Is Reddit’s Favorite Fridge Worth $4,000? – Bosch 800 Series Review
Is spending more on your Fridge really worth it?
By Josh Teder
The Bosch 800 Series French Door Refrigerator reviewed after six months of daily use: dual compressors, VitaFresh freshness, counter-depth design, and whether it’s worth $4,000.
If you spend enough time scouring Reddit and other sources when looking for a fridge, you’re eventually going to come across the $4,000 Bosch 800 Series fridge. But why does this fridge seem to be so many people’s favorite?
After spending six months with the one I bought, I’ll walk you through whether or not I think it’s worth spending $4,000 on.
The Dual Compressor and Dual Evaporator System
The first highlight is this fridge’s unique dual compressor and dual evaporator system. Most fridges use a single compressor and evaporator for the entire unit, and you’d normally have to spend like $13,000 and up, at least here in the US, to get something like a Sub-Zero with this type of fridge design. But what does having two compressors and evaporators actually get you in terms of everyday use?
Design detail
Single compressor / evaporator
Dual compressor / evaporator (Bosch 800)
Air between fridge and freezer
Shared
Kept separate
Odor transfer to ice
Common
Eliminated
Temperature precision
Variable
Highly consistent
Humidity in fridge compartment
Dries out from freezer air
Warmer, moister air retained
Return to baseline temp
Slower
Around 10 minutes in lab tests
Load on each compressor
Higher
More balanced
Better Air Quality
The first thing it gets you is better air quality. In a normal fridge, air is shared between your freezer and fridge compartments. In the Bosch, air doesn’t actually move between the two. So if you have something giving off an odor in the fridge compartment, that odor isn’t then transferred over into your freezer and absorbed by the ice in your ice maker. Plus, even if something in your fridge is giving off an odor, this fridge comes with an air filtration system built to last the life of the fridge for odor elimination.
More Precise Temperature Control
But probably the biggest benefit to having dual compressors and evaporators is more efficient cooling and more precise temperature control. This fridge has demonstrated some of the most consistent temperatures of any fridge in this price range in various lab tests, and I’ve genuinely been surprised at how well it keeps temps right where I set them in my own testing.
You’ve probably had a fridge where if you overloaded the fridge compartment or put something toward the back, you then pull it out and find that it was actually frozen. That doesn’t happen with this fridge, at least in my experience over the past six months. Nor would I expect it to, because the temperature settings are quite precise. Bosch also did a really good job designing this fridge with multiple ports around the different compartments to consistently circulate air, which is what helps it cool your food down rapidly.
On top of that, with two compressors and evaporators, this fridge can return to its baseline temperature much quicker than its competition. At least in the various lab tests I’ve seen, it takes around 10 minutes or so to get back to that baseline temperature. The back wall of the fridge is also made out of stainless steel, and that’s not just there for aesthetics but also for thermal performance. Metal is superior to plastic at conducting and holding cold temperatures, so that material is actually helping the fridge return to cooler temperatures more quickly.
A More Balanced Load and Better Humidity Control
Another benefit of having two compressors and evaporators is a more balanced load. Because there are two of each, they don’t have to run as hard as your typical single fridge compressor, which might actually increase this unit’s lifespan.
But the even bigger plus you get from this design is better humidity control. With a single compressor and evaporator setup, air is shared between those two compartments, so cold, dry air from the freezer gets blown into the fridge compartment. That causes things like leafy greens, meats, and cheeses to lose their moisture faster and spoil more quickly. With this design, one compressor can deliver cold air to your freezer at a lower temperature, while the other can be set to a warmer temperature with more moisture for the fridge compartment.
The Adjustable Temperature Drawer and VitaFresh
This technology is part of what Bosch calls their VitaFresh system, and it works directly alongside my second highlight for this fridge: the adjustable temperature drawer. This middle drawer is designed to keep specific food items at a precise temperature. I use ours primarily for fruits and vegetables, though you can set it for a variety of situations. In my experience, it keeps fruits and vegetables fresher for way longer.
I’ll pull out some herbs I got a week ago and be surprised when they’re not slimy. They haven’t gone bad. They just look like they did when I got them.
Part of the reason for that freshness is a little device Bosch calls FreshProtect, which is an ethylene gas absorber you can attach to a crisper drawer. Ethylene gas is produced by many fruits as they ripen, and that gas production can cause other fruits and produce in your fridge to ripen and spoil faster, which is why you want to eliminate it in a fridge environment. The thing about this design is that anybody can put an ethylene filter in their fridge, and it should have a similar effect. It’s not designed in exactly the same way that Bosch’s is, but I’ll include a few options, including the FreshProtect, in the featured products section below.
Storage and Design
The overall vibe you get with this fridge, compared to most of the competition I’ve seen at this price range, and of course below it, is a more thought-out approach to storage.
Glass Shelving and Flexible Storage
Another highlight is the glass shelving throughout. Glass is just a more durable and easy-to-clean material than plastic in my experience, and it feels more premium to boot. Bosch even put a glass shelf at the bottom of the fridge section, which collects any spills or drips, which I thought was a nice touch.
The shelves are easy to move, and Bosch has this flex bar system where you can get different attachments that slide along it for things like eggs, wine bottles, and cheese. You can move this bar up and down the back of the fridge as well. There’s also a generous amount of door storage for your drinks and milk, plus a separate compartment for your meats, which makes it easy to keep things clean and separated from everything else. The exterior is pretty easy to clean too, thanks to its stainless steel finish. You can just use a damp microfiber cloth, and fingerprints come right up.
Thoughtful Drawer Details
Another cool detail is inside the Cool Fresh Drawer. Bosch added little indentations to catch any water that can typically leak out of things like fresh lettuce or other items you put in there. It’s a small thing, but it’s a design choice I really appreciate.
In the freezer drawer, you actually get a pretty decent amount of storage for a counter-depth fridge size. And I really like the small third drawer at the top, which I use for things like my frozen coffee beans and ice packs.
Lighting
Another highlight is the lighting design. A lot of fridges are either poorly lit or have gimmicky features like a light wall at the back that I don’t think is as nice as what Bosch did here. Everything is well lit. The only thing I don’t love is how blue everything looks. I’d love the option to warm the lights as you get later into the evening.
No Indoor Ice or Water, and Why That’s a Good Thing
Another huge highlight for me is that this fridge does not have indoor ice or water. I know what some of you are thinking: wait a minute, how is that a highlight?
It’s a highlight for me because indoor fridge ice and water dispensers add a lot of complexity to your fridge design, and they’re often the thing to break on your fridge first. For a French door setup like mine, they take up too much space in the fridge compartment. They also make the overall design less thermally efficient, because the ice maker section sits in the fridge compartment but needs to be kept colder than the rest of the fridge, which adds a lot more complexity.
Bosch’s design here is just more space-efficient and thermally efficient. It moves the ice maker where it belongs, which is in the freezer, and you still get a nice big tub for all of your ice. You can actually remove that tub and use the entire second drawer just for ice if you’ve got a big party or something coming up. I also love the ice scoop they include. It features a hollow handle that allows you to scoop up more ice.
While it might be annoying to some to have to open up the fridge every time you want fridge water, what I love about this placement is that, unlike some GE designs where the water dispenser is a constantly refilling pitcher located in the fridge door, this one is out of the way and doesn’t sacrifice any door space. And unlike a lot of indoor dispensers, there’s no size constraint on what you can fill up. You’ll have no problem filling up large pitchers and water bottles.
The Door-Ajar Alarm
The last tiny highlight of this fridge, which I honestly thought would annoy me to no end but ended up really finding useful, is the door-ajar alarm. This goes off when the fridge detects that you’ve left the door open for around 45 seconds to a minute. It doesn’t actually trigger all that often when I’m just unloading groceries, but it mainly catches those moments where my husband or I didn’t realize we hadn’t closed the door properly when grabbing water or something else.
Over the course of six months, as we’ve gotten more used to this fridge, the occurrences of that alarm going off have lessened over time. It kind of trains you into always making sure the fridge is closed, which keeps your food fresher for longer.
No Coil Cleaning Required
One more thing worth calling out, because it’s been a bit of a debate on Reddit and other social media: fridge coils. You used to need to clean your fridge coils at the back of the fridge every six months to a year, but not with this fridge. Bosch has lined the sides and corners of the fridge cabinet with condenser coils and heat dissipation pipes, so they’re completely out of the way.
If you want to see exactly how that’s done, Ben’s Appliances and Junk did an excellent teardown of this particular fridge that I think is worth watching. Honestly, if you’re buying any type of appliance, his channel is worth a look. It was super helpful for me when I was buying a bunch of appliances for my new home.
Features I Haven’t Really Used
Now let’s talk about a couple of features that I haven’t really used.
The Built-In Water Dispenser
The first is the built-in water dispenser. Since I have my own RO filtration system, it’s not something I use all that much, which is part of why I was so happy with this design.
The Wi-Fi Connection
The second is the Wi-Fi connection, which, I know, is going to sound odd coming from somebody who mainly reviews tech. When I first turned this feature on, the fridge started to shake, and I thought, okay, maybe I don’t need to turn this on. After looking it up, it turns out that when you enable this feature, it can occasionally trigger a self-diagnostic or wake-up sequence, which causes the compressors to run at a higher speed and creates that fridge shake. The second time I turned it on, I didn’t have that issue, and it’s been fine since.
But do fridges really need to connect to Wi-Fi in general? I actually think it’s useful for diagnostic purposes before a repair tech comes out. The fridge can let the company know what’s actually wrong with it, and the company can push software updates to fix some bugs after the fridge has left the factory. For most other things, though, probably not.
That said, after turning it on, I did find a couple of generally useful things it lets you do. First, it lets you adjust the interior lights to the exact level you want. The one downside is there’s no way to schedule different lighting levels at different times of day, which seems like a really obvious feature to have. Second, you can set up a custom mode for the Cool Fresh Drawer, which can be really useful.
The Downsides
Now let’s talk about a few downsides.
The Small Stuff
The first is that there’s no RO filtration system built in. RO just removes more stuff from the water, like PFAS, and I would totally use fridge water if a fridge had a system like that.
The second is that ice will occasionally overflow and fall into the bottom compartment. I think this is probably us being too quick at opening and closing that freezer drawer based on what the manual says, but I still find it kind of annoying. There’s also a slight chirping noise from the back of my unit. If you’re used to a completely quiet home, it might bother you, though it doesn’t bother me, because it’s such a quiet noise to begin with that I can’t hear it over my TV when watching something.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that the plastic bins discolor if you put fresh fruits in them skin side down. To be fair, this happens on all fridges, but I kind of wish Bosch had a glass version of these bins available. Right now, I just leave most things in the plastic bags from the grocery store, which, yes, I know isn’t the proper way to do it, but sometimes I just get lazy and it is what it is.
The Warranty
The last and probably biggest downside to this Bosch fridge is the warranty, at least here in the US. It’s only a one-year warranty covering the entire appliance, parts and labor. I believe there’s an ability to get an extended warranty, but that, of course, costs extra. Given the price, this is pretty disappointing compared to some lower-cost fridges from other brands here in the US, like GE, which at least covers the sealed system for five years. And compared to Bosch’s own UK and European warranties, it’s night and day.
Region / brand
Standard warranty
Sealed system coverage
Bosch (US)
1 year, parts and labor
Included in the 1 year
GE (US)
Varies
5 years on the sealed system
Bosch (UK / Europe)
Often 2 years standard in some regions
Up to 10-year limited in some regions
So, Is Reddit’s Favorite Fridge Worth $4,000?
When you consider the quality of this fridge, its unique features, its design, and most importantly its ability to keep fruits and vegetables fresher for longer, which is kind of the entire point of a refrigerator, and then you compare it to something like the Samsung smart fridges that cost like $3,500, I’d argue a better fridge isn’t one with a screen or all these other gimmicks.
A better fridge isn’t one with a screen or a bunch of gimmicks. It’s one that makes your food last longer and gets rid of designs prone to failure, like indoor ice makers.
Putting the Price in Context
Yes, $4,000 is not cheap, but for a top-of-the-line fridge, when you put it in a historical context, it’s not crazy. For example, a top-of-the-line Kenmore fridge in the 1980s would have run you around $1,300. Adjust that for inflation today, and that’s roughly $4,300. So the price here isn’t that far out of range, given what you’re getting.
The only real concern is the warranty. For the money, it needs to be better. Bosch does use higher-quality control board components, and from everything I can tell, this is just a very nicely built fridge, so it’s honestly kind of confusing that they wouldn’t add a better warranty as another selling point and reason for people to spend more to get this fridge over a lower-cost option.
My Recommendation
So, do I recommend getting this fridge? Yes. I’ve been really happy with mine over the past six months. I haven’t had a single serious issue with it, and I’ve been genuinely impressed at how fresh it keeps fruits and vegetables. I love how solidly built the shelving system is, the lighting design, the space in the doors, and the adjustable Cool Fresh Drawer. That feature in particular I’ve enjoyed way more than I expected when I was first researching what kind of fridge I wanted and landed on this Bosch.
If you can, I would wait for a sale, typically around the summer months here in the US. That’s when I’ve seen these fridges go on sale. I had Best Buy match a price I saw at another store, which was $1,000 off the normal price. And since I’m a Best Buy Plus member, that gave me a 60-day return window, which here in the US is pretty hard to come by for appliances.
A More Affordable Alternative: The Bosch 500 Series
What if you don’t have the budget, or don’t want to spend this much, but want some of the features in this fridge? Bosch does make other French door refrigerators, like the 500 Series.
It doesn’t have the dual compressor system, but it does have the VitaFresh technology, comes in both regular and counter-depth sizes, and has a similar no-coil-cleaning design, though it does have an external ice maker. That would be one to consider, and it typically runs around $3,000 here in the US.
I’ve put together a comparison chart along with links to all of the Bosch refrigerators, plus multiple retailers, so you can price compare, in the featured products section above.
