Hoover H-Combi 300 HONCQ2T618EWK Review

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A well priced and flexible budget fridge freezer.

A nice-looking entry-level fridge freezer, the Hoover HONCQ2T618EWK has basic temperature control for the fridge section only, and it’s a touch expensive to run. However, it’s flexible fridge space, good overall capacity and excellent temperature controls balance this out and make this a good choice for anyone on a tight budget that wants a standard-width fridge freezer.

Introduction

It might be a slightly more budget fridge freezer, but the Hoover H-Combi 300 HONCQ2T618EWK is well built, looks nice and has a good amount of space inside. Sometimes, that’s all you need when looking for a standard-sized fridge freezer.

It’s a touch expensive to run and there’s only basic control over the fridge temperature, but excellent temperature stability means that this device will look after your food well.

Design and Features

• Flexible door pockets
• 0°C drawer
• Simple controls

White appliances can look cheap, but the soft gloss finish to the Hoover HONCQ2T618EWK makes it look considerably smarter than you might think.

There are some nice details, too, including the metal Hoover logo, and the metal clip on the bottom of the fridge door. These features don’t offer anything in the way of practicality, but they do elevate the design. There are also black and silver versions of the product available.

This fridge freezer has a 60:40 split between fridge and freezer space, offering a total of 355-litres of storage space. That’s actually 20-litres more than the similarly-priced Hotpoint H3X 81I W.

Open the top door (which is reversable, as is the freezer door), and the bright LED lighting lights up the 235-litre fridge space. This has a fairly standard layout, with four glass shelves inside, with the top one able to go in one of two positions.

Shelf spacing is generally good, with enough room to stand bottles and cans on most of the shelves, although taller items, such as beer bottles, will have to go in door pockets or lie flat on a shelf.

There’s a single drawer at the bottom, which keeps food at 0°C for longevity. This doesn’t have a humidity control on it, and it’s just a simple pull-out model. Spend a lot more on the Liebherr CBNsda 575 and you get soft-close drawers and more flexible shelving.

I like the door pockets a lot. There are two deep pockets at the top and bottom that run the full width of the door. These have high sides, so keep bottles, cartons and the like in place when the door is opened.

In the middle, there are two smaller door pockets, each half-width. These can go in one of three positions, depending on what you want to keep in them, and the pocket below.

I adjusted my shelves so that I could fit in a combination of large milk containers and 2-litre drinks bottles in the bottom shelves, and have room for condiments and butter in the pockets above.

The fridge contains the simple control panel, which let me choose the fridge temperature between the pre-set options of 2°C, 4°C, 6°C and 8°C. There’s no temperature control option for the freezer that sits below.

The freezer is basic and simple, with a total capacity of 120-litres spread over the three drawers. The top two are slightly larger than the bottom one, but all three are full depth and can take a full-size frozen pizza. There’s not a lot more that you could ask for.

Performance

• Expensive to run
• Excellent temperature stability
• The fridge runs a bit cold

I loaded the Hoover HONCQ2T618EWK up with freezer blocks to simulate food, and then left it running for two weeks, using temperature sensors to monitor temperatures, and a power meter to measure power consumption. An automatic door opener was used to open and close the fridge door multiple times per day.

An E-rated appliance, the Hoover HONCQ2T618EWK is quite expensive to run. I estimated that this fridge freezer would cost £40.01 per year (assuming 24.5p per kWh), which works out to a yearly cost of 11p per litre of storage space.

The Beko CNG7603VPX, which has the same capacity, costs just £18.79 a year to run under the same conditions (5p per litre).

I measured temperatures in the fridge at an average of 2.79°C, which is 1.21°C colder than the set temperature. That’s a little way from where I’d want it to be, although this kind of temperature won’t have any impact on food quality.

Impressively, temperatures mostly fluctuated by only +/-0.42°C, which shows the incredible stability of this product: anything under 1°C in this test is brilliant. And, the temperature range was consistent throughout the fridge cavity, with the maximum temperature in any zone (top, middle or bottom) only 4.2°C.

I measured the cold drawer at an average of 0.62°C, and the minimum temperature only just dropped below freezing at -0.4°C. Temperature fluctuations were brilliant, again, at +/-0.37°C.

Moving to the freezer, the average temperature was -19.12°C, which is just -1.12°C colder than my ideal of -18°C. Not bad considering there’s no temperature control for this section. Temperatures mostly fluctuated by +/-0.54°C, which is hugely impressive.

This fridge freezer is a frost-free model, and I didn’t see any build up of ice during my weeks of testing.

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