Was at Harvey N more than a month ago in Paradigm along LDP. The Hitachi R-B6800M (R-B6700 in Japan) and R-B6200M uses only 260 kWh and 240kwh per year. Wow that's a whopping 21.7 and 20 units of electricity per month. Although large (620 and 670l gross), it whops the rest of the same its size and some of smaller sizes.

It's a new fridge with bottom freezer with many doors. Sales guy told me Hitachi makes the best fridge from feedback. Beko (Turkey) also not bad. Some of Bosch products are OEM from Beko according to him.

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Jul 9 2012, 05:30 PM

Based on your budget, I think a two-door second hand fridge could be had. You have an advantage.... just post a WTB ad if you live in an apartment and see what's the response. Should be ppl around wanting to get a new fridge. The ad might just trigger it. Otherwise try places like Mudah etc.

Hunt some more. Try Jintex and ask around in places like Best Denki and Harvey Norman or the Panasonic shop la. I have tried Sharp and Panasonic (bottom freezer) altough the other brands should be just as good.

One common problem among most fridges is they suffer from ok freezer but not cold fridge. Culprit are blocked air vents making ice to form inside causing cold air not to flow out. The not-so teruk is ice foming somewhere underneath and behind the vegetable case or any crowded space near the vent where the air circulation becomes too cold. The ones that solves this problem even in the harshest condition is considered reliable. I have seen cases where a fridge was stocked up such that the light cannot shine through because of left overs from meals crowding out everything.

Sometimes if a home kena frequent lightning strike induced outage, the fridge might rosak faster. In this situation the ELCB might need replacing otherwise compressor cepat konk. The refrigerant needs time to settle for at least 12 hours before turning it back on.

After you strip away volume, energy consumption and features, it all boils down to compressor reliability, air flow performance on full stock up, tendency of ice damming in the air outlet from freezer to fridge and door gasket seal lifespan. Most important of all, after sales service and ease of procuring spare parts. Can't imagine waiting 2 weeks for a fridge spare part.

Electrolux OEM from various. Their French 4-door, bottom freezer is from Sharp or Sharp's OEM.

Mitsubishi and Hitachi makes good fridges esp their compressor.

Panasonic should be reliable but had scanty feedback from one seller about compressor issue after 4-5 years. I had one Panasonic kena fridge not cold due to ice damming once this year. Fridge is 7 year old model but bought six years ago. This was due to overcrowding but it took a while before ice damming blocked up fridge air outlet from freezer. Panasonic technician fix it for RM200. Gasket seal still good. My inlaws have theirs for 8 years but still going strong.

LG and Samsung makes stunning design and features but don't know their reliability. Guess if they sell so much here it must be good.

Good luck hunting!

khieni,

What size of fridge you looking for? Kagami series? Equivalent Hitachi sizes could be cheaper. Try Best Denki. They have clearance sale in some outlets or at least at Tropicana City Mall. Some fridge are going cheap. even small 2 door going for sub RM1000. Display units I think.

Their equivalent to Sharp in terms of 300-400+ liter capacity has a thoughtful design in the freezer compartment. The ice cube box is detachable. Need more space? just sacrifice the ice cube box for the moment.

Sharp also has Papillion series (400+litre) bottom freezer. But the doors can open left or right ie the have double hinge which allows opening left side or right side at a time.

best to avoid bewitched by sales pitch. rather go store to store and develop opinion base on problems with brands based on feedback.
best is to go see a fridge and refrigerator on the inside and visualize how space will be filled up.

apart from mfg defect (touch wood) also sometimes problems could be attributed to oursevles so even my opinion could be clouded since if i'm not aware that i did not leave breathing space for fridge to sweat it out since i like to flush the space used tight tight then that might not take into account that i'm overworking my fridge so i will say this brand not reliable. or i could be cramming it tightly that cold air cannot flow evenly leaving frost spots for ice to form. worst still is at the mouth of the vent. that would cause the air inside the vent to freeze. this would overwork the defroster and evaporator and set out a whole chain of events much like NatGeo 'Seconds from disaster'. take opinions with a pinch of salt.

These are nice french door bottom freezer fridge since 70% activity revolves around the fridge. No need to bend down to get things. They are upgrade of first generation four door pillarless SJ-F75 series in that their doors are rodded and their lights are LED and a newer deodorizer. Net volume is 605l (Fridge 394, freezer 211). I know because that's what I use. Minister of home affairs says fridge must be large enough to cater for parties and family. Wide space afforded can put cake since it's about 70cm wide internal storage width.

Electrolux has EQE-6307SA (629l) which is 4 cm deeper than Sharp's but looks similar in appearance to the SJ-F78 one. Most probably they could OEM from Beko which could have a similar design but lower energy consumption than the Sharp.

Despite their capacity, one drawback of the first (SJ-F75PS/E) and second generation (SJ-F78SPBK/SL) Quattro are:
1. They are quite power consuming. Annual energy consumption shown here is 894Wh (same with Electrolux EQE-6307SA) and 803kWh respectively. Roughly about 74.5 or 67 units of electricity a month. The new Hitachi R-B6800M annual consumption is 260kWh. Roughly 22 units per month. But the Hitachi fridge is almost RM9k similar to Beko models of the capacity range. But of course, the capacity of the fridge and freezer compartment differs individually for each model depending on which method is used to calculate volume (ISO or JIS).

Wait for the new Avance models to be introduced. Jintex is carrying them end of July 2012.
Common features:
Wide interior of 78cm compared to 70cm of first and second generation. Possibly using advance insulation like vacuum insulated panel (VIP)??? similar to that in the Hitachi R-B6800M and one of Panasonic's inverter NRF532TX. VIP are quite thermal efficient than polyurethane (PU).
Control panel now touch screen on top left leaf(door), hassle free ice making reservoir on bottom right of fridge.
Ice making cleaning mode (Ag+ ions), Crystal ice making (go figure)
Eco mode - saves 10% electricity.

SJ-F99BK 750l
SJF-93MSL/MWH 750l
SJF-96SSL/SBK 750l

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Jul 19 2012, 01:30 PM

Same. HN sell it back then for RM3399 last year. But other 400l going around for less than that.

Could be cheaper if display. Try places in SS2 like Megatronics or Jintex, could be cheaper there if you're in PJ.

Good luck hunting

[edit: could also consider the Panasonic 2012 Eco Navi model NR-BW465XS (RM2499) and Inverter NR-BW415VN (RM1999) both gross 400-450l range.]

---

Added on July 20, 2012, 1:40 pmSometimes it's also a tactic by sales to push one and downput the other due to commission structure and how channel account person manage their relationship with sales shops. To be fair, I've friends who have Samsung fridge who hasn't complained. Only read through other forums that sometimes certain models of Korean brands have noisy compressor. Seems like isolated cases.

Actually, I quite like the Samsung bottom freezer models like the RFG28MESL1 but it's wide (908)mm. At 1.8kWh/day (657kWh/yr) at least don't makan letrik like the SJ-F75 750l Sharp's 894kWh. Right now many non-inverter under 500 litre fridge about the same letrik consumption range of 400-500+kWh per year.

But how often we change fridge? Could be good even talk to ppl browsing before and ask them what they had before. Sometimes those who are willing to share will give revealing insights on the products they've used before, what they wish they had done, etc. Learn together ma.

Often, one issue I hear is which compartment has more priority when looking for one - fridge or freezer. Some even shared that because of their dietary habits, a freezer is more important so they have a storage/chest freezer and smaller or midsized fridge. They then keep their fridge freezer at minimum like -14 cos meat not stored in there but lots of ice and bread (some do that). Because the big freezer is not so often accessed, they save letrik also.

Tips on fridge or freezer
Happy hunting!

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Jul 20 2012, 02:42 PM

FP can try Urbanez or Panamax in Dataran Sunway Kota Damansara or Benova in TTDI.

Panasonic and Mitsubishi has 2 or 3 door bottom freezer.

Panasonic has up to 602l gross. My parents use the older NR651 which is for the mid-east market. They were selling here way back in 2004-2007.

Mitsu bottom freezer depends on the capacity required though cos they are less than 400l.
http://www.melcosales.com.my/products/refr...#bottom-freezer
One feature I like about the Mitsu is their vegetable casette which includes "Vitamin factory" LED light which increases Vitamin C in vege. I won't mind changing to one next time. Anything larger will have to be E-Series Folio but they are 6 door french fridge style but single drawer casettes for freezer and vege compartment. The Z series is 5-door bottom freezer with a partitioned column so it's not technically french door but rather fridge top and bottom freezer with pillar for each section.

[edit] Another bottom freezer is the Sharp Papillion or Butterfly which was seen in HN and Best Denki. They were going for RM3399 for a while. They can open left or right.
Sharp advert in Indonesia on the Papilion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phLP7cIB5Ck

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Nov 7 2012, 01:51 PM

Mitsubishi for their price is worth it since they put in vitamin factory led. At first I was skeptical thinking what kind of gimmick they want to lure us in now but seems like NASA and others have validated LED grow lamps so this is no gimmick. The way I see it is as long as they make good aircons their fridge should be good. Mitsubishi, Hitachi and Panasonic are known for relatively quiet compressor than the Korean brands but if all come from China, then should be about there more or less. The old complaint was that the older Korean models have noisy compressors. So what is mostly paid for is the compressor quality.

Their compressors are reliable and quiet. A friend has a R-Z700 2 door since 2006. Only problem with that is that its longish fridge door a bit bengkok from the load. They had adjusted the floor level since so it's straighten back. The 10 years warranty also for A/C, Washer as well. The R-B6800M is cool albeit pricey. Annual energy consumption is 260kW/h or 23 units per month.

Hitachi compressors are reputably quiet. Anyway, I don't think we tend buy fridge as we do hand phones... change after two years. Just choose one although slightly more expensive is justifiable so long as it will lower cost of operation. Inverter working proven. I see that happening with AC so long as temperature is not set too low but around 25-26.

Hi,

Just some notary information of the new fridges that are very energy saving wise. Some of these may be using R600a (n-butane). In, SG, SCDF has a notary warning on all fridges sold that contains this refrigerant. See post here and here.

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Sep 29 2014, 12:17 PM

Something about fridges that we never know enough to ask. How long before tuning on a refrigerator after moving it? To be safe 4-24 hours. See link

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Nov 9 2015, 10:47 PM

Try 18 electronic SS2 or jintexelectronics.com

Check out Toshiba. Cheap, reliable and good. Samsung and LG are not bad too.

This post has been edited by halcyon27: Jul 4 2017, 08:37 AM