Why You Can Trust CNET GE GFE26JSMSS French Door Refrigerator review: An unassuming GE French door fridge -- and a so-so performer
This GE French door is a bit of a bore, and all of the shelves that can fit a gallon of milk run too warm.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
One of the most common "must-haves" people tend to list while shopping for a new refrigerator is an in-door ice and water dispenser. That's why fridges like the GE GFE26JSMSS -- one of the brand's least expensive French door models that'll dispense ice through the door -- tend to be pretty popular picks.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
At a suggested retail price of $2,400 and currently available for closer to $1,900, the GFE26JSMSS isn't cheap, but it's more affordable than GE's fancier, more feature-rich fridges, including French door models in the Profile Series and Cafe Series lineups. It'll work if you just want a simple, baseline French door fridge and you're on a budget, but it won't offer much to get excited about.
That isn't so bad if you just want something that'll keep your milk cold, but the GFE26JSMSS might struggle there, too. Despite steady performance throughout the majority of the fridge, the top shelf was a persistent problem spot that consistently ran a few degrees warm, returning an average temperature of 40.2 F during a 72-hour test at the default setting of 37 F. Though only just barely, that's still warmer than the FDA recommends, and warm enough for me to tell you to to shop around for something with a default setting that performs a little better.
As a plain ol' baseline French door model, the GFE26JSMSS fits the bill. With a total of 25.5 cubic feet of storage space, 17.5 of which are allocated to the fridge compartment up top, it isn't the biggest icebox money can buy, but it'll still offer plenty of room for a full family's worth of groceries. With a yearly energy draw of 700 kWh, it'll add about $84 to your energy bill each year. Divide that cost by the cubic footage, and you're spending $3.29 each year to cool each cubic foot. That's a little better than average as far as French door models are concerned -- for comparison, the Samsung RF23M8090SG, a top-performing, high-end French door fridge that retails for about $2,000 more than this GE model, will cost you about $3.36 per year per cubic foot.
As a low-to-midrange model, the GFE26JSMSS doesn't come with a whole lot of features, but you at least get a shelf that slides in to make room for tall groceries below, which is always nice to have. And, while the deli drawer at the bottom of the fridge doesn't offer its own, distinct temperature settings like you'll find in higher-end models, you do get a little slide that lets you adjust between "Cold" and "Colder." I left it dialed down during my performance tests, and found that it brought the temperature down by about 3 or 4 degrees, which is enough to be useful for delicate ingredients like meats and cheeses.
Hot spots in the door shelves are more or less forgivable, but the main body shelves really ought to stay below 40 degrees F at the default setting.
As for the temperatures in the rest of the fridge, they were more or less right on target in my tests, with two exceptions. First, the entirety of the right door ran warm, which is pretty common in French door models, and forgivable if you're just going to use those shelves to hold things like beverages and preservative-heavy condiments. You'll want to put the milk elsewhere, though.
The problem there is the second hot spot -- the refrigerator's top shelf. Throughout all of my tests, it was consistently about 4 degrees warmer than the rest of the fridge, enough for it to return an average temperature just above 40 degrees F at the default, 37-degree setting. That's warmer than the FDA recommends, and too warm for that pesky gallon of milk.
I say pesky gallon of milk because the top shelf and the right door shelves are really the only places in the fridge that can accommodate it, and all of them run too warm. Your best bet is to keep that slide-in shelf open and designate the second shelf below it as your milk's safe space. Either that or dial the fridge down by a degree or two. Both are compromises you shouldn't have to make when you're spending this much.
The verdict
There is absolutely nothing wrong with boring refrigerators, especially if you couldn't care less about gimmicky features or integrations with Alexa. Some of us just want a decent-looking appliance that keeps food cold without costing too much.
GE didn't quite hit that mark with the GFE26JSMSS. At a suggested retail price of $2,400 and likely available for at least a few hundred less, it isn't unreasonably expensive as far as French door fridges with in-door ice dispensers go. Unfortunately, the performance at that default setting just doesn't leave you with enough cold spots to stash your milk. At this price, I think you should expect better.
- Shopping for a new fridge and looking for assistance? Check out our full refrigerator buying guide.
