Samsung T9000 fridge with apps launched

UPDATED with new photos and hands-on information

CES 2013 showed that this really is the year of the smart appliances, as the lid was lifted on the Samsung T9000 smart fridge, complete with an LCD that can display smart apps.

Samsung hopes that its new fridge will become a way to keep the family better organised, with the built-in EverNote app for sharing notes, recipes, photos, videos and more. There’s also a built-in calendar and weather app, and more apps will be available at a later date. We were told that the fridge runs a version of Android, although it doesn’t have access to Google Play and can only be used with certified Samsung apps.

The LCD display is used to display apps

We had a hands-on demo of the fridge in action. The EverNote app will sync up with your existing account. For example, if your partner’s out shopping with an EverNote shopping list, you can add items to it directly from the fridge.

Epicurious powers the recipe part of the fridge. Just tap the items you’ve got the fridge using the simple icons (beef, bacon, cheese, etc.) and you get a customised list of recipes that you can use with the ingredients you’ve specified.

Slightly less welcome is likely to be the ads placed on the home page. Due to a deal with Unilever, you’ll get sent discount codes and product information to the screen. We asked if these could be disabled, but there’s no information as to whether ads are permanent or not.

While the screen is essentially a cut-down version of a tablet, more useful to most people is that the Samsung T9000 has reconfigurable storage. So, two of the four compartments are dedicated to the fridge, one is dedicated as a freezer, but the final compartment can be used as a fridge or freezer, giving the ultimate flexibility.

Customisable storage means one of the fridge compartments can be used as a freezer

Samsung has said the T9000 will be available later in Spring and will cost $3,999 (around £2,481). No UK launch date has been announced yet.

This wasn’t the end of Samsung’s smart appliance line-up, as the company also introduced the Samsung NE58F9710SR, an oven that can be split into two separate cooking compartments, each with their own temperature settings.