Let's start with a wild assumption that you're shopping for a new fridge (you are, after all, reading a refrigerator review). For the sake of argument, let's say that you want something modern and nice-looking, but you don't want to spend that much -- and you couldn't care care less about fancy features like door-in-door compartments or touchscreen smarts.

If that sounds like you, then the LG LFCS25426D might look like an ideal pick. Despite the suggested asking price of $1,900, the roughly year-old model can currently be had for less than $1,500 at a number of major retailers, making it one of the most affordable big-brand French door fridges available in a classy, black stainless steel finish. It isn't anything special, but it looks sharp enough, and it won't break the bank.

There's a problem here, though, and it's performance. With hot spots above 40 degrees F in both the door shelves and the main body of the fridge, the LFCS25426D isn't a model I'd recommend, even for bargain hunters. 

Dialing it down doesn't help very much, either. Even at the coldest setting of 33 degrees, we saw one of the door shelves average out to 40.7 degrees F, which is warmer than the FDA recommends. That's enough for me to pump the brakes.

Still, I give LG credit for bringing black stainless steel to such an affordable model. It's the same basic shell as a lot of LG's fancier, more feature-rich French door fridges. The thing is, all of those features have been stripped out.