LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP Review
A flexible fridge freezer with very low running costs
Verdict
Extremely flexible fridge space with a good freezer, the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP offers low running costs and very good temperature control. It could do with slightly more flexible temperature settings, but that’s a minor complaint.
Pros
- Impressive temperature control
- Low running costs
- Flexible interior space
Cons
- Expensive
- Temperature choices a little inflexible
Availability
- UKRRP: £1399
Key Features
- CapacityThere’s a total of 384 litres of space, with tonnes of room in the 277-litre fridge and decent 107-litre freezer.
Introduction
There are two things that you really want to see in a fridge freezer: consistent temperatures to keep your food fresh, and flexible space. These are two things that the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP delivers brilliantly.
With its near-silent operation and clever DoorCooling technology, this is a top fridge freezer – although it is quite expensive.
Design and features – A very flexible fridge interior but the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP could offer better temperature choices
- Lots of flexible storage inside the fridge
- Areas for fruit, veg, meat and fish
- Big door pockets
Decked out in matte black, the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP is a beautiful-looking fridge freezer, making just enough impact to stand out, while not overpowering your kitchen design.
Measuring 2030 x 595 x 675mm, this 70/30 fridge freezer is tall and a bit deeper than some models, so it may protrude into your kitchen somewhat. If you need something that sits flush with your countertops, the Samsung RB38T633ESA is a good choice.
There’s a total of 384 litres of space on offer, which breaks down to a 277-litre fridge and a 107-litre freezer. Given that most of us now buy more fresh food, that’s a good ratio of cold to frozen space.
Opening the top door provides access to the fridge. There’s a lot of room in here, with four main shelves.
At the top is a five-bottle wine rack and two other shelves. You can move these around to suit your needs. Each shelf has a good amount of room between the others, although it can be difficult to reach to the very back of the top one as a result of the height of the fridge: this is typical for this kind of layout.
The bottom shelf is flexible, sliding back at the halfway point so you can stand up taller items below it. I’ve used a wine bottle for reference.
In the doors, there are four pockets. The bottom one is big enough for 2-litre milk cartons and juice.
Above this, you can fit in ketchup bottles, leaving two shorter pockets for jars and the like.
As is typical, LG provides two egg holders, each of which holds eight eggs. Place these where you want them, or take out the one you’re not using.
There are two massive salad drawers, which will happily hold even big items, such as leaks. The top one, the Fresh Balancer, has a slider that lets you pick the right environment for fruit or vegetables.
Beneath this is the Fresh Converter, which lets you adapt the environment using the slider for Meat, Fish or Vegetables.
The entire fridge is lit by a bright LED that sits at the top of the door. This is just in front of the DoorCooling section, which is a vent that blows cold air down from the top. According to LG, this helps cool the fridge more efficiently.
Fridge and freezer temperature control is at the top. You can’t select a specific temperature; you have to choose from the presets. For example, I normally set fridges to 4ºC, but had to pick from 5ºC or 3ºC (I went with 5ºC for testing). I could pick the normal -18ºC for the freezer compartment, however.
Open the bottom door to find a bog-standard freezer, with three big pull-out drawers making it easy to store your food. There’s an ice cube tray provided as standard.
Performance – Extremely consistent temperatures from the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP
- Brilliant insulation means power cuts are nothing to worry about
- Low running costs
- Excellent temperature stability
To test fridge freezers, I set the freezer to -18ºC and the fridge to 4ºC – although here, the presets meant I had to set the fridge at 5ºC instead. Using sensors to constantly monitor the temperature, I could test how well the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP keeps food cool.
All fridge freezers have a compressor cycle, where the internal temperature is allowed to rise, before being cooled down. This helps save on power but means that temperatures rise and fall slightly. What I look for is consistency and the smallest variance.
In this regard the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP performed brilliantly, with its linear compressor clearly working well. For the fridge, the average temperature was 4.78ºC, with a high of 5.7ºC and a low of 4.1ºC.
With a standard variation of 0.25ºC, the fridge was very close to the set temperature for the majority of the time, which is hugely impressive and the best that I’ve seen.
The top of the fridge gets a degree or so warmer, which is normal; make sure you keep items that need to be cooler towards the bottom. Testing the bottom drawer on the meat settings, I saw an average of 0.08ºC – near freezing, but not to the point that your food will require thawing.
Moving onto the freezer, the average was -19.92ºC, which is a couple of degrees lower than the set temperature. With a standard deviation of 0.61ºC, the freezer temperature stayed around the mean temperature with little variance. Again, impressive performance.
Next, I cut power to the fridge for three hours and measured the temperature gain. The fridge compartment saw temperatures rise by 0.8ºC, while the freezer gained just 2.2ºC. Clearly, the insulation here is very efficient, and power cuts are unlikely to cause any problems for your food.
The LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP is A-rated, and will cost you around £18.11 a year to run, which is very low. That works out at a very competitive 0.05p per litre.
Conclusion
The LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP certainly isn’t cheap, but this fridge freezer is very good. If you’re looking for consistent temperatures, low running costs and a flexible interior, this model is an excellent choice. If you need an appliance of a different size or want to buy a cheaper model, check out my guide to the best fridge freezers.
Best Offers
Should you buy it?
If you want excellent temperature stability to keep your food fresh for longer, and lots of flexible fridge space, the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP is an excellent choice.
The LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP fridge freezer is comparatively expensive, and if you can sacrifice a bit of performance then you can get as much space for less elsewhere.
Verdict
Extremely flexible fridge space with a good freezer, the LG DoorCooling GBB92MCBAP offers low running costs and very good temperature control. It could do with slightly more flexible temperature settings, but that’s a minor complaint.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
