I am back after a long review break. Decided to enlighten you souls on the finer points of buying a refrigerator of course with the review of todays product the LG 265 TM refrigerator.
Since the moment I decided I need a new refrigerator I had made up my mind that I will not impulse buy the refrigerator, instead will do a thorough research and then buy one, so I shortlisted on a 265 litre frost free refrigerator. There !!! you have reduced a considerable confusion in first shot. Now goes the brand and price of refrigerator, which you wouldnt know unless you ask your friends about the refri they are using and their experience or for that matter look up mouthshut or do a search in market.
So there I am burning my soles going to each and every showroom that comes my way. I would like to tell the future buyers that never think that the first showroom which you go is giving you the best deal. Every showroom you visit will have a different price , different brand to sell and different opinions on same product. Even if they advertise in papers that they have the cheapest rates in city. It might not be the case.
First stop was vijay sales . They were pushing LG brand and the sales man said thats the best in the market which is selling now. Infact they did have relatively new LG which had icebeam cooling with door cooling which throws a air curtain on the door when you open it so that the hot air doesnt get into the refrigerator. I must say its a great feature but I was not to keep on spending 2000 bucks extra for that feature. which was costing around Vijay sales price around 15000-15500 dont remember it too well.
Then there were these showroom NEXT which had the LG 265 TM which only has door cooling and no ice beam which had a price of 16000/- I was shocked at the difference but the sales man said you decide and we will make the best deal for you. I decided not to buy from such showroom .
Next stop were some local showroom which had the same model at around 13500-13700, 13800, 14000 price varied with each dealer. Finally a showroom in bandra gave me 13000 quote and I decided to buy it. I am sure there must be other showroom which would have even given a better deal than that .
Now about the refrigerator.
The refri is sleek and has decent looks. The Samsung in the same capacity had a better looking model and was priced at a 1000 rupee extra than LG. The videocon in same capacity had almost the same price but the build quality didnt seem so good. Same goes for godrej pentacool. IT had good features and average build quality but I was worried about the after sales after reading some experiences.
The model numbers which LG is using is very misleading. The 265 TM doesnt mean its 265 litres its just 250 litres. hmmmmm.... now I see why it is cheaper than others. But I didnt mind it as I didnt need so much capacity.
The fridge is divided in 3/4 1/4 for the deep freezer and fridge. The fridge door has a door cooling vents which helps in faster cooling in the door items. The usuall door egg trays.. utlitly trays. 3 shelfs of wire . There are other option of plastic shelfs which we didnt opt . The vegetable tray at bottom is transperant and spacy. The fridge has a temprature controller . There is a de odoriser in fridge , wonder if that is very useful. Because I have faced the problem of smell in this refrigerator. If you keep chutney or something with a little lid open then all the things in fridge including water will smell of it. I wonder why .......my 25 year old godrej refrigetor never ever had a smell problem like this.
The deep freezer has a twist tray for ice a box under twist tray to store cubes. A deep freezer has temprature controller too . The deep freezer door has a utlity tray for your beer cans and bottles wink....
Well thats about it for the features which I think are generally same across all brands.
Now the functioning and some interesting findings. I have kept the fridge temprature at 1 which is minimum and I think it is cooling adequately even in this summer season with mumbai touching 35 celcius. The freezer has been kept at 1 too which again is proving to be adequate. The water bottles in the door cool considerably fast around 10-15 minutes and you could have some cold water.. not chilled but just about cool water. The compressor starts on off in around 30 minutes... depends on how many times u open the door. The compressor switching on and off makes a terrible gun shot sound. I got scared and I thought theres soemthing wrong with fridge, but thats the way it works.
I have heard people say LG fridges consume more electricity. Unfortunately I got those comments only after I brought the refrigerator. So I decided to measure up.
HEre are the electricty readings.
Time measured : 105 hours
No of times door opened : 0 ( the more times you open the door the more electricity it will consume since the cooling cycle needs more time to remove the hot air)
Units consumed: 7
Outside temperature : between 30-35 celcius mumbai (the more outside temperature the more time it will need to cool = more electricity)
Average unit per hour : 0.06
Average unit per hour for 265 litre refrigerator according to reliance energy : 0.10
Phew....
I hope I have covered all the parts regarding this refrigerator. If anyone has any other refrigerator and he has done a electricity consumption reading, I would like to know it and lay to rest this lg fridge consuming more electricity controversy.
Have fun. Be Cool.
brij