Best Buy's house-brand fridge is built by Midea and priced to move, but the savings come with a reliability tax you'll pay in stress. The core problem is temperature control: multiple fridges hovering at 40, 45°F (the bacterial danger zone) and freezers that frost over like a walk-in cooler, turning routine storage into a daily guessing game. RV installations fare worse, with warped vent panels and failed gaskets turning units into expensive coolers within months. If you need the absolute cheapest thing that plugs in and you're comfortable babysitting temps with a standalone thermometer, it's a gamble some win. If you want a fridge you don't think about, spend the extra $150 on a basic Whirlpool or GE and buy peace of mind.
LG's side-by-sides offer generous capacity and eye-level freezer access, but the brand's linear compressor disaster from 2015-2022 makes this a hard sell: those units died at 2-6 years with $750-1000 repair bills because warranty covers the compressor but not the labor or the motherboard it killed. Current rotary compressor models might escape that fate, but there's no long-term proof yet, and the in-door ice makers still fail regularly across all eras. If you find a simple model without the ice maker and pair it with a bulletproof extended warranty, the layout works well for families who need wide shelves and hate bending for frozen goods. Everyone else should buy a GE Profile or Whirlpool and sleep easier.