With house prices on the rise across much of the U.S., home buyers are finding that they have to make sacrifices, and one of these is in the kitchen. For those looking to find a fridge to fit a smaller space, the Hisense HRM145N6AVD (available at Lowe's) is an excellent option, combining high performance with a low space requirement. While we love how its narrow, counter-depth build allows it to fit into spaces no full-size fridge could manage, the downside to this design is a significantly reduced storage capacity. However, for those looking to squeeze a fridge into a tight space, there aren’t a lot of options available with such a small footprint. If you do have enough room for a more typical counter-depth fridge, the Hisense HRB171N6ASE is also a great value. For those with bigger budgets, the Frigidaire Gallery FG4H2272UF currently offers the best counter-depth experience.

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About the Hisense HRM145N6AVD French-door Refrigerator

What we don’t like

What owners are saying about the Hisense HRM145N6AVD

Should you buy the Hisense HRM145N6AVD?

The Hisense HRM145N6AVD has a minimalist design: Its pocket handles and lack of a water and ice dispenser allow it to have a featureless facade. Opening the fridge reveals two shelves, a crisper, and a standard array of door bins.

The middle shelf has a main bin area and a thin shelf to help separate items a bit.

The bottom freezer drawer has a deeper bin than the middle drawer, with a removable divider running down the middle to help break up the space. Like the middle drawer, there’s an interior, full-width shelf that can be pulled out.

The control panel is located at the top of the fridge compartment, and allows you to adjust the fridge and freezer compartments.

Dimensions: 70.3” x 27.3” x 27.7” (H x W x D) Depth: Counter-depth Measured capacity: 7.30-cubic-foot refrigerator, 2.78-cubic-foot freezer Finishes: Stainless steel Dispensers: None User manual: Hisense HRM145N6AVD French-door refrigerator manual

Temperatures in the fridge were remarkably consistent over time.

Ideally your fridge would always be at 37°F, with your freezer at 0°F. In reality, it’s very difficult to maintain exact temperatures, due to defrost cycles and the door opening during regular use.

As such, fridges need to react quickly to any temperature changes to keep food from getting above 40°F, where bacteria proliferates quickly, spoiling food before its time.

On the other hand, fridges can’t go too far in the other direction either, as temperatures under 32°F will start causing some fridge foods to freeze. Temperatures in the freezer also need to remain steady, as fluctuations will exacerbate freezer burn.

The Hisense HRM145N6AVD absolutely aced our temperature tests, across all its compartments. Its refrigerator temperatures are very close to ideal, averaging 38.14°F with a variance under 2°F. We’d maybe recommend tuning the temperature down slightly if you’re particularly fastidious, as otherwise temperatures may rise very slightly above 40°F for a short time.

Overall, though, temperatures in the refrigerator were spot-on.

In the freezer, temperatures were even more consistent, with temperatures generally hovering around 0°F with less than 1°F of variation. During the defrost cycle, the temperature rise was brief and less than 3°F.

The freezer was also excellent at quickly freezing foods. We were able to make a solid batch of ice in under 2 hours, a feat few fridges can achieve.

The HRM145N6AVD’s middle drawer’s temperature is shared with its main freezer drawer. This separate compartment helps keep things organized and accessible.

While the HRM145N6AVD does initially appear to have a flex drawer, its temperature is tied to the main freezer drawer.

While a second freezer drawer doesn’t give you the same adaptability as a true flex drawer, the extra freezer space does help offer enhanced organization and easier accessibility for some of your frozen foods.

In addition to its main bin, there’s a thin drawer that extends over the full width of the drawer.

While the HRM145N6AVD has some good organizational features, its overall storage capacity is quite low due to its narrow, counter-depth design.

Less usable storage space is the necessary downside for a counter-depth that’s also as narrow as the HRM145N6AVD. Even compared to other counter-depth refrigerators, the HRM145N6AVD is about 1.5 cubic feet shy of average.

While the HRM145N6AVD’s shallow and narrow build might help it fit into spaces that most other fridges wouldn’t, just be aware that you’re getting about 20% less storage space compared to a traditional counter-depth fridge and about 35% less storage space compared to a full-size refrigerator.

French-door refrigerators often come equipped with a through-the-door dispenser for ice and filtered water, or, barring that, an internal ice-maker. The Hisense HRM145N6AVD provides no dispensers, which is a bit of a departure from most French-door refrigerators.

Of course, this lack of dispensers isn’t all bad: If you weren’t interested in them in the first place, you can save some money on the up-front price of the fridge.

As the HRM145N6AVD is relatively new to the market and Hisense falls just outside the major manufacturers in the space, there aren’t enough user reviews currently available online to draw any meaningful conclusions. We’ll update this section in the future, once more reviews get uploaded.

Hisense offers a 2-year warranty on all their appliances, which is twice the coverage length of the industry standard warranty.

While we praise Hisense for offering more than the baseline guarantee on their products, some manufacturers—such as LG and Samsung—go further beyond, offering to replace the sealed refrigeration system components for up to a decade.

Overall, the Hisense HRM145N6AVD is a solid, mid-range refrigerator. Its temperature test results were top-notch, and we like the way the fridge makes use of its space. While the fridge lacks some of the extra features French-door owners may have come to expect, those missing extras do drive the price down a bit.

The determining factor on whether this fridge will be for you is your available kitchen space. As this fridge is both counter-depth and unusually narrow for a French-door, it’s well-suited for smaller spaces. Of course, the downside of its small build is that it offers significantly less storage space than even other counter-depth refrigerators.

If you need a great fridge but don’t have spare space for a full-size footprint, the Hisense HRM145N6AVD is one of the few options out there that might actually work for you—and it’s a good value to boot.

We also recommend checking out Hisense’s high-value bottom-freezer refrigerator, the HRB171N6ASE, which can save you a bit of money and offers more storage space. For those with a much bigger budget, the Frigidaire Gallery FG4H2272UF is the best counter-depth fridge you can buy.

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Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

Mark Brezinski is a senior writer with over ten years of experience reviewing consumer tech and home appliances.

Born in Seoul and raised in New England, Michael is currently a Product Tester here at Reviewed and strives to make sure you get the most bang for your buck. His 5 years as a behavioral technician has given him a strong appreciation for data collection and research. When he’s not in the lab testing appliances you can find him gaming on his PC, nerding out about knives or by the tabletop playing 40k.

Beckett Dubay is a product tester at Reviewed and a magnet for corner cases. Working as a lighting designer for several years has left him with strong opinions about overhead lighting. Beckett just wishes it was always fall.

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