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- Mini fridges come in all shapes, styles, and sizes … kind of like college dorm rooms and roommates.
- If you're looking for the perfect mini fridge and you have enough space, the Danby 4.4 Cubic Foot Mini Fridge offers advanced features and enough space to hold all the perishables you could want for an affordable price.
Back to school is one of the most popular times to purchase a mini fridge, because many students want a refrigerator in their dorm rooms. But these small refrigerators also work well for offices, rec rooms, garages, and garages that have been turned into man caves.
Mini fridges aren't as energy efficient as standard-sized refrigerators, and some don't hold a consistent enough temperature to preserve food safely for long periods. However, for keeping beverages and quickly consumed items cold, it works just fine. Your student will greatly appreciate having the ability to keep sodas and snacks (and nothing else) cold for late night studying with a dorm room fridge.
The key is finding the right size and features that'll make the unit perfect for your student's dorm room while fitting in your budget. As a general rule, a larger mini fridge will cost more than a smaller mini fridge and stainless steel or glass-doored mini fridges tend to be pricier.
A mini fridge's capacity is listed in cubic feet. This gives you an idea of the size and number of items you can place inside, although shelves and freezer space take up some of this capacity. Some companies also list capacity for a mini fridge as the number of 12-ounce cans the unit can hold.
Most dorm room fridges contain at least a small freezer compartment. However, it's not accessible through a separate door like it is with a full-size refrigerator. This causes the freezer to not be as efficient as what you'll find in a standard refrigerator. Many freezers in mini fridges are too small to even hold a large frozen pizza, for example.
Here are our picks for the best mini fridges you can buy:
Updated on 12/19/2018 by Malarie Gokey: Updated prices and formatting. Added the Danby can fridge.
Read more about our picks in the slides below.
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