Haier HVT12ABS 12-Bottle-Capacity Table-Top Wine Cellar, Black with Silver Trim

• Table-top wine cellar with ultra-quiet thermo-electric cooling system
• Perfect for chilling up to 12 bottles of red or white wine
• Adjustable thermostat; 3 full-chrome wire storage racks
• Silver-trimmed, double-pane insulated glass door; recessed handle
• Measures 22-5/16 by 18-1/8 by 16 inches

First, let me start by addressing the other reviews that have been critical of the quality of the Haier Tabletop Wine Cellar. I've used mine for over a month with no issues, and I believe I may have an explanation for others' perceived problems. The unit works by cycling a cooling fan on and off as needed, so it doesn't continuously run like most refrigerators do. Also, its thermostat is extremely particular, i.e. if it senses that it's cold enough, you can't turn it down low enough to force the fan to kick on. Finally, remember that this is a wine cooler, not a mini-fridge, and that wine isn't meant to be kept as cold as other beverages. We have our unit stored in a pantry on the coldest corner of our house and it keeps the wine right while barely running the fan. These circumstances could lead to a misperception that the unit has completely stopped working when in fact, it's just accurately having an "off" cycle. If my Wine Cellar ever does truly stop working, I'll certainly update this review.

Potential dependability issues aside, there are still critical problems with the Tabletop Wine Cellar that keep it from being a realistic solution for most people. The most immediate one is size when you pull it out of the box, you'll scratch your head wondering whether or not you really picked up the model for "Tabletop" use. Somewhere in the world, counters must be much deeper than where I live! I can't verify the dimensions that are quoted above, but the depth seems suspiciously small. Plus, the instructions for the unit specify that it needs several inches of clearance on the back and sides for ventilation. Taking this additional space into consideration, the Cellar is about the size of a microwave oven but much deeper. Our solution was to put it sideways on a microwave cart in a separate room; however, having to do so is a pretty big deviation from the way that it's advertised. In case you're planning on building it into a cabinet or bar as a workaround, the instructions prohibit that as well (again for ventilation concerns).

The second issue is that even as big as the Wine Cellar is on the outside, it's ironically cramped on the inside. Any bottle bigger than 750 mL will not fit unless you remove one of the wire racks, thus reducing it to an eight-bottle capacity (four 750 and four larger ones). Even if you stick with the standard bottle volume, some unusually-shaped bottles will still not fit. For instance, we found that the extra tall, skinny bottles of Chateau Ste. Michel have to be put in diagonally so that basically only one bottle fits per shelf and then you've got to be careful that it doesn't roll out when you open the door.

On the positive side, the unit is very quiet even when the fan is running, it's no louder than the fan on a new PC. It's also attractively styled in black with the appearance of a brushed pewter frame for the glass door. The door seal and hinge both feel solid and sturdy. The thermostat actually does result in a range of temperatures, but this of course precludes storing white and red together.

To sum up, the Haier Wine Cellar attempts to do the impossible providing a chiller spacious enough for a case of wine yet compact enough to fit neatly on a kitchen countertop but ultimately can't quite do it. I haven't experienced any of the motor failure problems that others have described (yet); mine has been a reliable performer. Unfortunately, the additional workaround of where to keep the unit and what to do about the bottles that won't fit in it reduce the Wine Cellar to much less than a hassle-free solution.

PROS

* Cooling fan is very quiet when running

* Accurate thermostat provides a range of temperatures for whites vs. reds

CONS

* Way too large to realistically sit on any countertop

* Can't accommodate large or unusually-shaped wine bottles

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I received this as a gift in September filled with my favorite wines. The were all chilled the next day, enjoyed one bottle, and then the thing DIED. It doesn't turn on, run, nothing. Now I'm in the middle of trying to get ahold of a Baier "service center" ... :(

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My wife and I received this Haier as a wedding gift. At first we loved it. After 6 months, it completely died. I spoke to Haier and they were willing to replace it, but with a purchase receipt, even after having told them it was a wedding gift. LUCKILY, we found out, around the way it was purchased through Costco; and Costco has the ULTIMATE customer service. So we returned it with no questions and received credit towards it's value; $96.00.

Don't buy this, it will set you up with a big disappointment.

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We received this unit as a wedding gift last November and have had no problems with it at all. We live in an apartment, and have very little storage space and not the largest kitchen you've ever seen, however, the fridge fits on the counter, and is amazingly quiet. Overall, the size of it is basically as we expected. It's a small refrigerator, and the idea that it would be as small as a microwave, or toaster oven is just unrealistic.

I was really worried about plugging the thing in and having it not work, but found the entire "installation" process simple, and when I heard the unit come to life after I plugged it in, I loaded it up with wine and haven't looked back. No problems, no worries, and wine at the perfect temp--every time we pop open a bottle.

Just to prove how much faith we have in this little guy--we recently took a weekend trip out to Sonoma, and bought some really decent wines, and wines that we have no intention on drinking for at least a year--and we trust this item with them.

I understand there are more expensive units out there, and that there are probably better units available with more bells and whistles--however, for $89 you just can't go wrong. Plus, it looks cool. It's a great option for people like us, who have an apartment, or small house, with no options for a wine cellar, or an installed unit.

Here are a few suggestions I've stumbled upon along the way, that could help you out....

Make sure the fridge is kept in it's upright position and that it's not turned onto it's side or upside down.

Allow it the luxury of having a designated outlet.

Afford it plenty of room to "breath".

Make sure you keep the fan, and underneath the unit clean and free from dust buildup.

So, get the wine out of the closet, and onto the counter.

Mine worked fine for 3 months, then died a sudden death. It stopped cooling, but the fan still ran. It is not a deceptive on/off cycling as has been alluded to by one happy customer. It just plain croaked, suddenly. Ventilation was adequate. There was no recourse but to trash it.

Samsung DA97-07603A ASSEMBLY SUPPORT-ICE MAK ER;AW2 CD, -, -, -, -, -

The original design had a square plastic front cover that was designed to protect the wires and the little foam and plastic piece on the bottom. Problem was that this seemed to come out constantly as ice or other items hit it. At least that was my experience and was the complaint I've seen elsewhere. The new design incorporates the cover so there is no need for the separate piece.

Don't bother calling a repair man. With a 10mm socket to remove the door and a Philips head screwdriver to remove the 2 screws that hold the unit in place, the hole thing's a breeze. Took about 45 minutes to replace which included the time necessary to clean out my overstuffed freezer drawers.

Ice maker was not working / local distributor said it would take some 2 weeks to get a replacement on order for almost twice the price I got on from Amazon for and within 4 days. Ha Ha / Another great job with my buying experience through Amazon.

Oh the FUNNY part of the story is my ice maker started working again but I am not returning the part since it was so inexpensive. I will hold on to it and will probably need it in the future. They just don't make parts like they use to in the good old days!!

Johnny

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EdgeStar 21 Bottle Dual Zone Stainless Steel Wine Cooler

When this unit was working it worked well. The problem is that it failed in less than one year of use. The top zone now fails to control the temp. We have it set to 60 but the actual temp is 45. We bought the unit via Compact Appliances seller. We opted for a 2 year extended service plan but the problem is that there are no EdgeStar service centers in South West Florida. Compact Appliances failed to tell us that. Our recommendation is to stay away from this model from EdgeStar or avoid EdgeStar completely. The Repair Master Service Plan is useless because they can't find a service provider that will fix the unit.

I ordered this as a present, and read a lot of reviews. There are so many negative product reviews for wine fridges, I really didn't know what to buy. So, let me put your fears to rest:

1) This fridge is really quiet. In an empty room with no AC on, you can't hear it.

2) It's beautiful. Really nice stainless finish, we get lots of compliments on it. On par with Cuisinart models we've seen at Macy's, but bigger.

3) No assembly except putting on the handle. Hallelujah!!!

4) Consistent temperature the temp holds steady and does not reset when exposed to sunlight, or when the room is warm. It's really easy to read the temp setting, really easy to set, and it works like a dream. You can feel the difference in temperature between the 2 zones.

Dollar for dollar, this was competitively priced. I really liked my interaction with Compact Appliance. They were great. And, we're SO happy with it.

Hope you will be too.

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I have had the same experience as many of the other owners. I should have heeded the warnings.

Bottom line: This fridge is great for the brief lifetime it works. In terms of technology, there really

should be no reason that this fridge can't last at least 10 years. I believe that it is very poorly/cheaply

made, and that is the reason for the short lifetime.

I am disappointed, as this was a gift for my parents and now it is useless.

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I've had my fridge for a little over a year now. It is no longer working. When I tried to contact the company, all I got was a sales guy on chat. No warranty, so I'm out of luck. Now my question is try to fix or just start over with a new one. I will not buy this brand again.

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Same story as others are having. It worked great for one year, then stopped cooling. We called the service center and they suggested that we need to replace the cooling nodes. Two cooling nodes will cost us $60 plus s.h. It's probably not worth fixing.

GE MSWF SmartWater Interior Refrigerator Water Filter

I ordered this product because I assumed that there would be two. The picture shows two so you would think two. They only send one. This is definitely a racket. I read the whole item order form and could not find where it shows that there is two so they got me this time. Bastards

NewAir AW-180E Space Saver 18 Bottle Thermoelectric Wine Cooler, Black

• Easy-to-use push button controls make adjusting the temperature simple & quick
• Offers a compact, freestanding design with a single zone compartment that holds up to 18 bottles of your favorite wine
• Thermoelectric technology features few moving parts for quiet & vibration free operation, enhancing the natural flavors of your wine
• Boasts a sleek look with a black trimmed door, silver handle & five chrome-plated wine racks
• Allows for nearly silent operation that wont disturb quiet spaces in your home

This is the second wine cellar I have purchased in the last 3 years and I researched this for a week. The last wine cellar I had was a bust from Oster, a great Black Friday deal but stopped working after 6 months. My experience was that it took several hours to cool down and it was realy picky about the ambient temperature. Just a little dust on the back cover sent the internal temp upward and really, all I wanted was chilled wine!!! After all my research, I kept coming back to this model. This has the "look" I wanted for my kitchen but I had never owned a product by this company. I did read the other reviews regarding the humming sound it makes but in my position my previous wine cellar sounded like a jet taking off each time you opened the door to get out a bottle of wine and it had to kick in to lower the internal temp again.

When I first unpacked the NewAir cellar, my first thought was wow, this is beautiful!! I got it set in it's new home by the wet bar and plugged it in. Gorgeous!! The temperature starting out showed 74 degrees and it was automatically set to go down to 54 degrees. And it got to 54 degrees....in 30 minutes!!!! I was shocked!! So by that time, I loaded about 10 bottles of wine into the cellar. It took about 1 1/2 hours total to chill all that wine that had been at room temperature. I am very impressed with this machine. As for the humming sound, I have yet to hear it. I know it is working because the wine is cold, but not sure what the other reviewer were describing...maybe my kitchen is just noisy!!hahaahaha

Anyway, I would not hesitate to recommend this cellar and will follow up in a few months with an additional review.

09/14/10 UPDATE:

As promised, I wanted to give an update on the New Air Wine Cooler. It is still as great as when I first got it. Because it is thermoelectric, dust does affect the temperature and I noticed that when we were finishing our kitchen remodel, all the dust from sawing wood and drywall did cause the temp to raise a few degrees. I just blew out the back and within 30 seconds the temp started to drop back to 52. Now when I see the temp go up to 53 or 54 I know it is time to blow out the back cover. I would say I do that once every 3 months and for the record, I feel like our house has an inordinate amount of dust year round so in a house with less dust this may not even be needed. I am still very happy with this purchase and highly recommend it.

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I've only had this wine fridge for a short time, so I can't comment on its reliability (our last one which we purchased at Lowes lasted about 6 months). It looks good, is a convenient, compact size and seems to work well. But there's no way you can fit 18 bottles in it unless they're slim such as the standard Bordeaux and Alsace shapes. The chubbier Burgundy size and anything larger just won't fit. The only way to get them in is to remove every second rack and make sure you lie slim and chubby bottles side by side. Makes it closer to a 10-12 bottle fridge.

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I bought this just over a year ago woke up one morning and it wasn't working no cool air, no led display. No reset button, no apparent way to fix it, other than trying to replace the circuit board in back of the unit. I called the retailer who I bought it from (through Amazon) and they said since the warranty is up, they would do nothing and recommended calling a local repairman.

Even when it was working, I had the unit set at 59 degrees and it never went lower than 63, even when I had my home's AC turned down the lower 70's.

I guess you get what you pay for I'll be spending more on my next one, and it won't be a Newair.

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I purchased this wine cooler about 8 months ago. I have seen the cooler not cool to the correct temperature on hot days, I live in Florida so there are a lot of them. I could have lived with this quirk. But a week ago it just stopped working(no cooling, no led display, nothing). I can see that the power supply inside the backpanel is flashing red and green leds, and makes a switching noise. I will not buy from NewAir again because this product is susceptible to breaking within 8 months of use.

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We ordered this unit to replace our Magic Chef 12 bottle wine cooler. We wanted a unit that was larger and quieter. The AW-180E NewAir 18 is an attractive and stylish unit, and will look nice in any kitchen or dining room. It was easy to set-up (only the door handle needed to be attached). We were able to place 18 different size bottles of red and white wines inside it without any problem. The controls are simple and easy to operate, and the unit temperature (we set it at 60°F) was reached in a matter of hours and readily maintained. The blue interior light is a nice touch, too. My only reason for not giving it a Five Star rating is that, although quieter than the unit we replaced, it seems to runs continuously (i.e. does not cycle on and off) and therefore you will hear a continuous hum in a silent room. You will not hear it if other backgound noice is present like a TV or stereo. But, in a silent setting you will hear it. To be sure, perhaps a certain amount of noise is to be expected from any cooler. That said, the unit is not "silent."

NewAir AW-181E Space Saver 18 Bottle Thermoelectric Wine Cooler, Stainless Steel

• Thermoelectric cooling technology operates quietly & is vibration free for storing wine to its best advantage
• Insulated door maintains the interior temperature & reduces UV penetration for wine chilling consistency
• Handsome stainless steel & black finish complements home decor, adding sophisticated elegance to virtually any setting
• Compact, freestanding design fits in small spaces easily, making it perfect for any room
• Easy-to-read, push button digital temperature controls allow for simple custom chilling

I bought this wine cooler to put under the bar top in my winery tasting room. It has functioned well and is sleek and compact and completely silent.

BUT...perhaps it is my fault but I did not notice before I bought it that the COLDEST setting it goes to, which I now understand is a function of the non-mechanical way it creates cooling, is 54 degrees! While this is adequate for dry white wines, it won't we cold enough for sweeter wines and certainly not cold enough for late harvest, dessert type wines that should be chilled to 45 degrees or so.

ALSO... be aware of two limitations caused by the very compact design:

FIRST, heavier weight (read that, more expensive) bottles with even a slightly larger diameter than standard Bordeaux bottles WILL NOT FIT in the wire racks. There is a reason why it will fit eighteen bottles in such a small space: the tolerances are VERY TIGHT and sized for grocery-store standard cabs, etc.

SECOND, opened bottles with the cork reinserted part way or with a vacuum cork WILL NOT FIT in the cooler because the depth of the cooler brings the glass door right up to the foil of the unopened bottles.

As I said, it's a nice cooler....BUT

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I just recieved the wine cooler. I have to say its pretty amazing. The build is top notch. Very comparable to my friends Vinotemp but hundreds $$$ less.

The Review:

The package arrived with good protection as seen in the photos below.

The used double boxes with a layer of foam in between the boxes. Then another round of padding is added to the cooler edges. The cooler was delivered in perfect condition.

After un-boxing, I did a quick check around the cooler to check out the quality. It is very nice. The brushed stainless matches my Samsung refrigerator and seems of good quality. The door hinges are solid and have no play. The window is double pane and the seal wraps around the frame with continuity which should help with the efficiency.

Looking inside of the cooler. There are chrome racks that slide in and out easily. The door handle and screws are inside. The door handle is the only part of the unit that needs assembly. It is very easy, you just lift part of the rubber seal to expose the screw holes, put the screws through, and screw down the handle via the 2 stainless steel screws.

Its a clean and easy to use setup. There is and "up" and "down" temperature control buttons and one light button, which controls the LED internal light.

Once plugged in, the thermostatic showed 74 degrees. I started my chronograph to clock the amount of time it took to drop down to 54 degrees (the lowest temperature setting).

The internal LED lighting is really cool looking. The blue light reflects off the chrome racks to appear like there are hundreds of little blue sparkly lights. The photo doesn't do justice. It is a nice look at night and should impress the friends if they come over for a drink.

The cooler took approximately 20 minutes to drop the internal temperature from 74 degrees down to 54 degrees. I think that's pretty fast for a coolant-less thermoelectric cooler. I also go my analog thermometer to gauge the accuracy of the built-in digital thermostat, its dead on accurate. One thing to note is the that since its not a wine "refrigerator" you can only get down to 54 degrees, which is perfect for both red and white wines. However, you cannot effectively store other beverages like beer and soda because they need much lower temps unless you like semi-warm beers. On the other hand, you save money on the unit (thermoelectrics are much cheaper than refrigerators) and you save money on power consumption.

The noise...5 stars! Not much noise at all. There is a slight humming. Maybe slightly louder than the electrical humming of an alarm clock.

The capacity is 18 regular sized bottles. It will hold much less if you have over-sized bottles or champagne bottles to store inside. After playing around with the wine bottle configuration. I noticed that the top shelf is the only shelf that can fit over-sized (extra girth) bottles. You can fit 3 girthy bottles on the top shelf. The rest of the shelves only fit normal sized bottles. * also notice in the photo below, my cooler actually got down to 53 degrees.

For the full review with photos

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I shopped high and low for the right wine refrigerator, reading all reviews available and even consulting with friends who own one. I settled on the New Air model because it seemed to me it fulfilled all my requirements: good quality, right size, good looking and great value.

I'm very impressed with this item. It arrived in one day, and came well packaged no chances for dents or scratches. The handle was easy to install and does not compromise the door seal. The unit is light enough that one person can handle it.

I followed the instructions and let it rest two hours before plugging it in. It cooled down to my desired temperature (62') in less than an hour. It's pretty quiet but the fans are on all the time so there is a slight buzz coming from it, but nothing annoying though.

I like the fact that the thermostat can be easily accessed and that the light can be turned on and off at will as the controls for both are placed on the front of the unit. So far, I'm very happy with my purchase.

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This is a beautiful product. Well constructed. Looks great. But you can hear the thing running from down the hall. It made 10 times more noise then my kitchen fridge does that is 5 times the size.

Thankfully they were happy to take it back.

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I am really disappointed with how LOUD the refrigerator operates. The humming is by no means quiet. I can hear this cooler humming from two rooms away. Worse, every time the fan runs it picks it up a notch in terms of noise. It is easily 10 to 20 times louder than my refrigerator. It is really too bad, because I really enjoy the aesthetic of the cooler and it seems to hold temperature and cool bottles well. Maybe if you live in an urban area with a lot of background noise you might not notice the sound maybe. There is nothing subtle about the hum.