My counter depth, side by side is a Kitchen Aid. Had it since 2009 and never had any problems with the in-door ice maker/dispenser. Wish they had had a bottom freezer when I was buying, but could not find an affordable one in counter depth. I had an electrolux for 3 weeks and returned it since the ice maker did not work after 2 visits from repairman.

I used to have SxS but now have French door, bottom freezer. Pros and cons for both, but I prefer the bottom freezer..seems to fit more and bigger items. My preference would be to have just one door up top instead of two.

Our is a Kenmore Elite made by LG, with ice and water in the door. It is counter depth and the ice maker is in the door, freeing up fridge space. We've had it for 15 mos now...no problems with ice maker. One reason we bought this one was because both drawers of the freezer were totally open but with movable dividers. Other brands had permanent dividers in the freezer drawers which limits versatility and usability.

You might want to cross post on Appliances, if you haven't already. There's more traffic here, but there are some very knowledgable appliance gurus over there.

I think when I look for a new fridge I'm going to check out Samsung. I somehow got the impression they were pretty good midrange fridges.

I don't own anything yet, but I'm planning on the LG refrigerator linked below. I was, in general, looking for good quality, nice looking, mid-range appliances. (I've taken to saying that I'm looking for the Honda Accord of appliances.) Based on features, reputation for quality and CR reports on reliability, my first choice was a particular Samsung model. Then I spoke to my appliance repair guy, who does warranty repairs for many companies and repairs pretty much everything else. I figure everything needs repair eventually, even if it survives the warranty period repairless.

He just won't repair Samsung. The difficulty getting parts is so extreme, he refuses to deal with them. So, I went to my second choice, based on the same factors, which was LG. LG also has a reputation as taking a long time to source parts, but at least my guy does repair LG's. So, I'm sort of betting/hoping that when the refrigerator needs a repair, it will still be a big box keeping things cold.

I picked my particular LG model, linked below, in large part because of the 2 freezer drawers. I think it will make it much easier to find things than having to bend over and dig through one really deep drawer and, looking at it in person, I think it will even be easier to deal with than the models where you open one drawer and then there are two drawers inside.

If you like this idea, please look carefully at refrigerators. On some with 4 doors like this one, the two drawers are 2 freezer drawers, as with this LG. On other brands, such as Samsung, that top drawer is actually a refrigerator drawer.I'm sure that's just the thing for some people, but wasn't what I wanted.

Here is a link that might be useful: My LG refrigerator