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Updated August 2026: each model’s certified annual kilowatt-hours pulled from the Energy Star product database, running 270 to 323. Capacities, prices and lab results re-verified at the same time. Added the Galanz retro-refrigerator recall of 30 July 2026 and the Curtis International recall covering Frigidaire-branded minifridges, neither of which names a model on this page.
Buy the Midea WHD-113FSS1 at $183.99 if you can find one in stock, and the Magic Chef HMCR320WE at $269.99 if you cannot. Those are the only two of these four fridges that will tell you how much fresh-food space is actually inside them.
The Frigidaire EFR840 is the loser here, and not for the reason you would guess. It is the second-cheapest fridge on the list. It is also not made by Frigidaire, does not publish a capacity split, and does not appear in the federal energy database at all.
Four years of electricity: $198 to $237, from the labels themselves
A dorm fridge runs 8,760 hours a year and nobody unplugs it for reading week. The annual figures below are not estimates. They are each model’s certified consumption in the Energy Star certified-product database, searched by model number, alongside the federal baseline each one had to beat.
| Model | Price today | Certified kWh/year | Federal baseline | Electricity, 4 years | Four-year total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midea WHD-113FSS1 | $183.99 | 270 (certified 2014) | 358 | $198.07 | $382.06 |
| Magic Chef HMCR320WE | $269.99 | 323 (certified 2018) | 359 | $236.95 | $506.94 |
| Galanz GLR31TBEER | $289.99 | 320 (certified 2018) | 358 | $234.75 | $524.74 |
| Frigidaire EFR840 | $198.00 | not in the database | — | cannot be computed | cannot be computed |
The arithmetic uses 18.34 cents per kilowatt-hour, which the Energy Information Administration reported as the June 2026 US residential average. So 270 times $0.1834 is $49.52 a year and $198.07 over four; 323 gives $59.24 and $236.95; 320 gives $58.69 and $234.75. Add the purchase price and you get the last column.
Read the Midea row twice. Four years of electricity costs $198.07. The fridge costs $183.99. You will spend more powering it than buying it, and that is the model with the lowest consumption of the three that are listed.
Then read the Frigidaire row. Searching Energy Star for EFR840 and for EFMIS840 returns nothing. There is no certified annual figure to plug in, so the cheapest-looking four-year total on this page is the one that cannot be calculated. On a machine that runs continuously for four years, that is not a footnote.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
Electrolux does not build the Frigidaire, and three other things the boxes get wrong
| The claim | What the primary source says | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "Frigidaire" EFR840 | The manufacturer is Curtis International Corp, which licenses the Frigidaire name from Electrolux. Curtis’s own product page carries the licence notice in its footer. | The badge is a licence. Warranty claims, recall notices and support all go to Curtis, and you will not find them by searching Frigidaire. |
| Galanz: 3.1 cu ft. Frigidaire: 3.2 cu ft. | Neither maker publishes a fresh-food and freezer split anywhere I could find. Midea publishes 2.2 plus 0.9. Magic Chef publishes 2.24 plus 0.93. | Two of the four will sell you a number for the whole box and decline to say how much of it holds your milk. |
| Frigidaire EFR840: "3.2 CU. FT. CAPACITY" | The same Curtis product page also states 2.8 cu ft total net capacity, without reconciling the two. | The maker’s own page gives two different sizes for one fridge. Believe the smaller one. |
| Magic Chef: 3.2 cu ft total | 2.24 plus 0.93 is 3.17 | A rounding gap, not a lie. Noted because it is the only one of the four where the parts and the total can be checked against each other at all. |
| Roundups calling the EFR840’s freezer the standout | Reviewed’s award for the EFR840 is Best Value Retro Mini Fridge, a value commendation. Its measured note is that the fridge held consistent temperatures with some wobbling over time. No freezer figure is published for it. | Wrong superlative. On Reviewed’s own numbers the tightest freezer belongs to the Magic Chef. |
Two of these four sit inside an open recall on their maker’s other models
No model on this page is recalled. Two of the four brands have live recalls on adjacent minifridges, and both are serious enough that you should know the model numbers before you buy a used one or accept a hand-me-down.
On 30 July 2026, CPSC announced that Galanz Americas recalled about 121,680 retro refrigerators over an internal short circuit that can ignite. Thirty-four fires and one death were reported. The recalled units are the 7.4 and 7.6 cubic-foot models — BCD-215V-62H, GLR76TRDER, GLR76TBKER, GLR76TBEER and GLR76TWEER — with date codes from December 2018 to December 2020. The 3.1 cubic-foot GLR31 series on this page is not among them.
Curtis International, the actual maker of the Frigidaire-branded fridges, recalled 634,000 minifridges in August 2025 over smoking, sparking and fire, with two smoke-inhalation injuries and more than $700,000 in property damage, then expanded it on 15 January 2026 by roughly 330,000 more units. Recalled models are EFMIS121, EFMIS129, EFMIS137, EFMIS149 and EFMIS175. The EFR840 is not named in either action.
Midea’s large recall is dehumidifiers, announced in 2016, and has nothing to do with refrigeration. A search returned no compact-refrigerator recall for Magic Chef.
Five degrees against a federal standard of zero
The FDA and USDA both give the same two numbers: refrigerator at or below 40°F, freezer at 0°F. Those are the lines a compartment either holds or does not.
Reviewed, in a roundup updated 13 May 2026, loads each fridge with water ballast and logs temperature consistency in both compartments across a week. Against that method:
| Model | What Reviewed measured | Against the standard |
|---|---|---|
| Magic Chef HMCR320WE | Fridge within a degree or two of target; freezer within a single degree | The only one here described as holding its freezer tight |
| Frigidaire EFR840 | Consistent fridge temperatures, some wobbling over time. No freezer figure given. | Fridge acceptable. Freezer unmeasured in what is published. |
| Midea WHD-113FSS1 | Default settings ran warm in the fridge compartment | Ships mis-set. Fixable with the dial and a $6 thermometer, but you have to do it. |
| Galanz GLR31TBEER | Freezer averaged 5°F instead of 0°F and ranged 2°F to 8°F — the least consistent freezer in the group | Fine for ice packs. Not a freezer for a month of meal prep. |
Worth knowing what "compact" even means here: the Department of Energy defines the class in 10 CFR 430.2 as any refrigerator or refrigerator-freezer under 7.75 cubic feet. All four of these sit at less than half that, which is why their freezer compartments behave nothing like the one at home.
Every measurement above belongs to Reviewed, named in the sentence. Nothing on this page came off a bench of ours, and where a figure does not exist the table says so instead of filling the cell. Our editorial standards explain the sourcing rules.
Weighting measured cold against four-year cost
Five axes, weights chosen for a student who will own one fridge for four years and cannot replace it mid-semester. Scores out of 10.
| Axis (weight, and why) | Magic Chef HMCR320WE | Midea WHD-113FSS1 | Galanz GLR31TBEER | Frigidaire EFR840 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measured temperature control, 25%. A fridge has one job and it does it unattended. | 10 — within a single degree in the freezer | 5 — ships running warm | 3 — freezer at 5°F, ranging 2°F to 8°F | 6 — fridge consistent, freezer unmeasured |
| Four-year cost, 25%. Purchase plus the power it draws for 35,000 hours. | 5 — $506.94 | 9 — $382.06 | 4 — $524.74 | 5 — cheap to buy, uncomputable to run |
| Fresh-food space you can verify, 25%. You buy a fridge for the space inside it. | 9 — 2.24 cu ft published | 9 — 2.2 cu ft published | 3 — total only | 2 — total only, and stated two ways |
| Published energy accountability, 15%. A certified figure is a promise someone can be held to. | 8 — 323 kWh against a 359 baseline | 10 — 270 kWh, lowest here | 8 — 320 kWh against a 358 baseline | 1 — absent from the database |
| Brand accountability, 10%. Who answers the phone, and what their other models are doing. | 7 — no recall found | 5 — no fridge recall; the certification dates to 2014 | 4 — one-year warranty excluding commercial use; sibling retro line under recall | 3 — licensed badge, and the actual maker has ~964,000 minifridges recalled |
| Weighted tally | 7.9 | 7.8 | 4.1 | 3.7 |
Magic Chef’s 7.9 comes from 2.50 on cold, 1.25 on cost, 2.25 on verifiable space, 1.20 on energy and 0.70 on brand. Midea’s 7.8 is 1.25, 2.25, 2.25, 1.50 and 0.50.
Move four-year cost up to 40 percent and drop verifiable space to 10, which is how you should score it if the fridge is going in a single room and the money is tight, and Midea takes it clearly: 7.8 against 7.3. Nothing moves the bottom two. The Galanz and the Frigidaire lose on different failures and both losses are structural.
The Magic Chef holds the tightest freezer of the four
Reviewed’s note on the HMCR320WE is the strongest measured claim in this whole comparison: fridge within a degree or two of target, freezer within a single degree. For a box that guards a week of groceries while you are in class, that is the trait worth paying for.
It also publishes its capacity honestly at 2.24 plus 0.93, it is Energy Star certified at 323 kWh a year, and MC Appliance Corp has no compact-refrigerator recall on the record. At $269.99 it is a Home Depot exclusive, which is worth knowing if you were planning to price-shop it.
The recurring complaint in its 1,839 Home Depot reviews, which average 4.5 stars, is a door that needs a firm push to latch. I could not get a count of how many reviews say that against how many do not, so treat it as a known gripe rather than a measured failure rate.
Skip the Magic Chef if you are splitting a fridge with a roommate. Two people’s groceries do not fit in 2.24 cubic feet and no amount of temperature precision fixes that.
The Midea is the cheapest to own and the hardest to find
Two hundred and seventy kilowatt-hours a year is the lowest figure on this page by 50, and $382.06 over four years is $125 less than anything else here. It publishes a real capacity split. It is the value pick on arithmetic and it is not close.
Now the problem. Best Buy lists it at $183.99 and flags it as no longer available in new condition. Midea’s own store page for the WHD-113FSS1 loads without a price or a checkout. The model is still listed by its maker, so this is not a discontinuation, but it is not a fridge you can reliably order in August either. Check stock before you plan around it.
One more caveat: its Energy Star certification dates to 2014. A twelve-year-old certification on a model still being sold is not a defect, but it does mean you are buying a design from a different decade.
Skip the Midea if you need the fridge on move-in day and cannot wait on stock, or if you will not spend ten minutes turning the thermostat down and checking it with a thermometer.
The Galanz has the warmest freezer Reviewed measured
Five degrees average, swinging between 2 and 8, against a federal standard of zero. The separate freezer door is real and the retro shell is genuinely nice, but the compartment behind that door is an ice-pack cabinet, not a freezer.
At $289.99 it is also the most expensive fridge here and, at $524.74 over four years, the most expensive to own. Galanz publishes no capacity split, and its one-year warranty excludes commercial use — language worth reading if the fridge is going into a shared lounge rather than your own room.
Skip the Galanz if anything you buy frozen needs to still be frozen next month.
The Frigidaire is the cheapest to buy and the only unknown to run
At $198.00 with 540 Home Depot reviews averaging 4.1 stars, the EFR840 looks like the sensible budget answer. Three things argue against it, and they compound.
It is absent from the Energy Star database, so nobody can tell you what four years of it costs. Its maker’s own page states its capacity as both 3.2 and 2.8 cubic feet and never splits fridge from freezer. And the company that actually builds it, Curtis International, has roughly 964,000 minifridges under recall across two 2026 actions on other model numbers.
None of that is proof this fridge is bad. All of it is a refusal to publish the numbers the other three publish, and on a purchase you keep for four years that refusal is the finding.
Skip the Frigidaire if you want to know what you are agreeing to before you agree to it.
Where the top two tie, and how I break it
Magic Chef 7.9, Midea 7.8. A tenth of a point is noise and I am not going to pretend it is a verdict.
My money goes to the Midea WHD-113FSS1, on the $125. Four-year ownership is where a dorm fridge decision actually lives, and the Midea wins it by more than the price of the fridge you would have bought instead. It also carries the only energy figure on this page that is both the lowest and independently checkable.
That comes with a condition, and it is a real one. If you cannot find a WHD-113FSS1 in stock — and in August you may not — buy the Magic Chef HMCR320WE and do not feel bad about it. It is the only fridge here whose freezer a lab has measured holding within a degree, and that is worth $125 to anyone who buys frozen food rather than ice.
What dorm buyers ask before move-in
How much does a mini fridge cost to run for a year?
Between $49.52 and $59.24 for the three models here with certified figures, at the 18.34 cents per kilowatt-hour the Energy Information Administration reported for June 2026. That is 270 to 323 kilowatt-hours a year. Any source quoting under 200 for a 3-cubic-foot two-door model is estimating by size class rather than reading the label.
Will a mini fridge freezer keep ice cream frozen?
Only if it holds 0°F, which is the FDA and USDA figure for frozen storage. Of the four here, the Magic Chef is the one Reviewed measured holding its freezer within a single degree. The Galanz averaged 5°F and swung to 8°F, which will keep ice cream soft.
Who actually makes Frigidaire mini fridges?
Curtis International Corp, under a licence for the Frigidaire name from Electrolux. This matters practically: warranty service, support and recall notices are Curtis’s, and searching for Frigidaire recalls will not surface them.
Are any dorm mini fridges under recall right now?
Yes, though none of the four compared here. Galanz recalled about 121,680 retro refrigerators in July 2026 after 34 fires and one death, covering the 7.4 and 7.6 cubic-foot GLR76 and BCD-215V-62H models. Curtis International has about 964,000 Frigidaire-branded minifridges recalled across August 2025 and January 2026, covering the EFMIS121, 129, 137, 149 and 175. Check the model number on the back before you accept a used one.
Do this before you order
Search your exact model number in the Energy Star product finder and in the CPSC recall database. Both are free, both take under a minute, and between them they answered more about these four fridges than every product page did.
The rest of the small-kitchen build-out: we priced homemade ice cream per quart across three machines, checked which nugget ice maker’s output claim survives an independent lab, and worked out which countertop oven earns its outlet. Everything else lives in Kitchen & Cooking.
