Kindly sent in by AO.com for free, in return for an honest and unbiased review as part of their reviewer’s program, I have the Hoover HFF618DX Fridge Freezer. (Getting this product for free has in no way affected my overall opinion of the product).
Design:
The HFF618DX is your standard sized fridge freezer (at only 185X60X60), with a fridge on top and freezer at the bottom. It is coloured with a gorgeous looking stainless steel effect, which makes it look really nice in my kitchen.
On the fridge door, it has a control panel, which allows you to set the temperature using buttons instead of a dial, like the one you usually find inside a fridge.
The door handles run down the edge of the door and are essentially a groove that you use to open the door, rather than a typical handle. The doors can also be turned around by the user if need be. Upon receiving the Fridge Freezer, they are set to open from the left to the right.
Inside the Fridge is plenty of room (offering a large 218 litres). There are three usable shelves in the fridge, two slide out and back in drawers, a wine rack and three shelves that sit in the back of the door. The two drawers are marked to help give you an idea of what type of products are ideally stored in them and how many it can fit, this is great for somebody like me, who doesn’t really understand the complexity of how food should be stored. For the shelving, you have several different spaces in which the shelves can be set at to help you find a spacing plan that fits your needs. The door shelves also have different spacing options and are perfect for holding jars and bottles.
The Freezer is home to three nicely sized drawers and comes in at a nice capacity of 81 litres. Unlike the drawers in the fridge, these are not slide in and out drawers, so you will need to pull out fully and push back in fully on your own. Like the fridge drawers, however, each drawer is marked with the ideal food options for that drawer. The drawers all offer a decent amount of space and I couldn’t be happier.
In use:
Having looked at some of the reviews on-line, I notice a few people say this model is loud, however, in my opinion, it’s quiet, a lot quieter than I expected after reading some of the reviews. You will be able to tell it’s quiet in the video review at the bottom of this page.
Once set up it is recommended you wait three hours before plugging it in, this is usual for Fridge Freezers, because of the gas they use which is very irritable after travelling around in the back of a lorry. After three hours I turned it on and left it a bit longer to get to ideal temperatures before loading it. Whistle in this stage I noticed a bit of frost on the rear of the Fridge, but since loading it with food and letting it settle in, it eventually began to melt the frost and leave it to run down a drainage hole behind the shelves. Since then it has done a great job at remaining frost freezer throughout use. The Fridge comes set at a default of 5 degrees Celsius, and the Freezer is -18 degrees celsius, you can, of course, change these default settings using the control panel on the front of the Fridge door. You can instantly tell how cool the Fridge and Freezer are by sticking your hands in them.
If you have children or just forget to close a door, after 30 seconds a loud alarm will sound to inform you, until you eventually close the door. These alarms may be annoying, but what’s more annoying is losing all your food because you didn’t close a door.
The control panel on the front of the Fridge is easy to use. It has clearly marked buttons and took me only a few minutes to fully master. It’s not a feature I’ll find myself using a lot, but it’s still nice and gives the appliance a modern feel.
Overall:
A great looking appliance, which adds a modern feel to my kitchen. It’s got plenty of space in both the Fridge and Freezer compartments and is, in my opinion, a very quiet appliance.
