this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Honestly, the best part about this channel is watching the guy be extremely American.
His fascination at an absolutely run of the mill entry level fridge that everybody outside Muricaland has owned at least once is delightful.
Oh, also, he's on Mastodon here @TechConnectify in case you guys didn't know that.
No, this is an absolutely bog standard low-end fridge here. He's just interested in clever engineering, no matter how mundane it is. His toaster videos are an excellent example of this.
If you watch the video he explicitly says he hadn't seen a fridge with some of the specific design details of this one. He also keeps calling it a "mini-fridge", which is also a delightfully American thing to say about what is an absolutely standard sized fridge for our standards.
I did. He also says at one point that he understands the construction is more typical of split-compartment mini-fridges, but acknowledged he hadn't much checked.
But, your interpretation is certainly fair, I don't really want to argue. Instead, I don't know how much you know about our fridges, but if that's a standard size over on that side of the pond, they're absolutely bonkers big by comparison here. That absolutely qualifies as "mini" here in the US, which stores seem to think is anything under about 7 cubic feet, or about 198 Liters.
A quick Google shows that by volume, there's not a single entry level full-size fridge with that small of a volume in the category. The cheapest fridge from a brand I personally recognize (in this case, a Whirlpool) has more than double the volume of the fridge in the video, 11.3 cu. ft. (320 L) compared to 4.6 (130 L) of the Galanz. Looking at the marketing images, that's still quite small here. It's not uncommon at all for a fridge to be more than 4 times as large as the Galanz.
Oh, they ARE absoutely bonkers there. Every time I stay in the US for any amount of time I am absolutely amazed at the fact that fridges seem to universally be the size of closets. You could walk inside one comfortably if you took out the shelves.
I can list other appliance culture clashes, too: not having washing machines in the kitchen but having driers, for some reason. Microwave ovens sized like normal ovens. Oh, and of course the absolutely ludicrous plugs, which of course he has covered but despite his protestations I have personally seen slide out from being fully plugged. Oh, and the power strips look like popsicle sticks. They're so tiny.
Interesting point on the microwave ovens. I live in the Netherlands and every apartment I've lived in comes with a standard combination oven and microwave, i.e oven sized microwave. Is that something standard in the US and not standard where you are?
Wait are these microwaves one unit, or a separate oven and microwave? Here in the states they're always separate, though sometimes a microwave might be above the stove and function as a smoke hood.
Something like this render from Best Buy is common enough. That's what I'd call a normal size microwave in either case though, just different mounting options.
I could certainly fit a microwave inside my oven, so they're not really too similar size here unless you get a moderately large one. In fact, that render only has a kind of weird scale, the gas range and oven seem about right.
Yeah so they're one unit, you turn it on and then choose to oven, microwave, grill or a combination of all 3. I've found combo low wattage microwave with oven to be great at quickly heating frozen food for example.
I think the major difference is that it's rarer to have a combination stove and oven. The stove is usually separate and built into the counter top, similar to how a sink is installed. I have normal drawers beneath my induction stove, but it's also common to have the oven as a separate appliance below the stove. My combi oven is above the inbuilt fridge instead. Just whatever the designers of my rental place thought works well, the main point is that they don't have to be together.
Woah, neat! Thanks!
We don't see many induction stoves here, though they do exist they're really expensive compared to a glass top. The few houses in wealthy areas that I've been in have pretty much all had an induction top and two stacked ovens.
I mean, to be clear just because I have an induction stove doesn't mean everyone here does ;) although these days you can get "budget" option induction cookers. I see a lot of inbuilt traditional electric, but gas stoves are slowly becoming less common in NL because new buildings usually don't have gas.
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest I thought it was everyone, I just think they're really cool tech and having it be more common is cool.
Oh yeah, I didn't think it was probably everyone or most everyone, but it seemed at least more common than here where it's rare.
I've seen it more there, for sure. Here I've seen it once or twice, in expensive homes that got a very early microwave when it was a luxuty and built it right into the furniture. Most other places have a secondary spot for a smaller microwave. I actually went and got a combination one, still smaller than many of the ones you see in the US, and found that it wouldn't fit in the microwave spot in my kitchen, so I ended up having it over a counter and using the microwave shelf as a spice rack.
As a fellow Dutchy... my current place is the first place I ever lived in that came with a combination oven and microwave.
Previously I've always had to supply my own microwave / oven ;-)
True that, I think it's more a case of that I've been renting in brand new apartments most recently, and a combimagnetron is the standard for all new construction in cities these days.
Although it's true that my Oma has them separate. But even then, the microwave is built into the cupboards, it's not a "loose" appliance on the counter top. That seems to be more of a thing in US/UK from what I see
Yeah I think it's the same... new apartments come with almost everything including the proverbial kitchen sink.
My current place (built in 2008) has a kitchen that includes an microwave oven, fridge and stove top. The only thing it doesn't have is a dishwasher.
What's always fun is that new Dutch apartments come with an entirely equipped kitchen, dishwasher and all, but then they come without a floor (bare concrete), and the walls are bare plaster.
Then as a renter I get to pay for all of it, and at the end of my lease I'm looking forward to playing the bluffing game with the next tenant. I'll try to sell my floor to them, while they try to get it for free under the assumption I don't want to spend time ripping it up if they don't pay.
They will lose.
Hehe yeah, that's always fun. The bare concrete. At least it's better then Germany, where you have to bring your own kitchen...
When I had the viewing of my current apartment, they said they were gonna give me a 10 litre bucket of white paint. Even tho the place didn't look that badly painted, but more because they always did that.
Haha, yeah, our fridges are certainly needless excess, but most kitchens here are also a lot larger and consumers here for decades have opted to size up their fridges.
We have washing machines (for clothes, to be clear) usually in another room with a drier. I'm not entirely sure when driers came into vogue, but it's been at least a couple generations. Very few homes have clotheslines. Old houses may have them both in the kitchen, my last home was built in the late 1890s and had them both there (drier was retrofit, there were mounts for clotheslines, but no actually lines anymore), but it's not really typical.
Oh man, our plugs, don't even get me started. Far as I know, most people who know about international plugs hate them just as much. We should have adapted a different standard forever ago, but no, the dumb standard from the original electric rollout has persisted and will never change.
I have no idea what you mean about power strips, I'm not sure I've much thought about that one. Can you share an image of what a typical one looks like in your neck of the woods?
Tbh, all of the europeans on here giggling about his reaction is making me ponder getting a small fridge when I move out of my parent's house.
I still debate trying to find a 240V version of that radiant control toaster... I think there was a limited edition orange one kicking around on eBay at one point. Not cheap though. A$220+ for a toaster is a little more than I want to spend for something where a basic unit usually costs $50 at most.
Every day I think about that toaster. I'd absolutely love if one of these companies would make another, but I think they're probably expensive to build.
Haha you linking his Mastodon profile pinged him (on Mastodon) and created a bit of confusion regarding this link between Mastodon and beehaw (lemmy) while you are on kbin. The fediverse gets wild and a bit wrinkly at times.