Side by Side Comparison of: Culinair vs RCA

My husband is very happy with the materials used for this item. Likes the space and the look. However, he does miss the small freezer space of our last one.

fast delivery, door changes as needed from left to right. works well

Perfect though a little bigger than expected. But hey, It's a great little fridge!

I like that it is very light weight.

I ordered this for my niece for her going away to college gift for her dorm nice size not too big and the fridge cools good for beverages she say her drinks cold already !!!! Great buy

No freezer compartment, just like I wanted. Cools well and is very quiet! My only problem was that the box the fridge was in was put in the outer box upside down. I would not have known I needed to wait 48 hours before plugging it in so the oil and other liquids would go back where they belong; the maintenance man who unpacked it for me knew. (I am disabled, but this is very light, and I could have unpacked it myself.). This was not a product or manufacturer's error.

Works great. We keep it in our very hot garage and it keeps our drinks ice cold. I know it's more of a power draw, but we have nowhere else to put it. My wife was really excited about the bright green color.

I ready posts about the refrigerator being beat up but mine came in great shape. It was a little bigger than I thought too which was a plus. Overall I've very happy with my purchase!

Bought this for my office. We have 10 employees and the fridge is big enough so all of us can bring a small lunch and drinks. The color also is bright and stands out. Received lots of compliments

This fridge is great and the size is perfect! It actually fits A LOT of stuff! Me and my boyfriend got this for our bedroom and it doesn't even take up that much room. Price is decent and the product is excellent. Would highly recommend for a bedroom or basement.

I ordered this fridge for my classroom. I was amazed, it is perfect. It was well packaged and true to picture color. I was concerned about what the inside looked like because there were no photos on Amazon. So I included these hope it helps. I want to switch the way the door opens and haven't found any instructions on how to do that but I know it is a feature. Best purchase for price and COLOR.... everyone that comes into my room asks how I got it that color.

The culinair works great. It does take a long time for the fridge to cool but be patient and it will get cooler in about 3-4 days. Great for the price.

This is just a cooler, i read all reviews and any way I bought it because if the size plus I just want beveragws to be cool but no freeze.I put a thermometer inside and it reads 63F or 16C thats the coldest it gets...it is nice looking and runs silently

It is a very nice looking refrigerator. It seems to be working great. I like that it can go with elegant traditional or contemporary furniture.

I refuse to say that I love an appliance. This is a light weight piezo electric refridgerator. It operates quietly and has a low power rating. It does take some time to cool down and you really shouldn't leave the door open too long but for my office it does the job. I might have preferred a 1 cu ft unit but those do not seem to be available any more. So for what it is it's fine. It cools, its quiet, no complaints

This is a nice fridge.It's simple & it works.I just use it to store my green tea in my bedroom.It's fairly quiet, but I turn the power low so that it's almost silent.I'd recommend it, especially as it's cheap price.

This refrigerator is exactly what we needed for a separate "stinky cheese" cooler. The temperature is in the 40's which is perfect for our needs. If you are looking for a cold, cold refrigerator, this is not the frig for you.

We were surprised at the freezer and it works wonderfully! We were also surprised to have to keep it at nearly 5 to keep things cold but feel we got a heck of a deal--- thank you!

Item arrived damaged. A large dent was present and the box was torn.
It's been plugged in for 3 days. It runs quietly and cools nicely. Color and finish are nice (excluding the large dent).

Love it. Would have given 5 stars if it hadn't been dented and a few scratches. Looks like they all have these flaws but ours was in a place that doesn't affect functionality and doesn't show where we put it. Would definitely buy again

I couldn't understand what everyone meant by "it arrived dented." I thought I could avoid getting one that was dented but I don't think it's possible. I was excited that it arrived on schedule and I couldn't wait to use it. Once I opened it I noticed a dent. I swore that if it was dented that I would send it back. In addition to the dent, there is some damage to one of the parts in the back. I purchased a warranty so it's covered if anything goes wrong. I am so happy with the size and color that I don't want to deal with exchanging it at the moment. If anything goes wrong, I'll be sending it back, but for now, I am happy with this cute little fridge. Makes me smile everytime I open its purple door. Great features and reasonable price. Packaging is flimsy. I may contact Amazon to see if they can offer some kind of compensation for the damage from delivery. Pictures posted of packaging and damage. 5 stars for product. -1 star for packaging.

My son loves his fridge for his bday! We put laker stickers on it for his room....came dented...but doesn't effect how it works.. Still cheaper than me driving somewhere to get one. Thanks!

Use in a guest bedroom. OK for beverages, water. Even on coldest poor cooling for milk and need to be careful not to put much in the fridge. Holders on door could be improved, Things can fall out

Good interior space however the temperature does not get very cold. Even at the lowest setting liquids are cool and need ice for optimum chilling.

OK unit size is good inside, doesn't get that cold though and at times felt like the food may of been a little warmer than it should've been.Completely stopped working one day after 18 months.

Enough space for the size, but unable to really keep things cold the thermostat only goes up to 5 which is coolest but barely cold enough.

The shelf and rails in the door aren't very sturdy. If anything even kind of heavy is put on the shelf, it tips forward. If cans or anything are in the door, they fall out when the fridge door is opened. It's cheap but it's alright.

At setting 2 of the lowest cooling setting.My fridge is at 39 degrees right now.also make half the noise my old Haier one with freezer.Not sure what the deal is with all the negative reviews are all about but for now im happy.On the down side it is very small and a bit spendy for the size.I only got one shelf but little room for too many.

As others have posted, I received it damaged (dented at corners, poor door fit, ect.). Was purchased as a mini-fridge for my department at work, and gets the job done effectively. works well, just cosmetically flawed, which is a bummer.

It came with a small dent in the door (Amazon gave me a small credit). The door doesn't close all the way without pushing on it hard, this leads to the small freezer section defrosting and leaking onto the shelves.

Did arrive well packaged and wrapped in protective film. But side did have some minor dents that didn't matter to us. Great price and seems to be keeping beverages cold. Don't plan to ever use the freezer but this was the best price and layout. Ours doesn't seem to have a light and ai don't care about that. Would buy it again as long a it keeps working.

So far, we love Amazon Prime and we're (conditionally) happy with the refrigerator. It's a 5 Star fridge with a 2 Star shipping fiasco debit.

That is to say, this review covers the 1st one and the 2nd one we received in a 1 week period; and, each came with a dent in the top. The 2nd one was to replace the 1st "dented" one.

We had read the previous reviews and thought it was unfortunate that so many of the other purchasers seem to have had a high incidence of dents; but that had to be fixed and not a problem anymore...we thought.

Well, on the first one, it was a big ol' dent with paint chipped and peeling off, clear metal exposed and had a sharp edge to the splayed paint chip remanent stubbornly hanging on. Unfortunately, in our eagerness to get it out of the box and plugged in we didn't notice (or even look closely) until after we had destroyed the box it arrived in.

Funny thing, because of the previous reviews I searched around the box for any indication of bashing, thumping or mishandling and saw nothing. What's now clear is that the bashed in top was like that when someone at Amazon shipping or wherever it was boxed, boxed it. Now why would they keep putting boxes around damaged refrigerators? Beats me, they must know by now that there's a serious pre-delivery damage problem, or maybe they just keep boxing up the returns until people like us decided that it's not worth the trouble to rebox and return.

That brings us to the 2nd one. I called to report our disappointment and was told that someone would call me back at exactly 5:00 PDT the next day. The reason for the delay in getting back to me, they said, was because the shipping company had not reported the delivery yet - ok, makes sense.

Next day, no call. So I called and got a more Englishey speaking person who arranged for a new one to be delivered within 2-business days and also said that the earlier unit would be picked up on Monday (2 days later). Saturday morning UPS arrived to pick up the first one, and "Hey, where's my new one?" He didn't know and left without the 1st one - we needed the box from the 2nd one to rebox the 1st one.

A couple hours later another UPS guy showed up with our fridge; and surprise, this one actually had a dent on the outer box and, not surprisingly, exactly where the dent was on the refrigerator inside. This dent was not as bad and had no paint chipping - so, we plugged it in to see if it worked, and when it did, we decided to keep it.

it's been here for 3 days now and seems to cool nicely - so, other than aesthetics and shipping frustrations, I think it's a pretty nice fridge. It's also not loud, at all.

Some advice if you're really eager to get a very nice little red fridge:
1) Do NOT cut, slide the securing straps off of the box...and save
2) Lift the box off the unit, don't go Freddy Kruger on the box like I did - you may have to reuse it.

NOTE to Amazon Quality Assurance Manager - maybe you should take a walk to the warehouse and look a few of these refrigerators over. Wouldn't it be more profitable to pre-inspect these items based on a growing body of evidence that you have a dent problem and take them out of the inventory? Just saying.

"Cheapest is never the least expensive"

UPDATE: 2/5/17 - It's been almost a year and a half now and pleased to report that the unit has continued to work perfectly. There seems to be no loss in cooling capability and the very low noise factor is virtually indiscernible. Sits only feet from my home office desk.

1 star for packaging, 5 stars for cooling (while it works). This is the 2nd refrigerator I got, as the first one did not work and I had to return it. The refrigerator is not an RCA but it is an IGLOO which is a good brand so I'm fine with it. The first one arrived with a small dent, and since this is for my office it didn't really bother me too much. However, when I plugged it in, I heard nothing. After waiting for 30 minutes just in case it is super quite, I had one of my co-workers look into it. The motor in the back was very hot, but the frig would not go on, so obviously a safety issue. I returned it without an issue. I received my second frig yesterday, it is badly dented in the front and in the back, so it is extremely obvious. When I first plugged it in it worked. Then I unplugged it and pushed it up against the wall and re plugged it, it did not work. I unplugged it and re-plugged a few more times and it worked again. I am afraid to unplug it again as it may not work again. While it is still working it is cooling beautifully, and the small freezer has freezed the little ice cubes in the mini tray it came with very quickly. I have to note that the packaging of this refrigerator is the worse I've ever seen. The box has no bottom, the frig sits on a foam platform that is taped to the box. There are some thin foam boards that "protect" the frig, and they are clearly very thin and do not protect it as both mine were dented and from the rest of reviews they all come this way. The fact that the bottom is a thin piece of foam and the motor of the frig is at the bottom, in my opinion causes the malfunctioning of this item. If this refrigerator would be packed better, it would not arrive dented and most likely would be a working frig each time. It works great when it works. I hope mine continues to work, I will live with the dents as it is just for my office. I will keep the box for as long as I have time to return it in case it stops working. The 1 year warranty is useless, you would need to ship the frig to PA to their warehouse to get it fixed, I'm sure the shipping would cost as much if not more than a local repair would. The price is great, so if it keeps on working and cooling it is overall a good buy - dents and all. Only time would tell. BTW, the "stainless steel" door is a gray door that looks like stainless steel, but it is not.

I purchased this appliance in August 2016 and it was working perfectly until about the beginning of February 2017. Even though the refrigerator is on its coldest setting, it is cool at best. I've tried adjusting the temperature and it didn't do any good.

The temperature is not low enough to keep the fruits fresh. On average it's just a tiny little below the room temperature.

So far we are not impressed with this mini fridge. After we got it and plugged it in it seems as though it bever gets real cold. Even after two days of leaving the door shut and being set on the coldest setting the drinks we stored in it are not completely cold.The one thing that I do like about it is the size and it has a small light that comes on when the door opens.

This refrigerator had very light use in my one person office. Mostly held bottled water and my lunch several days a week. It was in a well ventilated area, in the coolest side of my office, yet it never got things very cold. Even on the coldest setting, things were cool, never cold. The most frustrating thing of all, was that it completely died today, less than a year after purchase, and out of the limited 90 day warranty period. I bought this pricier refrigerator thinking it would last longer than a cheap dorm refrigerator would, however, the cheap dorm fridge that we bought has gone through 3 kids in college, lots of wear and tear and 15 years later is still keeping pop cold in my son's garage. Last thing I'll ever buy from Culinair.

This mini-fridge hardly keeps beverages very cold at all. I have tried all the settings of the dial and they always seem somewhat cold at best. I wind up keeping the beverages in there and moving them to the fridge in our kitchen to really get them cold to drink. If you really like icy cold drinks, this is NOT the mini-fridge for you.

Nice construction & looks but does not get cold enough. I just use it at work for yogurt, etc within a week's time. It is OK for that staying in the low 40 degrees. Probably OK for wine as well. But for any real refrigerator use, this is not cold enough. Spend another $50 or so and get a real refrigerator (the better ones are, oddly, referred to as freezers).

I bought this item in April, used it in my school office until June and it worked well. I unplugged it for the summer, began using it again in August and it just quit on me. Doesn't even turn on, it's dead. What a huge disappointment. Not sure how to check for warranty.

It takes days to freeze things, there was a big dent on the side, and the leveling legs on the bottom were all bent out of shape. Can't recommend this fridge.

Item was priced great. Very touchy, having a hard time regulating the temperature. No directions in manual about this either. Arrived banged up as well.

The fridge works as advertised. It actually cooled down to temperature fairly quick. The interior shelves were nice because they're glass.

The reason I was disappointed was the product arrived damaged. It looked like it was dropped on the lower back corner and this made the fridge off balanced. Had it been more expensive and not operate, I would've returned it.

Mine came used? This is supposed to be a new product and it came sticky as heck on the top and with dirt spots inside, rust on the power area on the bottom of the back? the packaging had dirt all over it as well, very upsetting. Do I get a replacement or anything because it came used, clear signs of being used, even the packaging tape inside was a mess, it was hastily put on and wrinkled everywhere and the little bars to hold things swung loosely..

Unit kept cool only a couple of months then would not cool below 50 degrees. While it is a good size and seals well, it did not keep functioning. We were past the return date through Amazon, so contacted the company directly. They have LOUSY customer service. For a month I continued to give the same information to them over and over again, only to be told it would be sent to a manager for replacement. No replacement, just more phone calls. If I could give the company customer service negative stars, I would.

We had used this refrigerator for 60 days (or less) and it has already stopped working. We called Digital Products International to request a return/refund and were told that we would be responsible for the freight back to their company. We would not recommend this equipment be purchased as it is unreliable and the company is unreasonable concerning their return policy even though it is still under warranty,.

I bought this unit in march and in July it stopped getting cold and my return window for a whole 30 days closed so NO do not buy this product. Not worth the $100. Totally not.

Doesn't keep anything cold. As others have said, a cooler is more accurate than calling this a fridge. Went ahead and spent the 20 extra bucks for the RCA SS fridge. I like the set up inside this one better than the RCA, but at least the RCA gets things cold and makes ice.

This fridge took a long while to get cold. Works if you wait a day or two before storing items in it. Not good for keep meats or other items that need to be kept very cold but does work well for veggies, beverages, deli items, etc... The more items you have the better it keeps things cool. Fan started going bad after about 2 months. The fan started making very load sounds before completely failing. Not sure how its going to work now without a fan. Should have spent more money and bought something with better quality.

This is NOT a refrigerator and since I didn't notice it (that nothing is cold enough to be safe to use) within 30 days (because I didn't use it right away, since it was for a college dorm) I can't return it. How can they call it a refrigerator?Refrigerator: noun 1. a box, room, or cabinet in which food, drink, etc., are kept cool by means of ice or mechanical refrigeration.Food needs to be kept at temperatures below 40 degrees, which is well below 55 degrees, which is what we got with this one after 12 hours.

After receiving I noticed the box was in good condition, but the fridge was dented so badly on the end that the fridge would not open. Then I was inconvenienced by having to Redbox the item in order to send back. I should have read the reviews prior to my purchase. It appears that receiving the refrigerator with dents is a common problem.

I've read so many reviews about this mini fridge with dented problem, but still thinking it would not happen to my order. Never fail, my came with a dent at upper right corner of the fridge. Probably it would not hurt a thing, but buying something damaged....I would not buy this fridge again, bc there is a good chance that I will get another dented fridge. lesson learnt.

This unit worked great for about 2mos and then stopped cooling altogether suddenly. The compressor runs but does not cool. Warranty is a joke since it specifically has to be sent to Michigan for warranty work. (at the owner's expense) It would cost more than I paid for it to send it for repair/replacement. It's simply cheaper to buy another one than to deal with the hassle.

I bought this fridge twice, one for work and one for home. The first one was fine. It had a light and kept things cold just fine but it was delivered with a few dents. I would have given it 4 stars. The second one didn't have any dents which was nice but there was no light and the freezer never gets cold enough to freeze anything or keep anything frozen even with it set to the coldest setting.

Shocked that this damaded defective trash could be legitimately shipped! The item had multiple dents to the body, broken plastic inside, corroded, leaking, likely previously used and clearly damaged cooling eliments. Atrocious smell. It defies understanding how shipment of this item was justified.

When I received this product there were many scratches and a huge dent on the side. I just plugged it in so hopefully it at least works but we will just have to wait and see. Its making the right noise so it should. I dont like that there were scratches on a "new" product and how the packaging was also damaged. The inside though was very clean and no scratches on the inside at all. After having this product for a year it has now quit working. You would think a mini fridge would last longer but guess not.