These Are The Best Galanz Mini Fridges With Freezers: Modern Or Retro

Mini-fridges are getting a lot of attention from urban dwellers who live alone in small apartments and those who need supplementary storage for cold beverages and frozen snacks. For true convenience, a Galanz mini-fridge with a freezer is among the best options available today.

Whether or not you have enough space where you live, work, or play, a fridge that holds your food, medicines, and refreshments is a necessity. It’s the one modern convenience we all can’t live without. Where space is tight and a regular size fridge just isn’t a practical purchase, a mini-fridge with a freezer is a no-brainer. It can hold your drinks and keep them cold, preserve your fruits and vegetables, make ice, and keep your meats, popsicles, and ice cream well-frozen. Just on a smaller scale. You also have the option to place it anywhere you like around the home.

In a market awash with mini-fridges of different designs, sizes, and styles, we have been impressed by Galanz mini-fridges. This article takes a closer look at Galanz mini-fridges with freezers to help you learn more about their features and attributes, in case you are on the fence about buying one for yourself.

Let’s dive right in.

Review of the Top-5 Galanz Mini Fridges With Freezers

Galanz GLR40TRDER 4-Cu. Ft. Retro Top Mount Compact Refrigerator

Google’s Rating 4.4

Not a typical mini-fridge but not a full-size fridge either, this compact retro-styled fridge is made for small kitchens but will work just as well in a shared dorm room or office. While it falls short of family-size capacity, it fixes the biggest weakness of mini-fridges, which is their tiny freezers. 

The 1.38-cu. ft. freezer has space for a few meals worth of meat and your favorite frozen treats. There is a removable shelf that will separate your meats from your treats. For your jars and smaller items that you need to keep within easy reach, the freezer has a convenient door bin.

The fridge compartment is quite spacious. Designed for organizing ease, there are two removable shelves so you can place your drinks, condiments, and different cold groceries where you can easily find and retrieve them. Right at the bottom is a crisper drawer that provides more ideal storage for your fruits and vegetables.

There is enough space for three storage bins in the door. Your 2-liter milk and cola bottles have their dedicated bin at the bottom, while the two upper bins can be reserved for shorter bottles. Enough of the interior, how does the double-door fridge look from outside?

It looks retro, which in the world of appliances means cool or charming. The chrome door handles and trim are a perfect contrast to the bold black color while the rounded corners complete the sculpted look. The fridge has two leveling front legs in case your floors aren’t perfectly level.

Galanz GLR31TRDER 3.1-Cu. Ft. Retro Top Mount Compact Refrigerator

Google’s Rating: 4.5

Galanz’s retro line of compact fridges has become quite popular with consumers who love their charming looks and practicality. We love the vintage enamel finish of this model. This is another double-door Galanz mini-fridge with a true freezer that stores a lot more groceries than you would think just by looking at it.

The freezer has its own door that gives it the illusion of space, but you really could pack a few items in there. You could throw in a box or two of popsicles and an ice tray and there will still be some space left. 

In the fridge compartment, two removable shelves separate your snacks from beverage cans and ensure there’s some order in there. The large crystal crisper ensures your vegetables and fruits keep fresh for longer. 

We like that the adjustable door bins on both the freezer and fridge are solid and transparent plastic, not wire racks with large holes that smaller items can fall right through. Just be careful not to overload those bins with drinks, lest the door starts to squeak when you open.

This mini-fridge can maintain a consistent temperature that will remove anxieties over potential food loss. Users have said while there is ice buildup in the freezer, you will not be defrosting every week. 

Galanz GLR46TBKER 4.6-Cu. Ft. Retro Top Mount Refrigerator

Google’s Rating: 4.2

The Galanz 4.6-cu. ft. retro mini fridge gets our nod as the roomiest mini-fridge with a freezer on the market. It is so roomy we feel it stretches the limit on what can be termed a mini-fridge. The extra height means it has a more spacious freezer compartment.

The fridge looks funky and stylish with its retro design and bold colors (it’s available in red and black). This is more than something to hold your drinks and snacks. It can keep your fruits and vegetables, frozen meats, drinks, milk, condiments, and more. The 3 adjustable slide-out glass shelves and door storage bins keep everything nicely partitioned and organized.

There is even a large crisper drawer that separates your fruits and vegetables from the other groceries. Even though it lacks humidity controls, the crisper gets your fruits and veggies closer to their ideal storage conditions. 

By the way, the fridge uses a manually adjustable thermostat that allows for more personalized storage conditions. We, however, advise keeping a refrigerator thermometer on hand and periodically checking the temperature to make sure it stays in the optimal 37 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit range.

There is a lot more to like about this retro-themed top freezer mini-fridge.  The leveling front legs ensure easy placement on uneven floors. While it is compact enough for recreational rooms, offices, and dorm rooms, this fridge is a good size for a kitchen.

Galanz GL43S5 4.3-Cu. Ft. Compact Refrigerator

Google’s Rating: 3.9

This traditional single-door mini-fridge is quite compact for its sizable capacity of 4.3-cu. ft. Much of this capacity is, however, taken up by the fresh food compartment. The freezer, which does not have its own door, is small in comparison to most double minis, but it is more spacious than most single-door models. 

Due to the generous chiller compartment, this fridge would work great for a single person who stocks a lot of fresh produce but would still need some freezer space for their ice, some frozen treats, and a few meals’ worth of meat. 

Inside the chiller compartment, you have plenty of room for your milk, soda bottles and cans, and fruit and vegetables, for which there is a large bin at the bottom. In the door is a tall can rack with slots for 8 large beverage cans, a separate bin for tall bottles, and a few jars. Also to aid organization inside the fridge are two slide-out shelves and a bright light.

All in all, this is a solidly built mini-fridge with a smart stainless steel finish. It has reversible doors and leveling front legs, which ensures it will fit in more places. A few people have complained that it is a bit noisy, with an audible hum that you will hear as soon as you enter the room. The fridge also isn’t well-insulated as the exterior gets quite cold, which wastes energy.

Galanz GL31BK 3.1-Cu. Ft. Top Mount Refrigerator

Google’s Rating: 3.9

This is a proper mini-fridge that is no taller than 33 inches and which you would not expect to have a separate door for the freezer. The freezer and chiller compartment separation does sacrifice a bit of usable capacity. 

For perspective, the freezer on this fridge, though it has its own door, is not much larger than the freezer on the single-door 4.3-cu. ft. model we reviewed above. But it does have an important advantage. Because the fresh food compartment has a separate door that is typically more frequently opened, the freezer isn’t opened as much and can maintain a consistently cold temperature. That ensures your frozen groceries stay well-frozen.

To have a separate door, the freezer compartment on this small fridge had to be larger in proportion to the chiller than you would normally expect for a top-mount freezer fridge. The fresh food compartment is smaller as a result, with only one slide-out shelf, a crisper drawer, and a couple of door bins to share the fresh storage duties. 

This mini-fridge, therefore, works best for a person who prefers a compact fridge yet needs more freezer storage than a mini-fridge this compact typically provides. A few stand-out features we like include the reversible doors, a bright interior light, and the two leveling front legs.

What Is a Mini-Fridge?

A mini-fridge is a compact freestanding refrigerator. It has a small footprint that allows it to fit in tight spaces. You could call it a smaller version of a regular, family-size refrigerator.

To be considered a mini-fridge, a fridge has to be between 1.7-cu. ft. and 4.5-cu. ft. That means it has to be 17 inches wide, around 19 inches deep, and 20 inches tall.

A mini-fridge gives you the great benefit of cold storage where you would not normally be able to fit a regular size refrigerator or where such a big fridge would look out of place.

The Benefits of Having a Mini Fridge With a Freezer

Many people are drawn to mini-fridges by their cute aesthetic and ability to fit into compact living spaces. A mini-fridge with a freezer will ensure you have both chilled and frozen storage, whether it is just for making ice or for storing your frozen meats and treats. 

What usually happens is as your needs evolve and you upgrade with a family-size fridge, you will still find yourself unable to let go of your tiny fridge. You keep it around, not just for when your regular fridge breaks down, but for even more specialized use. Here are some benefits to owning a mini-fridge.

Spillover storage during parties and holidays

The holidays are times of fun and merriment that demand having more food and drinks on hand than you normally do. A mini-fridge with a freezer will provide extra storage for your drinks when your primary fridge is approaching full capacity. You can use it to store ice, drinks, and salads on special occasions when you’re hosting friends and family.

A mini-fridge is less private than a family fridge and being small and lightweight, you can take it outside the house, even to the pool as long as you have an outlet to plug into. You can also use a mini-fridge as your designated drinks fridge in your recreation room or home bar and keep people out of your kitchen and main fridge.

Preserve excess produce

Do you like to grow your own food? If so, you will want some extra fridge space to store excess produce.  

The mini-fridge may not be ideal long-term storage but you can shift commonly used groceries to it and free space in the main fridge. Besides fresh fruit, corn, and vegetables, you can also use the extra fridge capacity to store eggs from your backyard chickens.

Separate food allergens from the main fridge

People who suffer from chronic conditions often need to keep their medicine refrigerated, otherwise, the meds lose their potency. Mini-fridges are great for this purpose. 

A mini-fridge can also prevent cross-contamination with food a member of the household is allergic to. It allows you to keep the allergy-causing foods in a separate fridge, away from the regular food supply. This way everyone stays healthy, and nobody must forgo their favorite food.

Let’s now look at Galanz mini-fridges with freezers in more detail.

History of Galanz as a Brand

Galanz is a brand of home appliances made by a Chinese company called Guangdong Galanz Enterprises Co Ltd. The appliance manufacturer operates from Foshan in Guangdong, China, and was started by Liang Qingde in 1978. 

Today Galanz operates one of the world’s largest and most advanced appliance manufacturing plants. Besides refrigerators, for which it manufactures all types including mini-fridges, the company also makes blenders, digital air fryers, toasters, and bread makers. 

Even after it became a household name in China and it took control of the microwave oven market, Galanz was virtually unknown to American consumers. Galanz had been pursuing an OEM strategy that had served it well, but it realized if its goal for world domination was to materialize, it had to build a proper consumer brand. 

Building a brand meant investing in the brand, not just the product. And while it has taken some time, the brand is starting to find traction in the tough American market, where its fridges are selling well.

Galanz’s Line Up of Mini-Fridges With Freezers

The smallest Galanz mini-fridge is a single-door model with a tiny capacity of 1.7-cu. ft. Almost all this capacity is taken up by the chiller. The inbuilt half-width freezer, which does not even have a door or closure, hangs above the fresh food compartment. 

The freezer on the 1.7-cu. ft. model, which is only good for making ice and can only hold a punnet or two of meat, can’t be relied on for any meaning food storage. So, we will not consider this model as a viable option for one looking for a Galanz mini-fridge freezer. The same applies to the 2.5-cu. ft. and the 2.7-cu. ft. models that are only a slight upgrade.

The smallest mini-fridge with a separated freezer is the 3.1-cu. ft. single-door model. All regular-style Galanz mini-fridges have a single door with a small freezer inside. 

The in-built freezer on the 3.1-cu. ft. model has a door/lid but, again, it is small and does not hold much. The 3.5-cu. ft. and 4.3-cu. ft. models also do not offer much in the way of freezer storage.

Galanz Retro Mini-fridges With Freezers

Galanz’s line of retro-styled mini-fridges has two configurations – the single and double-door. The double-door models are what the brand can claim to have functional freezers. The smallest of the brand’s mini-fridges is the 2.5-cu. ft. model. As small as it is, this regular-style mini-fridge has a freezer with a closure, even though the fridge itself has one main door. 

The 3.3-cu. ft. and 3.5-cu. ft. single-door retro models both have sizable freezer compartments. The 4.4-cu. ft. single-door retro model, however, is an outlier. It has no freezer at all and is essentially a chiller. 

Our favorite Galanz mini-fridges with freezers that are also the most popular with buyers are the top freezer 3.1-cu. ft., 4.0 cu-ft., and 4.6-cu. ft. retro models. These models are true top freezers with two doors that each has a storage bin. 

A mini-fridge freezer with separate doors maintains consistently cold temperatures that help to keep foods well-frozen because they let in less warm air from outside. These mini-fridges have the look of a regular size top-mount fridge, just smaller.

The 4.6-cu. ft. top freezer retro model is the largest mini-fridge with a freezer that Galanz currently offers. It has a sizable freezer capacity and could work as the primary freezer in a small, single-person first apartment.

Factors to Consider When Buying a Mini-Fridge With a Freezer

Before we review the top Galanz mini-fridges with freezers that you can buy online, we need to discuss a little about what you must consider when buying a mini-fridge with a freezer.

First, some mini-fridges are described as ‘all-refrigerator’. These do not have a freezer at all and therefore do not freeze, not even a tray of ice. So, be mindful of this when you shop if you need a mini-fridge with freezer storage.

The second point to note is that freezers on mini-fridges are not designed for long-term storage. You can only safely keep frozen groceries in a mini-fridge for a day or two. 

The biggest issue has to do with the lack of automatic defrost functionality. This means you have to switch off the fridge to defrost it, which will cause your frozen meats to thaw and your ice cream to lose its scoopable consistency. If you don’t defrost, you may struggle to retrieve items from the freezer.

Another important point to note is that mini-fridges are not designed to work at temperatures below those in a properly insulated home. If outside temperatures drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the mini-fridge might stop working. This limits your placement options during wintertime.

The last point is to be sure what size you should get. Mini-fridges have capacities between 1.7-cu. ft. and 4.5-cu. ft., which includes both the freezer and fresh food compartments. The fresh food section is typically larger. 

If you desire more freezer space, your needs are best served with a double-door model that comes with a separate freezer that has its own door. Top-mount freezer mini-fridges have more freezer space than single-door models. 

Galanz has several models of single and double-door mini-fridge configurations. You can also choose between a traditional and retro-styled model.

Final Word

Whether your primary fridge is reaching capacity, or your space or storage needs are too small for a large fridge, a mini-fridge can be a life-saver.  Narrowing your options down to one brand does help, but for a brand like Galanz that has more than a few options, it still isn’t a straightforward task. That is why we prepared this guide that reviews the Galanz mini-fridges with a freezer. We hope it has helped you find the right one for your needs.

FAQs