Samsung Digital Inverter Fridge wins!

Back to the story of our refrigerator hunting.

Last Monday (05/27), on our way to Antipolo from our little getaway trip to Tagaytay (courtesy of my sister, Maricel Mendoza), +maria cessna galecio and I got a little hungry by the time we reached Robinson's Cainta. We decided to eat there since it was very hot outside and we wanted to get some covered parking.

We ate at the food court, and then saw the Robinson's appliance center and decided to take a quick look around.

I skipped most of the displays and went straight to the Samsung lot. I saw the Digital Inverter ref with the recessed grip instead of the door handles that we were eyeing before but something different caught my eye.

321!

The EEF factor was 321. I distinctly remember it being 302 before. On closer inspection, this was definitely a different model. When we looked inside, most of it looked familiar, except it didn't have the top slide out shelf.

Looking at the price, it's 17,995 pesos or about 1,000 pesos cheaper than the original model we were looking at. But it also had a discount of 2,750 for cash payments or straight charge credit card payments. Making it a little more than just 15,000, which I felt was a steal for a digital inverter compressor. And not only that, they were offering a free Philips juicer with the unit. I don't know the actual price, but Philips products are usually priced at a premium, because of good quality. So if you consider the juicer to be priced at 1,000 pesos, then the ref would practically cost us just around 14,000 pesos, which isn't that far from the Condura single door fridge that we were looking at.

Looking at the EEF tag, the consumption is at .77kwh/24hr as compared to the other model which was .94kwh/24hr or a difference of about 200w. (A good size lcd/led tv uses about 100w). And if I remember correctly, the Condura was at .64kw/24hr, so that's just about a 100w difference.

So this particular model seemed like a steal at this point. When we asked about the delivery charges, the sales personnel could not estimate it for a delivery in Q.C. He assumed it would slightly be expensive than the 300 pesos delivery charge around Rizal. We asked if they had an appliance store in Robinson's Novaliches and he said yes, and that they should also have the same promo.

We decided to check with Robinson's Novaliches when we get the time, and we then went on our way to Antipolo.

Yesterday (05/30/2013), Chea and I got the chance to head home early, so we decided to head over to Robinson's Novaliches. Three of her office mates went along with us as two of them had a thing to do over at Philcoa, while the third one, lived in Fairview.

Once we got to Robinson's Novaliches, we headed straight to the appliance store and directly to the Samsung section. We found the same ref, but the tags were different. The discount was just 1,500 pesos, and there was no mention of the free juicer.

Chea inquired about the promo, and the sales personnel attending to us said that he would ask the manager about the 2,750 discount. After a few minutes, the sales rep got back and told us we can get the discounted price.

Chea then asked about the juicer (model is HR 1823) and we were told that they ran out of stocks which is why they removed the tag. Chea persisted in getting the juicer but the sales rep wouldn't budge. I asked Chea if they could call the Cainta branch and see if they have stocks there brought over, or just ask how much the actual delivery cost if we got the fridge from Cainta.

The sales rep tried calling and kept getting a busy tone, so he told us that he'll talk to the manager again and see if they can get the juicer from Cainta and we'll just pick it up on another time. After several minutes, he came back and proposed giving us a box of Lock & Lock containers instead. Chea insisted that she wanted the juicer.

The rep again went back to the manager for several minutes. When he came out, he said that they had some Philips Juicer units reserved for their Sharp promos, and he can just give us one of those. Triumphantly, Chea agreed and we had the ref and juicer brought out to be tested.

7 cu.ft. Just perfect for a family of three.

After testing the ref and the juicer, we paid for it, and took the juicer home while the ref would be delivered today.

Digital Inverter. 10yrs warranty on the compressor, 2 yrs warranty on the body.

Chea's persistence saved the day for us. We could have gone with the 1,500 discount and no juicer if we caved in at the start. I love my wife.

Update (2013/08/16) : Less than 3 months later, how do i rate this ref? So far, it's been pretty good. Hopefully I dont jinx it for me to use the warranty already.

Anyway, the ref functions quite well. The main fridge keeps most of everything cool. The water doesn't go too cold. It's like a glass of water with about 2 ice cubes in it.

The chilled compartment (moist fresh zone) manages to keep most of the food items there sufficiently chilled.

The freezer is as advertised. No frost. Truly. The ice cubes do not get too frozen. They're frozen but they're still transparent.

As for the power consumption? I'm too lazy to check my Voltcraft energy logger. But my electricity bill stayed at 4,000pesos before and after getting the fridge. During that time, I actually shifted from a 100watt intel i5 file server to a 40-50watt AMD e350 apu. Logically speaking, since my power consumption somewhat hovered the same, i guess the fridge is running on about a 50-60watt 24hr/hr average, which is basically the same consumption of an electric fan on high setting.

So i guess, it's a pretty great buy. New technology that's energy efficient.