SPT 2.5 cu.ft Compact Refrigerator

I've had this fridge for about two weeks now and it's been really great. I bought it for my office and mostly to prevent me from eating out, so I had a few criteria. First, it had to be fairly small footprint, but large enough to store a good amount of real food, such as leftovers, some fruit & veg, and materials to make snacks with such as PB&J. Second, it had to have a real compressor, one that will cool well below the ambient temperature as the office building gets quite warm in the summer and I really hate when food goes bad. Third, I didn't want the unit to give up a bunch of space to a can delivery system, since I don't drink usually have canned drinks around. So, that's how I ended up at the SPT, it's the only one I found that fits all these criteria. I'd never heard of SPT before buying this fridge and quite honestly, if it had the same features as all the other fridges I'd seen (researched for two weeks), I probably wouldn't have bought it. However, given that it had everything I was looking for, I decided to take a chance and I'm glad I did.

First, the aesthetics; it's a vertical rectangular shape, modestly attractive looking, basically it looks like a small black fridge with a stainless door. I was a bit surprised at the size, it's quite a bit taller than I was expecting and the black does makes it look a little monolithic. The unit actually looks bigger than it really is, I was shocked to find that it fits nicely under my desk. The Stainless Steel finish on the door isn't quite as polished as the vastly more expensive full-size GE fridge I've got at home, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked, especially considering the price! This unit is solidly built and is surprisingly lightweight, which was great for moving it around the first day, figuring out where it should go. The door, as shipped, opens on the left, but it looked like a fairly simple job to switch sides (haven't needed to) and SPT included extra plastic inserts for covering up the holes should this be required, a nice touch. Door was protected with plastic film and all three shelves and the ice maker were taped down to prevent them sliding around.

On to functionality; the fridge works! It got the four iced teas I put in it ice cold within only a few hours of being plugged in and I've got the unit set at 4, the factory preset median setting and it works great. Stuff down low in the fridge was kept nicely cold, the ham I put up near the icemaker had frost in the package, but the meat wasn't frozen. Note to self, meat goes lower in the fridge. The lower door shelf holds four Honest Tea bottles, but the wire holder swings out to hold bigger items. The top door shelf is a little shorter and has a fixed bar, so PB & J go up there. Inside shelves are made of white plastic-coated wire and well spaced. The freezer holds at least a trio of standard sized juice boxes; it's wide, but not very tall, so low items work best. One other extremely cool thing is, the energy consumption rating for this fridge is actually below the lowest range on the chart. This makes it extremely efficient, which isn't a factor for me, but I can see this being a plus for someone being challenged about its power consumption. Given how well it keeps my food cold, it must be very well insulated to achieve such low consumption.

Things of note:
1) This unit only has one leveling foot, at the front right corner. This is probably not a problem for most people, but my office floor is as flat as a Ruffles potato chip, so levelling the fridge required shims under the front left foot.
2) Power cord is only about 5Ft long, once again, not a problem in most offices, but I would really have liked a longer one. Extension cord to the rescue.
3) Unit isn't silent, but it's not loud either. Some people have complained about other fridges being loud, I don't find this one to be unpleasant, it's like low-level white noise in the background. If I get in early, I can hear the fridge, but once the office wakes up, it's inaudible.
4) Unit came very well packed in an enormous box, strapped and taped closed. I was impressed, but I did have to lie the fridge on its side to get it out of the box.
5) This hasn't been a problem, but the manual says that should the fridge lose power, it won't come back on automatically.