These are becoming more popular in Europe, my mother for instance bought it, which I can't comprehend since she lives just with her husband. On top of that she bought also chest freezer for effin 2 people household. Meanwhile my family of 4 has no issues to use ~210cm regular Whirpool fridge with bottom freezer.
I don't like the idea of American fridges, they waste lot of space on the separator middle wall, I think the best compromise who is not fine with regular fridge are now a bit wider fridges but with single vertical door.
My Chinese in-laws have vertical fridge which has 3 sections, top regular door fridge, middle drawer which goes directly outside (not sure whether it's chilled or frozen), no need to open anything and bottom freezer with door.
> My Chinese in-laws have vertical fridge which has 3 sections, top regular door fridge, middle drawer which goes directly outside (not sure whether it's chilled or frozen), no need to open anything and bottom freezer with door.
We have these in the US.
We also have some with a door-on-a-door for the fridge portion, so you can grab e.g. a can of soda or some mustard out of the inset door which only accesses a little storage on the door itself, without opening the entire fridge.
Neither is as common as other styles (the latter especially—that's kind of a gimmicky expensive-fridge feature) but they exist.
American refrigerators have the freezer on top and the refrigerator section on the bottom. There are other configurations available, but freezer on top is the default and most efficient. Otherwise there are freezer bottom, freezer bottom with a drawer, side-by-side (this is probably the one you're referring to, and they don't seem to be very popular anymore in my experience), french door with freezer bottom, as well as custom shapes (counter depth, narrow, built-in, etc.). But a cheap basic fridge is always freezer top.
> American refrigerators have the freezer on top and the refrigerator section on the bottom.
This was probably true up until the 90s. At that point side by sides became pretty popular with the left side being a freezer and the right side being a fridge, full height. See:
After these broke the trend of the top freezer, other styles became more popular. These days one of the most popular style is the "french door" where there are two side by side doors for the fridge compartment up top with a drawer below for the freezer.
Top freezer fridges these days are often seen as a very outdated and out of fashion style of fridge usually only relegated to the bottom tier models of fridges. If you go into most appliance stores you'll see row after row of french door, several side by sides, and then a couple of super basic top freezers.
Personally, IDGAF about "style" for a fridge when it comes to door arrangements. I like my side by side the most as then I have both fridge and freezer items as convenient heights instead of only really having a freezer at eye level and having to duck down to grab anything in the fridge.
My North American in-laws live in a household of two and have three stand-alone freezers. Plus a kitchen refridgerator that's so big that you could call it a walk-in fridge.
I don't like the idea of American fridges, they waste lot of space on the separator middle wall, I think the best compromise who is not fine with regular fridge are now a bit wider fridges but with single vertical door.
My Chinese in-laws have vertical fridge which has 3 sections, top regular door fridge, middle drawer which goes directly outside (not sure whether it's chilled or frozen), no need to open anything and bottom freezer with door.