Verdict

Pros

• Huge capacity
• Class leading temperature consistency
• Clever and useful chef features
• Looks great
• Great internal lighting
• Cheap to run

Cons

• Quite tall and deep
• Premium price

What is the Samsung RB41J7859S4 Chef Collection?

Building on Samsung’s luxury Chef Collection range of kitchen appliances, the RB7000 (RB41J7859S4) is the series’ flagship 60cm wide fridge freezer, dripping with technology, features and eye-candy styling. Its headline feature is the 400-litre capacity, which is comfortably the largest capacity of any fridge freezer in this segment – 60cm wide, two metres tall.

Ideal for the real connoisseur chef, the RB7000 has precision cooling to keep temperatures constant, twin cooling to ensure no transfer of odours between fridge and freezer and optimal humidity in each compartment, and Samsung’s Chef Drawer for fish and meats complete with metal fridge-to-oven tray. With stunning brushed stainless finish, A+++ energy efficiency and door mounted touch controls as well, the RB7000 is an exemplary fridge freezer that absolutely earns its premium price.

Related: Best 60cm and side-by-side fridge freezers

Samsung RB41J7859S4– Design & Features

The RB7000’s hairline brushed stainless steel finish and ice blue handle lighting will leave visitors in no doubt that high-quality appliance, especially when they touch the surface and realise how remarkably immune it is to finger prints it is, too. The embossed Samsung and Chef Collection badges are nicely subtle and the touch control panel almost disappears into the stainless finish when its LED illumination gently fades out a few seconds after a button press.

The blue colour of the LED handle lights could well polarise opinion, although they match other models in the Chef Collection series and can be turned off for most of the time if desired. Even when off, as you open the freezer drawer they will shine straight down, illuminating an open freezer drawer much more effectively than any internal freezer lighting could. It is a great feature as even the best kitchen lighting can be shadowed by your body when rummaging in the freezer. I immediately missed this feature going back to my own fridge freezer.

The real wow-factor of the RB7000 is on the inside, though. The enormous fridge freezer is superbly appointed, brightly lit with excellent overhead lighting and full of subtle touches of elegance. Samsung’s metal cooling panel brings the professional stainless steel look to the inside as well as aiding temperature dissipation, a slide and fold shelf allows for larger bottles and jugs, and there is an incredible array of positions for the six door pockets.

The vegetable drawer and Chef Zone drawer open easily and slide out completely, so you can take them straight to the worktop. The Chef Zone drawer also features Samsung’s Chef Pan. This is a covered metal tray that sits above the stored contents and can be taken from the fridge to the oven and straight to the dishwasher afterwards.

Related: Best American-style Fridge Freezers

At 276 litres of useable space, only heavily fridge-biased fridge freezers or US-style models offer greater useable space than the RB7000. Better still, none of this fridge capacity eats into your freezer space and at an approximately 70/30 split you get a healthy 130 litres of freezer space, too.

The reason is immediately obvious in the incredibly thin side walls, filled with Samsung’s SpaceMax insulation. Just look at most A++ or better freezers and you will see the side-walls are up to 5cm or even 6cm thick. The walls (and door) on the RB7000 are half that and this gives you back oodles of freezer space.

That space has plenty to write home about, too. There are three large, open-topped drawers with the smoothest action we have yet to experience in standard freezer drawers thanks to their roller-glide mechanism. Each drawer is illuminated by the door-handle lights when opened and, if you need even more space to cram in the turkey, the mid drawer comes out completely to reveal a tempered glass shelf.

Samsung RB41J7859S4 – Capacity & Shelving

As the first standard fridge freezer I have tested to offer over 400 litres of storage, the answer is a lot. Of course, sheer volume isn’t everything, but Samsung has done a top job of arranging the fridge furniture for maximum flexibility too.

Of the three glass shelves, one splits and folds to accommodate larger items and there are a couple of positions for the bottle rack, too. There are plenty of adjustment options for the clear, deep door packets, although the lowest one is set high to allow for the full-depth Chef Zone. Smaller children may not be able to reach the milk and juice (…which one of my friends with kids described as ‘ideal’).

Of the two large drawers, the salad drawer is fitted with rollers to glide easily in and out, while the Chef Zone has smooth plastic sliders.

It is the Chef Zone drawer that steals the show here with its independent cooling promising very stable temperature, which can be set as low as zero degrees using the Chef Mode setting. This would be the ideal storage temperature for meats and fish, and according to Samsung’s professional chefs is the optimal temperature for maintaining the best flavour and texture of both.

Downstairs, 130 litres is a serious freezer capacity that should suit all but the largest of families. The drawers are superbly designed and we loaded one with over 20kg of weight to see how the rollers fared under the sort of load that would make a slide-drawer difficult to move. It rolled open with ease and, illuminated by the door handle light, easily remains one of my favourite freezer spaces to date.

Samsung RB41J7859S4 – How noisy is it?

For today’s top specification fridge freezers ‘noise’ is becoming a bit of a moot point – they are really so very quiet you won’t hear them over even the faintest background noise. The RB7000 is absolutely no exception and with its super-quiet digital inverter motor it did not emit more than the 38dB background noise in my test facility, even though the EU energy label states 39dB. During the day, when ambient noise is at its highest in the home, you just won’t hear it working. It really is very quiet indeed.