Samsung customer service is poor. Before buying Samsung or LG make sure there is a authorized service provider in your area. Haier make some like that but smaller , questionable quality

First year is still Samsung's, after it's the extended but they may have a hard time finding somebody to work on them

Dealing with Samsung is a PAIN. They still have to order parts thru Samsung.

On the other hand I read a lot of reviews that their customer service was good. Just depends on who you get. I had horrendous eexperiences over and over with kitchenaid, but others love them. Jen, the freezer is 2 separate parts. The right one can be freezer or fridge. I fit everything from my old side by side full depth into one side of the Samsung. I just keep ice cream on the right side because it seems not to freeze as hard.

I have had Samsung fridges for the last 10 years and have never had a single issue. I currently have the 4-door you show above, and love it. I plan on putting the same one in my next home.

We have the Samsung four door and love it for the layout. No experience with customer service but only have had it about a year.

I bought all Samsung appliances when we remodeled about a year ago. We purchased the 4 door flex door refrigerator. Piece of crap!! When the freezer quit, they said they would send someone to fix it. After waiting 2 weeks I called again and was told there was no one our area to fix it. Then they told me the warranty had expired. I sent the receipt and page with the warranty info and they said "oh, you're right". Now I have been arguing for over a month trying to get a refund. Today they said I to send the pictures of the cord being cut off the unit. DO NOT BUY SAMSUNG!!!

Leroy Blodgett - Yikes! I've had that experience with various companies way too many times in the past year. I don't want to add yet another possible company to deal with.

I think we are going to wait until other brands get on the "recessed handle" train.
I really like this model because it is taller than average. So we made our built in cabinets to fit that height. Hopefully we can find another one as tall. Unless we get a GREAT deal we are going to steer clear of Samsung.

I was also advised against the brand because their service network is over-extended. I am in Los Angeles so this may or may not be true. I guess you could test it by pretending you need to fix a fridge and seeing how hard it is to find a repair person.

The issue isn't the brand or quality being worse than other refrigerators. FWIW, these are highly rated by CR which generally does a good job of evaluating appliances in this kind of low to mid level price level.

If your only must-have feature is the recessed handle, then technically, a commercial fridge would do exactly what you want.

After much searching, I just bought a True refrigerator for the garage. Installing in a residential setting voids the warranty (bummer!), but otherwise, I love this fridge. It's pretty affordable compared to similar residential refrigerators. It is a super simple design (i.e. less things that can break). It has recessed handles. It has a door that opens 180°. It isn't actually all that big on the outside, but interior dimensions are huge. No strange unusable corners. Everything is easily accessible at eye level, as the compressor is at the bottom. Great Energy Star ratings. All stainless steel or aluminum, so easy to keep clean. It has a powerful fan to quickly recover after the door has been opened. And while not 100% quiet, it is much quieter than I would have expected. Perfect for a garage, and probably still OK for most kitchens.

I really don't get why True isn't targeting residential customers. Their fridge is hands down a much better product than what I can find from any of the residential brands. It might be no frills, but all of the details are much better thought out.

Jen,

I too am seeking a recessed handle fridge. Did you ever buy one or are you still waiting?

We did not buy one yet. We are waiting to find a used Samsung, or one that is on major sale. But mostly we are waiting for other brands to catch on to the style and offer another option. We have been told by way too many appliance repair people to stay away from Samsung, and we have terrible luck so we are heading that advice unless it's super cheap ;)

Frigidaire has a handelless refrigerator but its seems very small, only 17 cubic feet. Its too bad they don't make a 33 inch larger capacity one. This one may be counter depth?

FFBN1721TV Handelless Frigidaire

Please keep us posted if anyone finds a handleless refrigerator other than LG or Samsung. I heard the same things about their quality. My mom does have a Samsung though and has had it for over 10 years without issues. It was not stainless steel though and the silver finish is very difficult to keep clean (I don't know what material its made of). My situation is a little more difficult in that my refrigerator is next to a long wall so I need to probably buy a 33 inch refrigerator and handleless would be best to be able to open the door as wide as possible. My refrigerator opening is 39 inches.

My mom also has a GE profile fridge in her garage which is over 20 years old. I think its a great fridge and love GE design. its too bad they don't have any handleless refrigerators.

I have a samsung side by side recessed handle with the door that lets you open only to the frequently used items..it is handy. I have had it for 2.5 years. The only thing that kind of bugs me is that you need to keep the handles very clean as the grime shows up way more than typical handles I feel. I also have 5 year insurance for the fridge after having two young fridges fail on us. Had insurance on LG from home depot and it was honored (after a long period though in summer of course!) down to the "loaner" mini fridge that was included at no charge. Highly recommend getting insurance.

webusermay - I have seen the Fridgidaire model in person and it is definitely lackluster! It is small and very plain, unfortunately :(.

Samsung currently has a class action (or something like it) against them for their ice makers. Waiting for that to pan out as nearly every other review on their recessed handle models has a problem with either the ice maker or their compressors (which they have two of in each fridge and one is different than the other).

Hi I’m just following up on this. I still have not bought the refrigerator for my kitchen. After some thought I may just go for the single door with handle from GE. I will just place the door handle on the side near the wall so I can open it all the way towards the side without the wall. Probably also go for a low profile. We don’t need that much refrigerator space and my kitchen is very small. what did you finally decide on? Sorry my username is so weird. i couldn’t figure out how to change it.

I know this thread has been going for a couple of years, but I wanted to share my experience. We have had the 4 door flex by Samsung for a couple of years. It's beautiful. . The ice maker is "meh" but not bad enough to turn me off the product. I STRONGLY caution you against the Samsung 4-door flex unless you are in a dry climate. At about 15 months the top stopped keeping temperature, and we lost all the food in the top. We had to use the bottom right section as a fridge and the bottom left as freezer (which we did anyway) while going through 4 very unpleasant weeks of back and forth with customer service and various repair folks. I was out $100 for someone to look at it and say "we don't repair that." It was considered covered under the longer warranty for the compressor, but Samsung gave me the constant runaround to get my money back. I never saw it.. It took two weeks to get those guys out. Another week to get another company out to say that it's not really a bad compressor but instead is condensation building up on the compressor every time I open the door because I live in the south where the humidity is high and they test the equipment in dry climates. Apparently, these refrigerators work great in dry climates. I can't confirm. They ultimately replaced the compressor anyway. Fast forward exactly 1 year and it had the same problem again. This was the first week of June 2019. Samsung said I needed to shut off my fridge for 48 hours to let it defrost and dry out then plug it back in and I should be good to go. That's realistic, right? What about my food? Again, I lost food and I'm out more money. I insisted on a refund or replacement as this is unacceptable for what I paid. I never received compensation for the bad product or loss of food (which they also said they'd compensate me for), even though they hinted towards it. This time it took multiple calls with repair folks because nobody wants to service them. Everyone Samsung sent it to said "nope." After 2 weeks a really nice guy came out and basically said the same thing about the humidity. In the end there was no repair because it was working again after the defrost. I argued with Samsung that this was not a 'fix' but a confirmation of a problem. This went nowhere. Guess what? 3 months later and it's not cooling again. I have no choice but to spend my day off emptying it once again and defrosting it while i shop for a replacement and argue one last time with SamSung in hopes of getting something in return. At this point I've lost about $500 in food and I can't tell you how much in billable hours and time away from work meeting repair folks and sitting on the phone. I understand all appliances have lemons so someone has a bad story about every product, even the products with 4-5 stars. Most of the good reviews are only a few months after they receive it from what I can tell. I liked mine so much after I installed it that I recommended it to several people. It's great until it stops working.

Just a quick add: I have the counter depth. I don't know if this has anything to do with the problems. We rarely open both top doors, but even opening one causes a lot of cool air to quickly escape. We now have a thermometer on full display inside and you can see the temp change pretty quickly. My friend has the large capacity version in another southern state and hasn't had issues yet. She's about 2 years in.

very interesting about the humidity.
we have the counter depth.
we tried another fridge first but it was so loud and annoying. and we had heard that the newer versions have been improved. what year was yours manufactured MRogers?

2015, if I remember correctly. I just learned that Bosch is releasing a version with no handles and it looks nice. You can see it on their website. Lowe’s doesn’t have the no-handle version in the store just yet, but they just received the handled version. I think I found my new fridge when it is available.

FWIW I shopped refrigerators las5 year when I remodeled and the very knowledgeable guy recommended against the Bosch models as he said they weren’t the best in their class and not as good as their other appliances. I went with Bosch oven, Bosch induction cooktop, Bosch dishwasher and Bosch washer dryer but opted for a Kitchenaid refrigerator.

Anecdata here, but we’ve been super happy with our Bosch fridge (counter depth, 800 series). No troubles at all with it.

I am looking for the same and warned against Samsung too. I found GE Cafe platinum glass collection and think I’m going to buy those! They are beautiful and have all the features I want, but kind of pricey!

Looking for one that is 36” wide worh recessed handles. I don’t get why all these counter depth ones end up being 31” deep. Really no longer counter depth

The definition of a counter depth refrigerator is that the case of the refrigerator is 24 in deep so the door and handle sticks out. If you want something that is flush with your cabinets that is called a built-in.

Thanks tjmwine. I’m just looking for something that doesn’t stick out quite as much hence lookinh for the recessed door handle. looking for a reliable one that is more affordable.

Reliable, functional, affordable, and pretty? Pick two. Or maybe even just pick one...

Reliable and functional

That's why I picked a built-in SubZero all-fridge column with custom panel. Couldn't be happier with my choice -- only, it absolutely does not meet the "affordable" requirement. SubZero has a well-deserved reputation for good engineering and good customer service, but they certainly take advantage of that reputation when setting their price.

We had the 4 door Samsung refrigerator for 4 years and didn’t have any issues at all - but we live in Colorado (very dry). But, I will have to say the ice maker “gummed” up quite frequently and we had to dump the ice and start over - but we don’t use ice all that frequently. I was in love with the black stainless when it first came out and in particular with Samsung’s version of it, so I had to have it. I do have to comment though, that the first time I used the self clean on my oven, it “broke” (it locked the door permanently). Samsung’s “solution” was “oh - you can’t use the self clean at altitude” - WHAT??? That’s your solution???? To their “credit” (ha) they refunded our $1100, told us we could not resell the oven - my husband found the part on amazon for $8, fixed it himself, we pocketed the $1100 and never used the self clean function again (which sucked, but we were Uber careful of what we baked) - fast forward 3 years and the house burned down in the 2nd worst forest fire in CO - another sucky story, but lesson learned we’ll never buy Samsung again....

We actually don’t want one with a water dispenser or ice maker since we hardly use as well. Which makes it even harder to find one without having to spend thousands! Thanks for your feedback on your experience

Bosch French door refrigerator has a model with recessed handles.

I have done much research on counter depth and recessed handled units.. Samsung has a unit or 2 under 29 inches and one at 29.25.. all the models with all manufacturers that have ice and water in the door are poorly rated. My solution will be to buy the warranty.

I do not recommend the Samsung. Even with the warranty you are in store for a lot of headaches. I recently replaced mine with a Bosch and am much happier.

Samsung makes terrible refrigerators. Don’t do it, even with the warranty. You’ll be spending your life waiting on the repairman.

maybe so.. bosch has lots of bad comments as well.. I do know appliance repair guys prefer non lg and non samsung products.. the issue is samsung will dominate this market secondly as i said all ice and water in door units are poor... for me 1 fridge under 29 inches works.. bosch is deeper..

Not sure where you are located, but the repair guy for my Samsung (2 different guys actually) said that the issue with the compressor freezing up doesn’t happen in drier climates. I’m in the very humid southeast. It means you have to empty it and dry it out for 72 hours every time it freezes up. If you’re in a drier climate, you may be okay. My ice maker worked, but I had to defrost it with a hair dryer 1950’s-style once per week. I finally replaced the Samsung this year when it once again stopped cooling the top unit and upon inspection did not appear to be the issue with the compressor freezing up. I think it just broke, but I wasn’t interested in sinking any more money into it. It had also gotten to the point where nobody in town would work it.

My Bosch is too new to review its performance long term. The only two things I can say about it is the long interior drawer inside the French door is unfortunate. You have to open both doors to get anything out of it. Not a deal breaker; mostly an inconvenience. Also, it makes too much ice which is a problem I can handle.

I have noticed there are a few other counter depth models without handles on the market. Unfortunately, they aren’t as aesthetically pleasing.

Best of luck to you.

My Bosch is too new to review its performance long term. The only two things I can say about it is the long interior drawer inside the French door is unfortunate.

That is a common problem with this form factor, and one of the reasons why I don't like French door refrigerators. I know that they are popular these days, but I feel there are much more functional designs.

Personally, I am extremely pleased with having bought a SubZero all-fridge column without any built-in ice maker. But that only works if your kitchen cabinets are designed for this particular combination. And it admittedly is quite a bit pricier. It has worked absolutely flawlessly though; and so did the SubZero that the previous owner installed 25 years earlier before we eventually decided to completely remodel and replace existing appliances.

LG has a handless refrigerator now. Any advice on those?