Samsung pushes innovation with its 2012 appliance line

The largest French-door refrigerator in its class and a washing machine that will notify your smart phone when the laundry is done were among the innovations on display at Samsung's Make Your House Work Event, held yesterday at Milk Studios in downtown Manhattan. Ranges, dryers, and other appliances joined the unveiling of 2012 products.

To help talk up the new product lines, Samsung brought in a panel of lifestyle gurus, including Liz Pryor of Good Morning America; Christina Stanley-Salerno, founder of TakeBackYourTable.com; and Julie Morgenstern, a professional organizer and best-selling author of Organizing From The Inside Out.

Some of the new innovations were a harder sell than others. Take the Grocery Manager app on Samsung's new four-door refrigerator with wifi-enabled LCD screen, model RF4289, $3,500. Is it really a time-saver to have to manually enter your groceries into the app, plus their expiration dates, so that the fridge can then notify you when foods are about to spoil? Whatever happened to checking the milk carton? More useful is the ability to access Epicurious from the fridge to get recipe ideas for those items inside. And the Google Calendar app is a helpful organizing tool for busy households that keeps the fridge from being plastered with sticky notes.

The biggest-in-class refrigerator distinction belongs to Samsung's new RF323TE, $3,300, with a 32 claimed-cubic-foot capacity that beats the previous leaders from LG and Kenmore. The question with these super-size refrigerators is still whether so much storage space is really necessary. For example, Samsung says its new behemoth will hold up to 32 bags of groceries, a larger haul than most households will likely see each week. But if capacity is your top priority, this new Samsung could be promising.

Among ranges, the news continues to be induction, which more consumers are embracing. Samsung's current 30-inch induction range, $1,700, makes our recommended list. The new model NE597N0, $2,000, adds a flexible cooking surface for griddles and a nifty boil sensor that automatically reduces the heat to a preset level once the contents in a pot reach a boil.

As for laundry equipment, smart technologies were again the big story, though some seem more useful than others. A huge benefit for consumers is the dryer sensors on models DV456 and DV457 dryers, $1,100 and $1,700 respectively, which detect clogs in the duct work, greatly reducing the risk of fire. These sensors should really be on all dryers. The smart phone app that provides status updates and lets you start, stop and pause the machines has less practical value, though some consumers may find it useful.

In sum, Samsung continues to assert itself as one of the most innovative appliance manufacturers. And in past tests, many of its appliances have been adept at the basics too, whether it's getting clothes clean or maintaining consistent temperatures in the refrigerator. We'll let you know if that's still the case when these latest appliances arrive to our appliance testing labs.

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