The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 is a high-end 36-inch counter-depth French door refrigerator. The cooling system consists of a single inverter compressor and a single evaporator. In the fridge, you can adjust the two full-width shelves to any of 14 height positions, and the doors contain eight door bins. There are two drawers in the freezer, and you can remove the top drawer bins for easy access. It also has an ice maker in the freezer.
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Our Verdict
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 is a decent option for everyday use. The best aspect of this fridge is that freezer temperature uniformity is excellent. The refrigerator offers satisfactory capacity, especially for a shallow counter-depth design. Unfortunately, freezer capacity is no more than fair since the drawers have a limited depth. Refrigerator temperature uniformity is barely passable due to the overly warm door bins. Also, produce preservation performance is only adequate: the single evaporator creates a dry fridge compartment, which dries out produce despite the decent produce drawer seal.
Decent refrigerator capacity for a counter-depth fridge.
Excellent freezer temperature uniformity.
Decent produce bin seal retains some moisture.
Mediocre freezer capacity.
Low humidity in the fridge dries out produce.
Shallow counter-depth design limits capacity.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1's produce preservation performance is just alright. Since it's a single-evaporator refrigerator, the humidity in the fridge compartment is fairly low. The produce drawer seals retain some moisture but can't hold enough back to prevent produce from drying out prematurely. Lettuce will wilt, celery will go soft, and carrots will dry out in a week or less.
Decent produce bin seal retains some moisture.
Low humidity in the fridge dries out produce.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 offers satisfactory refrigerator capacity. It's decent for a counter-depth fridge since the cabinet is fairly shallow. There are two shelves you can mount in any of 14 positions, as well as crisper drawers and deli bins that sit on pull-out shelves and are completely removable. The doors hold four door bins each, some with unusual wire retainer bars for oddly shaped items.
Decent refrigerator capacity for a counter-depth fridge.
Shallow counter-depth design limits capacity.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1's freezer capacity is only okay. This is quite a small freezer; it's fairly shallow, even for a counter-depth refrigerator. The bottom drawer bin is wide and tall enough to store a few family-sized boxes of burgers, chicken, or fish, though it's not deep enough for pizza boxes. The top drawer consists of a shelf holding independent bins that you can remove for convenience, but they're quite small.
Removable freezer bins for convenience.
Mediocre freezer capacity.
Shallow counter-depth design limits capacity.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 exhibits good temperature uniformity overall. The freezer temperature uniformity is excellent, so you can place items like ice cream anywhere and don't have to be concerned about inconsistent hardness. Unfortunately, the refrigerator temperature uniformity is barely passable, since the shelves get warmer as you go down the fridge, and the door bins are considerably warmer than the shelves.
Excellent freezer temperature uniformity.
Overly warm door bins.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 delivers only passable ice-making performance. The main issue is the inadequate ice production rate: it makes barely enough ice in a day for two people and can't meet the needs of a family. The ice tray has a good capacity, enough for a small event, but it will take almost four days to fill the ice tray.
Good ice tray capacity.
Disappointing ice production rate.
Performance Usages
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 comes in two variants: the Stainless Steel RF201AHJSX1 and the Stainless Steel RF201AHUSX1 model with a water and ice dispenser in the right fridge door. We tested the RF201AHJSX1; here's our unit's label. The water and ice dispenser in the RF201AHUSX1's refrigerator section will have a large impact on many of our tests, so our results shouldn't be taken as representative of this model.
If you find another variant, please let us know in the comments and we'll update our review.
Popular Refrigerator Comparisons
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 is a high-end counter-depth fridge, although it doesn't offer premium features like dual evaporators, and it doesn't deliver great performance. It's priced similarly to the Bosch 800 Series B36CT80SNS but doesn't have the Bosch's dual evaporators or dual compressors, and its performance falls far short of the Bosch's class-leading produce preservation and temperature uniformity. It offers similar capacity to the Bosch, with a little more capacity in the fridge and a little less in the freezer. It can't come close to the high capacity offered by the LG LRFLC2706S, a refrigerator that delivers slightly worse produce preservation performance but much better temperature uniformity. The KitchenAid KRSC703HPS has a much larger freezer than the Fisher & Paykel, even though this fridge has narrow side-by-side compartments, which shows with the lower capacity refrigerator side. That said, the dual evaporator KitchenAid outperforms the Fisher & Paykel in terms of produce preservation and temperature uniformity.
For more recommendations, take a look at the best French door refrigerators, the best counter-depth refrigerators, and our picks for the best refrigerators.
Test Results
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 provides decent refrigerator storage capacity, especially for a counter-depth fridge. Though the shelves aren't split, you can mount them in any of the 14 positions to provide a tall space for storing items like long-neck bottles. The two crisper drawers and two deli drawers underneath sit on pull-out shelves; you can remove the drawers for convenience. Removing the lower bins increases capacity by 0.195 cu ft (5.5 L), but removing the produce drawers doesn't add any capacity since the available vertical space doesn't increase due to the non-removable produce bin seal. This fridge also comes with four stackable bottle holders, which hold bottles horizontally, though you can't stack the bottle holders with bottles loaded in them.
In the doors are eight door bins, four on each side. The top door bins are covered, and the door bins underneath are shorter, but you can position them at two heights. The bin underneath is also height-adjustable, while the bottom bin is fixed. The two bottom bins have dividers and unusual wire fronts, allowing oddly shaped items to protrude beyond the edges of the bin in their midsection.
The freezer offers barely adequate capacity. The drawers are quite shallow. The bottom drawer is tall and wide enough to store a couple of family-sized boxes of burgers or chicken pieces, but it's not deep or tall enough to store large pizza boxes. The top drawer consists of a shelf that holds two removable bins. If you remove the bins, you can increase capacity by 0.045 cu ft (1.3 L), but you won't be able to prevent loose items like bags of frozen vegetables from falling off the sides of the shelf. Removing the ice tray from the left bin increases the total usable capacity to 3.2 cu ft (90.6 L).
This refrigerator uses a single inverter compressor and a single evaporator. Inverter compressors can modulate their speed based on the required cooling load. They can save power and offer better temperature and humidity regulation than older fixed-speed compressor designs. However, in practice, these advantages are fairly small. Also, this system adds the inverter controller board as a critical failure point.
Note that the manufacturer uses masking tape to hold back cables. This material is inappropriate for the cold, dry conditions inside a refrigerator, where masking tape and its adhesive will dry out and detach quickly.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 uses a twist-tray style ice maker in the freezer. A twist-tray ice maker makes ice in a plastic tray, using a motor to flip over and twist the tray to pop the ice out. This design is potentially more failure-prone than the competing ejector-type, which casts ice into a metal mold, uses a heater to detach the formed ice, and then uses rotating plastic fingers to eject the ice. With the twist-tray type, the twisting force could crack the tray since the plastic gets brittle over time in low temperatures, especially since it's subject to thermal stresses, as it turns cool water into cold ice.
However, this ice maker is in the freezer, a better location for ice-making than fridges, where the ice maker sits in the fridge to supply an ice dispenser in the door. The freezer has ideal conditions for making ice, while an ice maker in the fridge requires special ducting and dampers to create a freezing environment and often runs too close to freezing to make ice reliably.
This fridge exhibits mediocre temperature uniformity in the refrigerator section. The shelves are a few degrees warmer at the bottom since cooling air descends from the top. The door bins are considerably warmer than the shelves, with the lower bins the warmest. You should exercise caution when putting highly perishable items like milk in the lower door bins and reserve this location for chilling stable beverages or keeping condiments cool.
The Fisher & Paykel Series 7 RF201AHJSX1 delivers excellent temperature uniformity in the freezer. There's very little temperature variation throughout the freezer, with the lower drawer only a bit warmer than the top since it's further away from the evaporator. This small temperature difference will have little effect on anything in the freezer; you can rest assured that items like ice cream will remain at the same consistency regardless of where you place them in the freezer.
Produce preservation performance is only fair. This single-evaporator fridge creates low humidity in the refrigerator compartment, and while the produce drawer seals retain some moisture, they're not as good as the seals in the Bosch 500 Series B36FD52SNS. There's very little difference in the venting gap between the fruit and vegetable settings, and the seals are made from a bendable, malleable plastic which doesn't stay perfectly flat on the produce drawer. As a result, delicate produce like lettuce or celery will dry out and wilt in about a week.
