How the Xbox Series X fridge chilled our holiday spirits

Christmas has been and gone. Were you a good techie? Did you get a Raspberry Pi 5? Or were you more like this vulture, who became the proud owner of an Xbox Series X … fridge?

The question of the perfect geek gift is always tricky. We helped out in our way by offering up a Microsoft Ugly Sweater, but for many, it would have been a case of watching out for the Raspberry Pi delivery notification. Is that large box, wrapped in gaudy paper, a shiny new toy… perhaps an Xbox Series X console?

And this, in a way, is what happened to us. Except that rather than receiving Microsoft’s gaming flagship, we got an example of the company’s merchandising in the form of a mini-fridge resembling the console.

Remember the launch of the Xbox Series X and all the memes that played on the box’s resemblance to a refrigerator? Microsoft leaned into the joke, and the Xbox Series X fridge was born. Fast-forward a few years to 2023’s Black Friday sales, and here we are. Lurking under the tree was every techie’s dream: An Xbox Series X mini-fridge.

Xbox fridge with Xbox

We got the 4.5-liter version, which purports to hold eight soda cans. Maybe it does, but we struggled to fit more than six cans of a suitably caffeinated beverage into it. We also think you’d be hard-pressed to close the door if you followed the example shown in the images on the box.

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Size-wise, the fridge is larger than the games console it mimics, but it looks similar enough. The door, which feels somewhat flimsy, has a socket to provide USB power, a fake slot for discs, and a pair of buttons, one of which makes the white Xbox logo light up.

Power comes from either a DC 12V source or a standard AC cable. There’s also an internal light to illuminate just how bad your soda habit has become.

What it lacks is an interminable update required every time you reach for a can or the need to buy a subscription from Microsoft to make the fridge useful. In an era of increasingly smart appliances, the Xbox Series X desktop fridge is refreshingly dumb.

However, it is also loud. The fan of the thermoelectric cooler is audible to the point of being annoying. More so than that of the console itself.

It’s debatable how much longer we’ll use this thing and if we’ll substitute the soda for something else once Dry January concludes, but hey – it’s the thought that counts, right?

We can’t really recommend the Xbox Series X fridge as a gift for the geek in your life. But we would, however, like to know – what is the worst or weirdest techie present you received in 2023? ®