I've been going through a similar process but with models without the second external drawer and or through-the-door water and ice. The Kitchenaid is a Whirlppol product and, as far as I can tell, is assembled with Whirlpool's other FD fridges at the factory in Amana, Iowa. Even though i apparently shares compoents with the other Whirlpool products, KA offers a ten year warranty on the sealed systems but the other Whirlpool fridges only give you a 1 year warrranty. KA's warranty is 1 year everything, parts and labor on the sealed systems through year five and parts only for years six through 10. Equally interesting, most Samsungs only give you a one year warranty like Whirlppols but the particular "four door" model has 5 year warranty on the sealed system. All of that being said, the warranty is only as good as the service companies you can call when you need help. Some places, you have choices. Others, you do not. Some service companies are good and some are terrible. The warranty isn't worth much if you have to wait three weeks to even get somebody to come out and look at your dead fridge. Do, do check on the warranty coverage and find out if you have choices. Samsung seems to have had particular difficulties in that area but Whirlpool brands often use the same low-bid service companies and can be equally bad. Getting some "hands-on" time is also excellent advice for making a choice. Look what what you like to keep in the fridge and how you can arrange the shelving to hold it. That fourth drawer may be very useful to some folks and a royal pain to others. Until you lay hands n it and see how the unit works for you, it can be really hard to tell if it will work for you or not. For instance, are you somebody who needs to store gallon jars of pickles? Maybe you will want to stash a 3 gallon pickle crock? Will you be brining 20 lb. turkeys? If so, can you arrange the shelving so that you can store these things conveniently? Do you need to supply milk to whole platoons of kids? If so, where are you going to put the containers? Maybe you have a world-class collection of mustards? Do you need slide-out shelves to access that half-acre collection of small condiment jars? How do the tempeature and humidty controls work for you? Sliders are fine for some folks and anathema to others.

Last Christmas, we bought the Samsung RF297 so a slightly different model than the one you are considering. Looking at the pictures of the one you are considering, it looks like the main difference is that the wide fourth drawer in that fridge is on the inside of my fridge. In hindsight, I wish that I had gotten the fourth door rather than having that as a drawer on the inside of the fridge, but it's not a big deal. We are a family of six so I needed a spacious fridge. I was a bit concerned about having the icemaker take up space inside my fridge, but it has not been an issue at all. We have the water/ice dispenser on the door. It's not the best design though - the spout is tilted at a funny angle so it's sometimes hard to fill bottles, but since we drink a TON of water (our main beverage) I wanted the dispenser on the door so my kids weren't constantly opening the fridge to get water. I also like how the shelves can swing up to make room for taller items if necessary. The interior has two smaller drawers that I use for fruits and vegetables. I use the wide drawer as a deli drawer - we have a variety of cheeses that I keep on one side, then I keep lunchmeats on the other. If I had the drawer as a separate door on the exterior of the fridge, I'd probably also put small snacks in there like yogurt. So far, we have not had any problems with the fridge. I can't comment on the reliability of LG fridges, but we have had an LG front loading washer/dryer for at least five years and have never had a problem with them thankfully so I have no idea if we'd have an issue with repairs. Keeping my fingers crossed, I guess! I did strongly consider the LG fridges but in the end, I did not like the interior as much as the Samsung - the drawers were smaller and not as sturdy. As mom of four kids, I don't think you can go wrong with the 28/29 cu ft fridge in terms of interior size. While I do shop often, my fridge always has room for what I need to store. I'd show you a picture of how well I store things, but right now, it's nearly empty as we lost power during Hurricane Irene and I have not done a full scale grocery trip since! Waiting for my kids to start school - they were supposed to start last Monday, but power was out at their school all week and was just restored yesterday. Thank heavens! Good luck with your purchase!

Sorry, but we're redoing our kitchen, and just got our 36" FD fridge and I hate it! (It's a Fridgaire--but my comment applies to all FDs.) Who designed the freezer for these things? While it can hold larger items than a SxS, it's basically a pull-out chest freezer, without shelves or compartments (except the shallow top slide-out shelf), so everything gets dumped into the deep bin on top of everything else; beats me how you can keep it organized or find things without bending over and scrounging through it all. We used to have an Amana bottom-freezer fridge, which I loved. So I figured an FD with the freezer on the bottom would be good, too, but our old fridge had regular opening doors with compartments on the freezer door, shelves inside, and a large slide-out bottom basket drawer. It was a smaller fridge (33"), but fit much more inside both the fridge and the freezer sections, and things in the freezer were easy to organize. Also, the ice maker on the door of our new fridge takes up a ton of space inside the refrigerator--who needs it? A low-tech ice cube tray or two in the freezer works just as well, in 1/10 the space. Strangely, the fridge models WITHOUT the ice makers cost hundreds of dollars MORE! Go figure! I wish they still made our old model Amana; I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

My 2 cents on appliances with the integrated panels vs stainless steel. it's all fun and games and pretty until you have to replace an appliance! Often the new appliance has different specs then you have to find someone to make you a new panel and then the wood is a slightly different shade or the older wood has lightened or darkened. When I had my kitchen redone I did the dishwashers and refrigerator with custom panels. One dw was a bosch and one was Fisher paykel drawers. My FPdrawers gave endless trouble a few years ago so I gave up using them and sat wtih them for years as I knew I wasn't going to get the same product again but then did I put a wood panel on the new dw or have a stainless steel model? My carpenter said he could never match up the same wood perfectly. I had an extra panel that had not been used but it had been kept in a basement closet so it hadn't weathered like my other doors had. After being paralyzed with indecision for years I just went with a stainless bosch and am trying to tell myself that the ovens, mw and warmer drawer are all stainless so it matches. But I can't get used to it. My paneled subzero is on life support and if it gets replaced the newer models have different panel specs. I'm now doing a new kitchen in a different house and am definitely not putting in paneled appliances.