Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD Review: Very smart

Verdict

The brilliant and flexible layout of the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD makes it easy to load. The French Door design means a large fridge space at the top, and room for Samsung’s innovative Beverage Center.

We also love the separate freezer compartments, the right FlexZone version, which can be a freezer or a fridge. Low running costs and excellent temperature control are good to see.

However, the AI Vision Inside system, which is designed to track food as it goes into the fridge, is too slow and cumbersome to use for everything. There are cheaper models without this feature or the Family Hub screen that offer the same layout.

Introduction

A mix of the brilliant and the fussy, the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD has one of the best layouts that we’ve seen, an excellent beverage center and the Family Hub screen.

This fridge freezer is also designed to use AI, tracking what you put in and take out of the fridge, although it’s rather hit and miss. Even so, does the smart technology and flexible interior make this model worth buying?

Design and Features

• AI Family Hub tracks food
• Flexible freezer compartment can be extra fridge space
• Auto Open Door
• Clever Beverage Center

The Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD is a French Door fridge freezer, which is a layout that’s becoming more popular. In fact, it’s the same layout as used in Samsung’s smaller, screen-free RF23DB9700QL (which is also available in a full depth 29 cu. ft. size).

With French Door models, the entire top section of the unit is a fridge that runs full width. That means that the items you’ll need most often are all available without having to bend down, and you can fit wider items in (think whole turkeys or large cakes). This fridge freezer has a very large 17.4 cu. ft. fridge section, which is enough space for large families.

When you need to load the fridge, the Auto-Open doors, accessed via a sensor at the bottom, swing open easily. That’s brilliant when you’ve got your hands full of fresh shopping.

I like the way that the space is organised, with three large shelves, the bottom one of which has a slide-away section that makes it easy to stand up tall items when needed.

Not that you’ll necessarily have to do this often, as the door pockets on the right are huge and will easily take gallon containers of milk and juice.

On the left, the bottom door pocket is smaller and has a cut-out on it, which is where the jug on the Beverage Center goes.

I’m a big fan of Samsung’s Beverage Center. Accessed via a secondary door on the front, the Beverage Center holds a cold water dispenser and a self-filling jug that has a built-in infuser. It’s a brilliant, flexible design and, unlike traditional water dispensers, doesn’t ruin the look of the fridge from the outside.

With the secondary door open, the top two pockets are accessible, so you can grab frequently used items without having to open the entire fridge up.

Most fridge freezers have a water filter at the rear, but the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD puts the filter in a compartment between the two internal drawers, where it’s easier to reach.

The one thing that the Beverage Center doesn’t do is dispense ice. Instead, at the top of the left-hand freezer section (5.8 cu. ft), there’s an ice maker dispensing cubes and bites into two separate containers. With a scoop to get the ice out, it’s easy to make cold drinks. Otherwise, there are two slide-out compartments and three door pockets in this section.

There’s a secondary 5.8 cu. ft FlexZone compartment on the right, which has the same layout, although more space as there’s no ice maker. As a FlexZone, this compartment can either be a freezer or extra fridge space, which is great when you’re hosting a party and need space for more drinks.

A 32-inch screen dominates the front, running Samsung’s Family Hub. From the touchscreen interface, you can leave notes for family members, control SmartThings devices, play Spotify and catch-up on news headlines. It’s a surprisingly handy tool, and makes the fridge part of everyday family life.

This model has AI features, available via the camera at the top of the fridge compartment. Used with AI Vision Inside, the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD is designed to track what you put into the fridge, and what you take out.

Adding an item should see the AI identify it, and then give an expiration date based on the average, although you can override this and set a specific date. Warnings are then given when food is about to expire, while SmartThings can suggest what to cook based on what you have in.

It sounds like a great idea for reducing food waste, but the reality is that the system is laborious to use. Adding items has to be done slowly and methodically, waiting for the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD to beep and tell you that it’s spotted an item.

It’s also quite flaky. In many cases, food items were obscured by my hand, while the system rarely automatically detected what an item was.

I also found that I couldn’t scan food and then put it in the door pockets, as the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD thought that I’d removed the item. Instead, there’s a secondary system that takes a photo of the door pockets every time the doors are opened. The images aren’t great and are hard to see.

Overall, I’d say that AI Vision Inside is a nice idea and useful for those lesser-used items that you might forget about, but it’s not so good for tracking everything you put in the fridge.

Performance

• Low running costs
• Excellent temperature control

I loaded the Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex RF29DB9900QD with freezer packs to simulate food, and then used temperature sensors to see how well temperatures are maintained while using a power meter to measure energy consumption in our Florida test lab.

Overall, I estimated that this model would cost $66.07 per year to run, which is very low, showing how efficient this model is. That’s a running cost of just $2.31 per cu. ft. of space.

Temperature control is also excellent. With the fridge set to 40°F, I measured an average temperature of 37.63°F, which is just 2.36°F colder than set. Standard deviation was 2°F, showing that most temperatures fluctuated by this amount from the average. That’s very good temperature control; cheaper models tend to have bigger peaks and troughs, which isn’t as good for food longevity.

In the freezer, it was very similar, although I found that the average temperature of -3.75°F was a bit lower than expected, given that the freezer was set to 0°F. Standard deviation was also a little higher, but with most temperatures between +/-2.44°F, the temperature control is still very good.

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