It's time for a new fridge, ideally a French door kind around 480L for under $2,000.
Was set on a Sharp fridge, it's discontinued but still available new and with good discount. Almost pulled the trigger until I found out that similar looking fridges are also sold under brands like Akai, Heller, Seiki, Stirling, and possibly others. Such a turn off, a rebadged generic fridge.
Are Samsung fridges any good?
Yeah I can't believe this is a consideration on a bargain forum. Get a reliable one that's the right size with a good warranty.
Anyone that checks if it's a Stirling, Heller, Akai or Sharp and judges you is a (profanity) and you're a loser for thinking you need to pander to them…
Bargain means getting a good ideal, it doesn't mean buying cheap sh*t.
Surely the brand plays a part in design/technology, reliability, and support. In case of fridge, efficiency, noise, material and workmanship, all important factors.
Rebadged appliance suggests limited R&D and product testing, mass produced at low cost, with questionable quality control.
I think OP wants to use brand as a proxy for quality not to show off.
Yea, that's it.
Especially paying premium for a perceived reputable brand but only to find out it's a rebadge, quite disappointing.
@browser: Right but if the premium brand has better warranty, support and potentially first pick off the production line then you're already getting what you want.
In TVs the big brands get the highest quality parts off the production line and then the dodgy brands take the B grade ones. I don't see why fridges and other appliances would be any different
$1439 (hit Price Check Now and it drops to $1419)
https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/haier-492l-french-door-refrig…
$2,000
I highly recommend subscribing to https://www.choice.com.au/ and checking out their reviews.
Then use https://www.choice.com.au/about-us/products-and-services/cho… (and ozbargain) to get the best price.
https://www.choice.com.au/home-and-living/kitchen/fridges/re…
The fridge we were interested in is a Sharp SJ-XP470HB-SL, first saw it at Costco for $1,450 but it's out of stock.
It's discontinued so not commonly available, Good Guys still has it on the floor (not on website) for $1,400. I called later, they still have a few in the warehouse and can do $1,250 over the phone. I feel $1,200 is achievable if I had gone into the store, but they may try to up sale concierge membership (not necessarily a bad thing).
They charge $55 for drop off delivery, or $74 for unpack delivery. So need to factor that in as well. I think $1,300 delivered is easily doable for that fridge, which is a good deal in my book. The similar Akai AK-H470FF is around the same price if not slightly more.
To be fair, that Sharp model is more that a generic rebadge, it has additional Plasmacluster technology to keep the fridge smelling fresh. However, we had a Sharp air purifier before and I didn't feel Plasmacluster made any difference.
Anyway, we didn't go with the Sharp, primarily because of 60/40 fridge/freeze split, we prefer more room in the fridge than freezer.
Nobody cares what brand your fridge is