Brands? There are a lot fewer than you might think. Basically, three companies make almost all of the chest freezers sold in North America. These are: Frigidaire which owns a variety of brands (like Kelvinator, White Westinghouse) and also makes freezers for big-box store house brands plus some of the freezers sold under GE and Kenmore brands. I've been told by Sears salepeople that Frigidaire makes the large capacity chest freezers sold as Kenmores. Whirlpool: bought the WC Woods factory in Canada out of a bankruptcy liquidation in 2009, and has continued production. Sold under Whirlpool's various brand names (Amana, Kitchenaid, Maytag) plus some odd brands it owns (Admiral) plus some brands like Danby, Crosley, etc. Haier: selling under its own name plus a variety of brands for big box stores plus the rest of what GE and Kenmore sell. Haier has had some intermittent quality control and warranty service issues on some products but a scan of ConsumerAffairs.Com did not turn up any complaints about their chest feezers. Some of them apparently are assembled in North or South Carolina. Consumer Reports membership survey results do not report on long term reliability and problem rates for chest freezers. CR's product performance ratings favor Whirlpool and Frigidaire branded chest freezers. The buying advice is pretty much look for features (like lights) and energy consumption, and buy whatever has the best price. I bought a small (5 cu ft) Firgidaire about 16 years ago (from Costco, IIRC). Near as I can tell, it is essentially the same small model that Frigidaire is still selling. According to the Kill-a-Watt meter, the old one consumes about 2% more power than the current models are supposed to use, at least according to the DOE tags in the store models. (Consumer Reports cautions that their testing has shown that the ratings are an average of 17% low. Maybe they test the freezers differently than I do or maybe the current sealed sysmes and motors aren't so good.) Never had a hint of problem with Firigidare chest unit and it is still going strong for a friend of mine. We had a 9 hour power outage a couple of years back. When the power came back, my friend dropped in a probe thermometer and found internal temps were still -4F. I'm told they'll go for days without power. I'd still be using that Frigidaire except that I needed larger capacity and only had room to get it in the basement by going taller. That's how I wound up with 14 cu ft Firgidaire upright. I find it a lot more convenient to get at things in the upright but at the price of a lot more noise (which I did not expect) and power consumption (which I did expect.) The Kill-a-Watt meter tells me the upright is using about three times the power of the old chest freezer. This post was edited by JWVideo on Sun, May 5, 13 at 19:53

I love my Frigidaire, but it's because I love the plastic storage dividers and sliding trays. Only the addition on my house has a basement, and because of the access, I opted for 2 - 15cubic foot chest freezers instead of one big one. I store a mix in both so I won't loose everything if one did go out. Also makes defrosting easier (I will not have a frost free for long term storage) as I can do one at a time. I also have a much older sears 7 cu foot unit. I use that one for storing staples mostly. They come with two baskets, but I have three in one and one in the other. Notice the blue dividers in the bottom. Really helps to keep things organized and not falling in the way when you want something near the bottom.

This spring we purchased two new chest freezers to replace some dying ones we've had forever. Ended up getting a GE and a Whirlpool. Both energy star, manual defrost. Some thoughts after running them for a few months: Both work just fine. GE is much noisier than the Whirlpool. The lid on the GE seems very flimsy (flexes a lot when you open it). Both use plastic baskets as opposed to the older metal ones. None of these plastic baskets fit as well as the ones in our older freezers. And you can't put a full basket in some positions on top or the lid won't close all the way. And both have external hinges which take up a bit more room. (the old freezers had hinges that were internal to the freezer itself) Hard to say which one will run for longer, but at this point I'd probably buy another Whirlpool.

Auto defrost defeats the point of having a chest freezer, as Dan indicated. The chest design is optimal for long term storage. It's perfect for meats, whether hunted, or bought by the side, as well as garden produce, stock, etc. the physics of the chest shape, and top opening, make it so. Additionally, vacuum sealing foods will further extend their storage life. BUT, the link is to a small, inexpensive unit. If you want it for ice cream pops, frozen entrees, grocery store frozen veg and berries, party ice bags, etc., as a supplement to your fridge's freezer, rather than long term food preservation, and expect to be opening it several times per day or more, go with the auto defrost. Just be aware that foods won't stay good much longer than in your fridge's freezer.