door shelf. The LG door within a door knock-to-view glass has a really deep shelf. So you can easily put in a half gallon of milk, and soda, but also all your condiments (ketchup, salad dressings, etc). All that messy hard to organize stuff easily fits in there, which makes the stuff you put into the regular part of the fridge more easily organized, and frankly more of a cool looking presentation. But the sheer really usable space in the fridge part is amazingly good, and frankly, I've seen nothing better. NIGGLES. The two things to make it perfect are the deli drawer is the entire width of the fridge, so you need to open both doors to really use it, it would be great if they split that drawer in 2 halves so you dont have to open both doors. It would be great if one of the lower shelves would collapse backward so you dont have to take it out when you put in a big pot, and when you remove the pot, you can just extend the shelf back out. Ice maker/water part The ice maker and water are great, and compact. The water filter is super easy to change. The air filter in back is a little annoying but not too bad. I love how they made the water/ice unit flush so it doesnt look like an eye sore. The pre-measured settings are cool. NIGGLES. One thing that could be improved is I wish the water dispenser worked like at a fast food restaurant where you could place the water sitting on the stand, hit 12oz, and walk away letting it fill that amount without having to hold the glass against the lever. Also, the water and ice are splashy unless you hold your glass higher up. Freezer The freezer is IMMENSE. Like crazy big, and the way the drawers auto extend out of it is border line Disney magic. Really spacious. The freezer part is just so perfect and great, I have no niggles at all with it. Reliability So mine was a 2019 (non-alexia) version and I put in a temperature sensor from Eve in there to monitor the temperature and noticed the temperatures were going up over 50F at times for prolonged periods of time. I called LG, got service person there, and they had to replace the motherboard, and not the compressor. This seemed to fix the issue and my guess is they have upgraded the system since I've had it. Since then, the temperature generally stays where I put it at 37, and it will rise regularly to around 40F-42F for an hour or so every day or 2, my guess is, to control for humidity and prevent any frost. The fridge is completely free of frost. Other Niggles. Here are the 2 biggest, the refrigerator slightly bows out in the middle and the door hinges do not let you place the fridge flush with your cabinets unless you do some custom work. The refrigerator is not plumb. The edges of the fridge bow out. We built a custom nook so the fridge would be flush with the cabinets. This was NOT easy as the fridge has massively thick doors and the hinge is not well thought out in that the doors would not swing out unless the fridge is NOT flush with the cabinets and needs to extend like 8" out from your cabinets for the doors to open. if they placed the hinge in a different spot, you would be able to open the doors and keep the fridge flush with your cabinets, and LG should rethink the hinge design. Anyway, the surprise is we built a custom space and had 3/8" gap on the sides for the fridge to slide in and it BARELY fit. Up top and bottom there is 3/8" but in the middle body of the fridge, it BOWS out and almost touches the sides of the space we have for it. This is really not understandable for a product in this class. Maybe we just have a weird unit, and an early model. But do not just go by the stated measurements and go measure a model including it's girth at the middle fo the fridge width wise. It's different than at the top and bottom. The good news is this bowing out of the sides is not something your eye really picks up, so it's not a constant annoyance. But it could be a tragedy if you are trying to fit it into a really tight and/or custom spot. The other thing that LG needs to do is have the display show not just the desired temperature setting, but the actual measured temperature and humidity and air quality inside the fridge. There is no reason why I have to buy a 3rd party sensor and put that into the fridge. Finally, the UI inside the fridge for setting the temperature and other things are designed by an engineer and are not intuitive. They need to give it to a UI designer to simplify that or make it work off an app on your phone. Another niggle is the glass doors on all their signature products are a bad choice of materials. They are semi mirror and you knock and then you can see in. LG goes to pains to promote how the textured steel is fingerprint resistant, and it is. But the knock-to-look glass is a fingerprint magnet! It's terrible and near impossible to keep clean. Why would you not address this when you went to such pains to keep the steel fingerprint free. This applies to the range as well. Weird decision in materials. Last niggle has to do with the design. it is gorgeous and I love how it does not have visible handles. But the inset handles collect crumbs and things over time. It's decently easy to clean, but perhaps they can make that space designed a little easier to clean out. Moving it in your place is also tough if you have standard size doors. This extra deep model means they have to take the doors off to get the fridge into your place, and then put the doors back on inside your place. It's just so darn big, it wont get through a standard door otherwise. Conclusion Despite the numerous niggles is, there just is nothing that comes close in capacity for the same size. NOTHING. This signature fridge stands alone at 31cubic feet capacity for this standard size and destroys oversized sub zero's. It's amazing. The design aesthetic is just stunning and beautiful with no handles.