Hoover H-Fridge 700 Maxi HSC918EWXK

Design and Features

• French door design
• Water dispenser
• Two-door freezer compartment

A French Door fridge freezer, the Hoover H-Fridge 700 Maxi HSC918EWXK puts the fridge at the top, behind the double doors, and the freezer compartment at the bottom, rather than going side-by-side as with American-style models.

I much prefer this kind of design, as the most commonly used items are quickly accessible without having to bend down, and the wide fridge compartment makes it easy to put in larger items, such as a cake or larger cut of meat.

The model that I have for review is a stainless steel version. It’s a nice finish, and up there with far more expensive models that I’ve tested, such as the Hisense RS818N4TIC.

Hoover has mounted the independent fridge and freezer temperature controls on the outside, although there’s a lock feature to stop kids from fiddling with your settings.

There’s a large 363-litre fridge at the top, which can be accessed in its entirety by opening up the double doors. Or you can open each door individually if you only want to get to the door pockets or you know which side your wanted item is stored on.

The left door houses the larger door pockets, with three in total, all mounted in fixed positions. That’s not a bad thing, as pockets are deep and well-spaced. I found that I could easily fit in larger milk jugs and drinks cartons in the bottom one, while the middle pocket is big enough for condiments and jars, and the top one for jars, eggs and so on.

On the right, there are three door pockets. The top one is the same as the one on the opposite door, but things then change.

The middle door pocket houses the water tank for chilled water. There’s no water filter, so you can either use tap water or top the tank up with water you’ve already filtered. To do this, you can remove the tank by pulling it up and out. It was a little stiff at first, but subsequent refills made this easier.

Just be careful what you store on top of it, as you’ll have to remove everything before removing the tank for refilling it.

Water is accessed via the push-in dispenser on the front, which is easy to use.

As there’s a cut-out on the door, the bottom pocket is a little narrower than the one on the left. Even so, I could still fit in a two-pint milk container.

Inside, the fridge has three shelves, with the top top sharing three shelf brackets, so you can position them the way that you like. I went with the top and bottom brackets, which left me with enough space to stand up taller items, such as drinks cartons, in the middle.

The top and bottom shelves hold most jars, and take large bottles of drink or wine lying flat. There are no split shelves or bottle racks.

At the bottom are two Cool Space drawers, which run at a slightly lower temperature and are for keeping fruit, vegetables, cheese and the like fresh for longer. Neither has a humidity control.

A single bright LED lights up this compartment, making it easy to find what I was looking for.

At the bottom is the 201-litre freezer space, which is split into two equal-sized compartments. With other French Door models that I’ve reviewed, such as the Samsung Family Hub RF65DG9H0EB1EU, there’s a choice to make one compartment a freezer, or it can be turned into extra fridge space.

With the Hoover H-Fridge 700 Maxi HSC918EWXK that’s not an option, as the compartments aren’t separated and are just one big open space. However, given that most people will probably want the entire freezer space, that’s not an issue.

Each side has a slide-out tray (big enough for a regular pizza), plus two drawers for other foods.

The bottom drawers are slightly smaller than the top ones, but overall, there’s a good amount of space and it’s easy to get to what you want. There’s another bright LED here, which neatly highlights everything.

Performance

• Frost-free
• Very stable fridge temperatures
• Good freezer control

I put the Hoover H-Fridge 700 Maxi HSC918EWXK through our usual tests, starting by loading it up with freezer blocks to mimic food, and then I used our automatic door opener to simulate fridge usage. Using a temperature sensor that takes a reading every 15 minutes, I built up a picture of how well the fridge freezer holds temperatures.

In the fridge section, I was impressed with the results. With an average temperature of 3.8°C in the fridge cavity, the Hoover H-Fridge 700 Maxi HSC918EWXK produced a temperature that was just 0.2°C colder than my target of 4°C.

The top of the fridge was slightly warmer than the middle and the bottom, but with an average of 4.3°C, it was still very close to the target.

Measuring standard deviation, temperatures mostly fluctuated by +/- 0.47°C, which shows incredible stability: anything under 1°C is a very good result.

Moving to the freezer, the average temperature was -19.3°C, which is -1.3°C colder than my ideal of -18°C. Temperatures were similar across the top, bottom and middle of the fridge, which was good to see.

This fridge freezer is a frost-free model, and over my testing time I didn’t spot any build up of ice.

An E-rated appliance, I measured energy use at an estimated a yearly cost of £57.32, which works out to 10p per litre. At this price, this energy usage isn’t bad, and you have to spend quite a bit more to get an A-rated fridge.

Should you buy it?