Beko CDA539S

As I may have mentioned in a couple of my previous reviews - I do have a very small kitchen, and so there is no room for a dishwasher, let alone a freezer! The dishwasher I just have to live without, but the freezer is a must for my wife and I and so we have always had an old fridge freezer in our garage, which had been given to us by my wife's parents, after her Grandmother had passed away about 6 years ago. For a while it did its job very well, but just before Christmas (2010) it let us down twice, costing quite a bit of money in food that had thawed out, and gone all soggy, only useful for the bin.

I therefore decided it was time for a new one, and so the day after Boxing day, after spending a few hours researching fridge freezers on the Internet, I headed out to my local Curry's and Comet stores to check a few out in 'real life'.
As this fridge freezer was only destined for our garage, I was not too overly bothered by the style or design of the fridge freezer. Afterall it was just after yet another expensive Christmas, and so my number one priority was to get the cheapest one that I could find.

The cheapest I came across was the Beko CDA539FW, which was in the sale for just £189.99, reduced from £299.99!! I was instantly impressed with the price, but absolutely sold on this model after having a good look around it, and learning that it also came with free delivery, and free removal of our old fridge freezer for recycling!
The CDA539F did come in 2 different colours White (CDA539FW) or Silver (CDA539FS), and the silver one did look a little bit 'cooler' (pardon the pun) in its more trendy colour, but it was an extra £30 and as it was going to be hidden away in the garage this was not worth the extra money to me.

* Delivery *

As I decided to go out and purchase this new fridge freezer at one of the busiest times of the year, when all the sales where on, Curry's could not get it delivered to me for 7-10 days, which ended up turning into 11 days in the end, but again I knew I had got this at a great price, and so it wasn't a big concern to me.

It eventually arrived in a large brown cardboard box, and off went my old fridge freezer in the back of the large Curry's van.
The delivery guy told me to allow 4 hours before I opened it up, and started using it, as it needed time to settle, which is a good job, because I would not have known this otherwise, and would have been tucking straight into the packaging otherwise to get it up and running ASAP, but having spoken to family and friends, this seems to be pretty much common knowledge, and normal procedure for this type of electrical appliance.
So the next day I headed back out to the cold garage, and unpacked it. It was very well packaged by Beko, with numerous polystyrene blocks supporting various motors, shelves and hinges etc, so much so that I had to make a trip to my local refuse site as my recycling bins could not contain all the packaging.

* Set-Up *

Inside the packaging there was a decent instruction manual which covered the installation and set-up, along with a guide on how to use the fridge freezer in terms of setting it up correctly for different weather conditions, and a section about energy saving tips which I have found really useful.

In short the main installation points were that it had to be given a fair amount of clearance when being positioned near to a cooker (2"), a radiator (12") or another freezer (1"), but none of this was a problem for my garage. I just simply had to attach 2 plastic spacers to the condenser grill at the back of the unit to allow free air circulation. After which I had a quick play with the two front feet of the unit by turning them clockwise / anti clockwise to get the unit level on the floor, but after a little bit of thought (which is pretty unusual for me), I decided to adjust the feet so that the front of the unit was a fraction higher than the back, as I thought this would help to ensure that the door always closed shut correctly (although I must add that this was not mentioned in the instructions, and was simply something I decided to try).
The only other thing to do was to remove the final bits of protective packaging from inside the fridge and freezer compartments, and it was ready to plug in and power up. Once I had plugged it in, I could hear the fans and motors purring slightly, but this was to be expected really, as it had a lot of work to do to get itself down to the correct temperature, and it is not a noise that I have noticed since.

* The Fridge and the Freezer Compartments *

As is usual with these fridge freezer combi units, the freezer compartment is positioned at the bottom nearest to the floor, and the fridge compartment sits on top. The exterior of the fridge freezer is a brilliant white colour, which looks instantly clean and sterile looking, especially when compared to my older fridge freezer, which looked kind of yellow and mouldy! The edges and corners of the unit are nicely angled to eliminate any sharp points, which also gives it a sleek looking image. At the top of the fridge Compartment in grey coloured lettering is the BEKO brand name.

The fridge compartment has a nice solid door, with a good strong handle to hold when opening the door. Inside the compartment there is a decent light airy space, which is well lighten by the interior light at the top of the unit. Next to the light is the temperature setting control knob, which can be set anywhere from a minimum of 1 up to a maximum of 6 (this control knob sets the temperature setting for both the fridge and the freezer).
Underneath the light and temperature control in the main body of the fridge there are 2 safety glass cabinet shelves which can be positioned at a choice of 5 different levels dependent on what is in the fridge. Under the shelving area there is a salad crisper section which has 2 separate plastic pull out draws with a glass over above them.
Built onto the inside of the door there are 3 adjustable compartments which can be positioned at various heights on the door, and are for the usual storage of bottles cans and jars in the fridge, along with a little section for the egg tray (included).

The Freezer has the same solid feeling door, with the identical good strong handle to hold when opening the door.
At the very top of the freezer unit is an 'ice bank', which is basically a very slim plastic tray which pulls out, and comes with a separate ice cube tray. The idea of the ice bank, is that ice cubes can be made in the ice tray, and then removed from the tray, and left in the bank where they can be stored for several weeks without sticking to the tray.

Below the ice bank there are 3 separate compartments. The top is the fast freeze compartment, which has a fold down flap at the front of it, and the bottom two are pull out storage draws. The freezer is designed to be completely frost free, which eliminates the need to defrost it.

The doors to both the fridge and the freezer compartments can be reversed if required. To look directly at the doors from the front the hinges are positioned at the right hand side of the unit, which is how I have left them as it works well for me for the corner position in my garage that it has been housed in. There is a full procedure in the instruction manual though that can be followed if the doors do need reversing.

* A little bit of Specification *

A Class Energy Rating

Weight of 40 kilo grams

Dimensions of (W X D X H): 54.5cm x 60cm x 153.5cm

Energy consumption of 293 Kwh/year

Operating noise level of 41 dB(A)

Total fridge has a capacity of 138 litres or 4.87 cubic feet.

Total freezer capacity of 100 litres or 3.53 cubic feet.

In ambient temperatures the fridge freezer will work in temperatures down to -15 oC making it ideal for use in garages or out buildings.

* My Opinion of the Beko CDA539F *

In the 5 - 6 weeks that I have had this fridge freezer I have to say that I have been very impressed with it. I am trying not to be too over biased, based on my comparison with this freezer to my very old previous model, but it really does get a massive thumbs up, especially considering that this was the cheapest that I could find on the market at the time.

I find the Fridge freezer to be a really solid, strong and well made unit as a whole and I have no fears of breaking or snapping any draws, shelves or handles off. I have removed the glass shelves once to give them a wipe over, and they are easy to clean, and simple to remove and replace, sliding smoothly in and out of the ledges that support them. Wiping out the inside surfaces of the fridge is also simple, with a good design that does not contain any difficult to clean areas.

The freezer is a dream compared to my older one, as there is no sign of any frost, which used to be a real time consuming chore for me to clear. I love the idea of the ice bank, and it came in very handy last weekend when we had a large group of family and friends round for a few drinks. The ice bank holds a lot of ice, probably the equivalent to a few dozen ice trays full, and it is easy to collect the ice from the ice bank, as it doesn't freeze to it.

The doors to both the fridge and freezer are smooth, and make a really good seal when closed shut.
Included with the purchase of this fridge freezer from Beko is a 12 month warranty, which guarantees against breakdown. To activate the guarantee was a quick 2 minute task for me, which I did on-line by visiting www.Beko.com, and filling in a couple of simple details such as date of purchase, model number etc. This can also be done over the phone and regardless of which way it is done, it is well worth doing for the sake of a few minutes work to get a free 12 month guarantee.

Just for the purpose of this review I have had a quick look at current prices at a couple of on line retailers, and it does seem that I got this fridge freezer at a real bargain, as it is currently priced at:

Amazon £277.99 (in White)
Curry's £269.99 (in White)
Curry's £269.99 (in Silver)

Thanks for reading.

© L500589 2011