Samsung RSA1NHMH > Reviews (1)

I moved into my new house back in January, and as part of re-furnishing some aspects of the kitchen, I was looking to buy a new fridge freezer. The previous owners had a large 'American Style' fridge freezer in the kitchen, and so it was my intention to look for something similar (as they had taken theirs with them).

After scouting around numerous websites for well over a week, and constantly measuring up in the kitchen to see what would (and wouldn't) fit, I decided on the Samsung RSA1NHMH model, as it ticked all the boxes for me in terms of size, style, colour, design, features and price.

I originally spotted this on Boots' website priced at £629, but after spending a while searching around on the internet the best price that I could find for this model was from a place called 'Appliances Online' which seemed to have some pretty good reviews about it, so I went ahead and (eventually) ordered it at a price of £579 which included free delivery.


~~~ Delivery and Packaging ~~~

A few weeks later I got a knock on the door, and there stood a delivery man with a huge box that he and two other guys where supporting on a large trolley, and the first thing he said to me was 'There is no chance of getting this through your door mate!' I immediately took his word for it as it was MASSIVE, and so we went to the rear of my house, where eventually we managed to get it through my patio double doors, and into the kitchen - Phew!
So a word of warning for anyone thinking of buying one of these is make sure it will fit through the doors in your house. Once I removed all of the outer packaging however the unit did shrink in size, so I reckon an alternative solution would have been to un-package it outside, and then try again. Also the fridge and freezer doors can be removed fairly easily with a screwdriver, which again reduces the depth of the unit.
Once the outer packaging was removed my nice new fridge freezer was visible, and looked great. The packaging had done the job, and inside the fridge and the freezer each self and tray was also wrapped in protective packaging, which kept everything safe, and in one piece.


~~~ Installation and User Manual ~~~

A 36 page user manual was included in the packaging, which was simple to read, and did a great job of explaining in clear detail any necessary steps to set up the unit, along with full operating instructions, energy saving tips, and a troubleshooting section.
Installation was very simple, just a case of removing a front leg cover to expose a roller, and 2 white adjustable feet. The roller was fixed to the bottom of the fridge (out of sight) and was superb as it allowed me to wheel the unit around the kitchen, and into position. Once located where I wanted it, I just had to adjust the feet, by turning them using a flat bladed screw driver so that the base of the unit was raised up above the roller, making the roller redundant, and the feet then provided the stability. The front cover was then replaced, and the unit was plugged in, and ready to use!

~~~ My New American Style Fridge/Freezer ~~~

The exterior of this fridge freezer is cool and sleek to look at, and it is designed as a side-by-side fridge freezer (as opposed to a top and bottom fridge freezer). The colour is appropriately named as 'Manhattan Silver' which is a dark silver, almost grey colour. The freezer is situated to the left of the unit as you look towards it from the front, with the fridge positioned on the right hand side, and they are both hidden behind two solid and well built doors, with the freezer door (at the left) sized a little smaller than the fridge door due to the fridge being the larger section of the unit. These doors have identical colour coded, long and sturdy handles on them, and the doors themselves have an opening and closing feature which ensure the doors close all the way and are securely sealed - so much so that it is difficult to re-open the door within a few seconds of closing it, as it is sealed so tightly!
Once the doors are open, the inside is a lovely bright white colour, and is superbly lighten by lights to the top of both sections.
The fridge has a gross capacity of 357 litres or 346 litres net, and contained within this area there are 5 shelves in total made from safety glass, along with an egg tray, 3 door bins (for storing bottles and cans) and 2 large drawers at the base for fruit and veg. The layout is great, and there is flexibility in the layout of the shelves so that they can be spaced out as required to suit the contents in the fridge.
The freezer has a gross capacity of 198 litres or 193 litres net, and has 3 glass shelves, 2 large drawers, 4 door bins, and 2 large ice trays built under one of the shelves. Again the layout is good, and the shelves can be adjusted, although I have not found that I have really used the door bins, and maybe these could have been eliminated from the design to allow larger shelves and drawers.
A slight drawback that I had to settle for when choosing this model was that it didn't have an ice making or chilled drinks facility, which was something that I had originally wanted, until I realized that I would need additional plumbing for this. The upside to this is that there is extra room within both the fridge and the freezer without these 2 things, and with the 2 large ice trays I cope fine with the extra hard task of having to actually open the door to obtain ice, rather than pressing a dispenser button on the door.

On the front of the Freezer door, there is a digital display which is wonderfully simple to use, and has great large visible icons on it. One displays the freezer temperature which can be adjusted from -14oC to -25oC by pressing the 'Freezer' button. The other displays the fridge temperature, and this can be adjusted from 1oC to 8oC by pressing the 'Fridge' button.
There is also a child lock feature, which can be pressed in for 3 seconds to deactivate the rest of the buttons, to prevent children from altering anything that they shouldn't.
There is an audible alarm which sounds whenever either door is left open and the temperature is beginning to increase within the fridge or freezer which is a handy feature.

~~~ Other Specification ~~~

The dimensions of the whole unit were one thing that was very important to me, and something that I struggled with when initially searching for the right model. I needed a depth of less than 70cm to avoid covering the light switch in my kitchen, but almost every similar styled fridge freezer seemed to have a standard depth of between 73cm and 76cm! This model though has a depth of 67.2 cm (quite possibly down the lack of ice making and chilled drink dispenser), a width of 91.2cm (again a little slimmer than most others), and a height of 178.9cm (fairly standard).

The unit as a whole has an energy rating of A, and an annual energy consumption of 587 kWh, which was very much in-line with other similar models.
A 44dB noise level has been applied to the spec of this model, which is something that I never really considered when buying it, but I must confess that it is a little noisy at times (especially after the doors have been opened for a little while. It is not ridiculously noisy, but just a lot louder than the small fridges that I have been used to in the past, but I suspect that this is largely down to all the extra work that the motors have to do to maintain the correct temperature in such a large unit.
A 2 year guarantee is also included from Samsung, which gives great piece of mind.


~~~ Final Summary ~~~

Overall I am over the moon with this Samsung Fridge freezer. It looks superb in my kitchen, and gives me so much space to play with in both the fridge and freezer sections. The design as a whole is good, and all the internal and external surfaces are simple to clean when required. I am really impressed with the build quality, and with the features, such as the audible door alarm, and the child safety function. A slight negative as mentioned above is the noise that comes from the unit when the motors are in action. If there are a couple of people talking in the room it would not even be detectable, but when I was in silence with my cat in the kitchen a few weeks back, and the motors / fans kicked in, it really made him jump (he almost had kittens!). This is something that I do notice less and less now that I am familiar with it, and to be fair it is just a gentle humming sound, so it really is not a major problem.

Overall recommended by me, and I would also recommend buying one from 'Appliances Online', who did their job very well.


Thanks for reading.

© L500589 2012