LG GBB62PZGFN 70/30 fridge freezer review

Price When Reviewed

Not available in US

The first thing that strikes you about this LG 70/30 fridge freezer is that it’s extremely tall. Reaching the heady heights of 208cm, this model is a slim, silver tower. And it’s very shiny, with a finish of light, lustrous steel.    

It’s an appliance that would fit in well in a stainless steel, white or two-tone kitchen where floor space is precious but decent storage capacity vital – after all, this model is deeper (68.2cm) than it is wide (59.5cm). And, with a 70/30 split between fridge and freezer, it would suit a household where fresh food is prioritised above frozen.

It is also incredibly light, at 78kg. No two-person team will struggle to manoeuvre this model into place, despite its height. And you can reverse the doors to best fit your space.             

But as with all bright things, there’s a shadow. The fridge top shelf is 180cm, or 5’9, off the floor; the top door rack is 185 cm, so roughly 6’1, off the floor. Children will struggle to reach food stored at this height without something to stand on – as will shorter adults. If you’re under average height, prepare to keep a footstool next to your fridge.

Also, the shiny finish is susceptible to fingerprints, so if that kind of thing bothers you, you’ll need to keep a duster handy.

Noise level

• 36dB operating volume
• Open-door alarm

If this appliance makes any noise, we couldn’t hear it. LG states that it has an operational sound of 36dB, which is roughly half way between a whisper and a computer, but this seems on the high side to us. LG flags up its Inverter Linear Compressor – with a ten year warranty, no less – to explain the quiet running of the appliance and its exceptionally low energy usage.    

If you leave the door open for more than a minute, a door alarm will sound a trio of perky, two-tone beeps. But they are fairly quiet – a bit like a watch alarm.

And the doors don’t bounce back, no matter how much you tap or slam. The fridge door seems to be soft-close, while the freezer door gives a reassuring thud when it shuts.      

Running cost

• 215 kWh/annum energy consumption 

This LG model falls into Energy Class D (A+++ in the pre-March ratings system), and LG says that total annual energy consumption is 215 kWh/pa. By my reckoning, that’s a running cost of about £31 a year, although this depends on your payment scheme, supplier and where you live in the UK. 

Considering this appliance holds 384 litres of shopping, this ratio of energy consumption to litreage is one of the best we’ve seen. If you are looking for an eco-model, this appliance should be on your list.

Digital touchscreen

• Digital touchscreen control

You control the fridge and freezer from a digital touchscreen strip that sits on the top frame of the fridge cabinet. It’s a high placement, and difficult to see and reach for shorter individuals.

But it is straightforward. Press the illuminated temperature number and you can choose between -15C, -17C, -18C, -20C or -23C for the freezer, and 7C, 5C, 3C, 2C or 1C for the fridge. There’s an express freeze and an express cool function, which will quickly freeze or cool a large amount of goods – express freeze is good for quickly making a lot of ice, for example.

And there’s also an eco-friendly mode, which will set the freezer to -15C and your fridge to 7C if you are going on holiday or won’t be using the fridge for some time.

Cool down and warm up

• Food stays frozen for 19 hours in the event of a power cut

We found it took 90 minutes to achieve 2C in the body of the fridge, 4C in the fridge door and -18C across all zones of the freezer: a pretty impressive feat in a British heatwave with  atmospheric temperature of 28C. We also noticed consistent temperatures across various fridge zones, which is likely an outcome of LG’s DoorCooling+ technology that locates air vents at the front of the fridge to help maintain a steady temperature.

LG states a temperature rise time of 19 hours in the event of a power cut, which was in line with our test. 

Interior lighting

• LED strip lighting

A bright white LED strip, 16cm by 3cm, set into the top of the fridge illuminates the internal cabinet. The strip is roughly a third of the entire width of the cabinet, so it lights the inside well. You don’t get a freezer light with this model, but you probably don’t need one, considering this is a 70/30 build and there are only three freezer drawers.

Fridge capacity

• 277 litre fridge capacity

There’s a wonderful 277 litres of capacity in the fridge, which is roughly 14 bags of shopping. LG splits this figure into 233 litres for the shelves and 44 litres in the chill drawers, so you have space for eleven bags of shopping across the four glass shelves, one of which forms the cover to the Moist Balance Crisper drawer.

Underneath the top shelf, there’s a wine rack that holds five bottles; you can remove this and adjust the top shelf downward by a couple of inches and the second to top shelf upward if you want to renegotiate the space, although you can’t adjust the other two shelves.

A word of warning though: as stated above, the top shelf measures 5’11 off the floor and the wine rack is fairly high too. To give you an idea, the lowest shelf of the fridge is sternum height for someone who is 5’1. This is not an easy appliance for the petite among us to use.

The appliance comes with two egg trays with space for eight eggs each.               

Drawers and boxes

The fridge boasts two drawers: a Fresh Moist Crisper for your fruit and veg, and a Fresh Converter with a mechanical slider to choose the temperature and humidity, depending on whether you want to store meat, fish or vegetables. 

Interestingly, the Moist Balance Crisper has an innovative lattice-patterned box cover to maintain moisture at an optimum level; this cover is slotted into the underside of the shelf, and it looks like a sheet of bobbly plastic.

We found this worked in the sense that our tester fruit and vegetables stayed dry, and we didn’t get any vegetable juice pooling at the bottom of our tester boxes, but the lattice insert did seem a mite fragile, and we wondered whether it might be prone to accidental breakage. The Fresh Converter drawer kept fruit and veg very fresh when that option was selected.

LG says you can fit 44 litres of shopping in these two drawers, or two to three bags of supermarket shopping. We calculated that the Crisper gives you about 15.3 litres, while the Fresh Converter gives you about 24.3 litres, which seems in a similar ballpark to LG’S estimate.     

The Crisper alone held one iceberg lettuce, two little gem lettuces, eight medium peppers, three courgettes, and a bag of mange tout, and still had about 40% of the space left to spare.

Door storage

The fridge door has four racks: all non-adjustable. The bottom rack hold four supermarket four-pinters, or five traditional one pint glass bottles. The second to bottom rack also holds five traditional one pint glass bottles, although there’s not enough height on this rack for supermarket four-pinters. The upper racks hold nine 250g butter packs.

It’s pretty decent, although once again, be aware: the top rack is 6’1 off the floor.  

Freezer

• 107 litre freezer capacity

You’ve also got a pretty decent storage capacity in the frost-free freezer.

At 107 litres, or just over five bags of shopping, we found the main middle drawer took 4.5kg of frozen veg with room to spare, and there are another two drawers as well, although the lowest drawer isn’t as deep as the upper two.

As you don’t have an integral ice maker with this model, LG give you an ice caddy: a box with an ice cube tray top that makes fifteen cubes. It isn’t as bulky as caddies from other brands, so it doesn’t dominate the drawer in which you choose to store it. 

What’s notable about the freezer in this appliance is that you can feel a frosty draft billowing through the cabinet from the vents in the back to maintain the even temperature.      

Range

If you are looking for a combi fridge-freezer, then LG’s range comes in a number of finishes: matt black, real stainless steel and dark graphite, as well as the shiny steel model we tested, although in some cases you’ll pay a premium for the finish and some extra features.

Some of the more expensive models have a “Fresh Balancer” drawer in place of the Moist Balance crisper, where you can set the humidity depending on whether you wish to keep fruit or veg in the drawer. They may also feature a foldaway shelf, so you can store taller than average items.      

It’s not available in the US, where the closest model is the LG LBNC15231V, which shares a number of the same features.

Verdict

The LG GBB62PZGFN is a well-priced, high quality appliance. If you need a small footprint fridge-freezer with decent capacity, you can’t go far wrong with this LG appliance – especially if you’re a tall household. It looks great, has a five bottle wine rack, plus the option to change the temperature of the fruit and veg temperature drawer. It also keeps things evenly cool – plus the compressor has a ten year warranty. It’s virtually silent, so it would be a good choice for open plan homes.

But the problem is one of accessibility. Children won’t be able to reach items on the top shelves and even shorter adults will struggle. So, if you have a family and enough space in your kitchen, you might prefer an American-style or a multi-door that comes in at under 180cm tall.  

For more fridge freezer options, check out our round-up of the best fridge freezers we’ve tested.