(23 quarts): Gets incredibly cold, however does not remain that method for long; just $30. (45 quarts): Mean performance, but it's only $33, and on wheels! (60 quarts): Our finest overall cooler at $270. First-class features and performance.Igloo Trailmate Journey 70 qt. All-Terrain Cooler (70 quarts): Feature-rich and excellent performance. Simply above average cost. How we tested them Ice retention The huge differentiator that you'll hear a lot about as you shop for a cooler is ice retention-- specifically, for how long a cooler can keep a complete load of ice frozen(melted ice, aka water, isn't as excellent at keeping drinks cold). The new, expensive alternatives all hang their hat on this test, with rotomolded coolers specifically developed to ace it( and in doing so, validate their cost). Sure, some coolers would most likely keep the ice frozen.
for a lot longer than others, but using the melting point as your metric appears to ignore everything that comes in the past. I desired to get a great sense of performance not simply days in, however hours in, before any of the ice had actually even melted at all. Rather of a complete load of ice in each cooler, I chose just 3 pounds-- not even half of a little bag from the gas station. This Is Cool indicated more of a challenge for the coolers, which would hopefully give us a more granular look at how well they perform relative to one another. Why raised? The temperature level down in the ice would have been roughly the exact same in all of the coolers, leaving retention as the only genuine variable. Tracking the ambient temperature up above it was a lot more telling, and it gave us some extra variables to think about. Oh, and I did all of this in among our appliance laboratory's climate-controlled test chambers, and I ensured to let each cooler sit open in the space for a number of hours in advance in order to ensure that they all started at room temperature level (about 70 degrees F). Capacity considerations If we're going to speak about efficiency, we have to speak about capacity, too.
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