Electric Cooler vs. Ice Cooler: Cái Nào Tốt Hơn? Tôi Đã Thử Cả Hai Để Tìm Ra Câu Trả Lời

Electric Cooler vs. Ice Cooler: Cái Nào Tốt Hơn? Tôi Đã Thử Cả Hai Để Tìm Ra Câu Trả Lời

Từ xe hơi đến xe đạp, và giờ là cả những chiếc thùng làm mát, mọi thứ đang dần được tích hợp thêm các thành phần điện tử, trong khi những phiên bản truyền thống vẫn tồn tại song song trên thị trường. Ví dụ, bạn có thể mua một chiếc mở nút chai điện tử dù những chiếc mở nút chai thủ công vẫn được bán rộng rãi. Điều tương tự cũng xảy ra với những chiếc thùng đá làm mát truyền thống, giờ đây được trang bị pin và khả năng sạc, giúp bạn giữ đồ ăn và thức uống lạnh lâu hơn khi di chuyển.

Ít nhất, đó là những gì các nhà sản xuất hứa hẹn. Nhưng liệu những chiếc thùng làm mát điện tử có thực sự vượt trội so với phiên bản dùng đá truyền thống? Để tìm hiểu, tôi đã thử nghiệm cả hai loại trong nhiều tình huống khác nhau, từ những chuyến dã ngoại ngắn ngày đến những chuyến đi dài hơn, và đây là những gì tôi phát hiện ra.

Thùng Làm Mát Điện Tử: Tiện Lợi Nhưng Có Giới Hạn

Thùng làm mát điện tử mang lại sự tiện lợi đáng kể. Chúng không cần đá, giúp bạn tiết kiệm thời gian và công sức chuẩn bị. Với khả năng kết nối với nguồn điện hoặc pin, chúng có thể duy trì nhiệt độ lạnh trong nhiều giờ liền, thậm chí cả ngày nếu được sạc đầy. Điều này đặc biệt hữu ích khi bạn đi du lịch dài ngày hoặc cần giữ lạnh thực phẩm trong thời gian dài.

Tuy nhiên, thùng làm mát điện tử cũng có những hạn chế. Chúng thường nặng hơn và cồng kềnh hơn so với thùng đá truyền thống, gây khó khăn khi di chuyển. Ngoài ra, chúng phụ thuộc vào nguồn điện, nên nếu pin hết hoặc không có ổ cắm, chúng sẽ trở nên vô dụng. Giá thành cũng là một yếu tố đáng cân nhắc, vì thùng làm mát điện tử thường đắt hơn nhiều so với thùng đá.

Thùng Đá Truyền Thống: Đơn Giản và Đáng Tin Cậy

Thùng đá làm mát truyền thống vẫn là lựa chọn phổ biến nhờ sự đơn giản và độ tin cậy. Chúng nhẹ hơn, dễ dàng mang theo và không cần phụ thuộc vào điện hay pin. Chỉ cần thêm đá, bạn có thể giữ lạnh đồ ăn và thức uống trong nhiều giờ. Đặc biệt, chúng phù hợp với những chuyến đi ngắn ngày hoặc khi bạn không có nguồn điện sẵn có.

Tuy nhiên, thùng đá cũng có nhược điểm. Đá sẽ tan dần theo thời gian, khiến nhiệt độ bên trong thùng tăng lên. Điều này có nghĩa là bạn cần phải thay đá thường xuyên, đặc biệt trong thời tiết nóng. Ngoài ra, nước đá tan có thể làm ướt đồ đạc bên trong, gây bất tiện.

Kết Luận: Lựa Chọn Phù Hợp Tùy Thuộc Vào Nhu Cầu

Sau khi thử nghiệm cả hai, tôi nhận thấy rằng không có câu trả lời chung cho việc thùng làm mát điện tử hay thùng đá tốt hơn. Mỗi loại đều có ưu và nhược điểm riêng, và sự lựa chọn phụ thuộc vào nhu cầu cụ thể của bạn.

Nếu bạn thường xuyên đi du lịch dài ngày, cần giữ lạnh thực phẩm trong thời gian dài và có nguồn điện sẵn có, thùng làm mát điện tử sẽ là lựa chọn lý tưởng. Ngược lại, nếu bạn thích sự đơn giản, nhẹ nhàng và không muốn phụ thuộc vào điện, thùng đá truyền thống vẫn là lựa chọn đáng tin cậy.

Cuối cùng, dù chọn loại nào, điều quan trọng là bạn cảm thấy thoải mái và phù hợp với phong cách sống của mình. Hãy cân nhắc kỹ lưỡng trước khi quyết định để có được trải nghiệm tốt nhất.

#ThungLamMat #ThungDienTu #ThungDa #SoSanh #DuLich #TietKiemThoiGian #LuaChonThongMinh

Everything from cars to bikes to coolers is getting new electric components even while their legacy counterparts remain on the market. For example, you can get an electric wine opener even though regular elbow grease wine openers are still available. The same is true for the trusty old icebox cooler, which now comes with battery and charging options, letting you keep food and drinks chilled on the go for longer.  

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. The unfortunate truth is that electrification usually adds considerable cost to most products against what was already available. This is why, in the case of cars, electric and hybrid cars tend to be more expensive than their internal combustion engine cousins. The same is true for coolers.

This is why I set out to test a “regular” icebox-style cooler against Anker’s new Solix EverFrost 2, to see how it fares in real-world use against the best coolers on the market. To begin testing, I picked up two coolers, a shameful number of cans of soda, a thermometer and several large bags of ice.

Here’s what I discovered about performance, longevity, cooling capability and portability during my testing. 

Electric vs. traditional ice cooler compared 

Product Name	Anker Solix EverFrost 2 (40L)	RTIC 45 QT Ultra-Tough Cooler
Internal size	42 quarts	45 quarts
Empty weight	50.71 pounds	29.5 pounds
Battery	288Wh battery	N/A
Runtime	52 hours (one battery), 4.3 days (dual battery)	5 days (following cooling tips)
Recharge	Solar, car, wall outlet, USB-C	N/A
Temperature range	-4 degrees to 68 degrees Fahrenheit	Variable
Price (MSRP)	$899.99	$299.99

Electric coolers:

Electric coolers are basically small, battery-powered refrigerators. They use a cooling element to lower the temperature in their compartments, as opposed to traditional ice. They can hold ice but the main attraction is you don’t need it to keep your food and drinks cool. 

Pros 

Cons

Who should use it: People who are going on longer trips and want to keep food and drinks cold and fresh will prefer an electric cooler. Electric coolers can be temperature-controlled. They don’t rely solely on ice so if you want food kept at a certain temperature, that’s possible as long as you have a battery or input source. 

Regular coolers:

A traditional cooler, or ice chest, is an insulated container whose sole function is to hold food, drinks and ice to keep everything cold. Most of the space inside a cooler can be used for food/drink/ice storage. Unlike an electric cooler, no electricity is required. 

Pros 

Cons

• Relies on ice for cooling

• Water from melted ice can be messy

• Open food containers can contaminate cooler ice/water

Who should use it: People who will be off-grid will prefer an ice chest because ice is generally available in most places. You should be able to pick it up in just about any supermarket or gas station and as long as the cooler is well-insulated, it should last for hours, if not days. Electricity can be a bigger ask when camping and may require a hefty portable power station or multiple backup batteries.

Anker Solix EverFrost 2 electric cooler vs. RTIC Ultra Tough QT-45 

Design and features

The 40-liter EverFrost 2 cooler Anker sent me to test is pretty chunky, although it’s quite a bit smaller than the 58L model that comes with two compartments. With the size in mind, I wanted to test it against a cooler with a similar capacity. I landed on the RTIC Ultra-Tough QT-45 cooler because its capacity so closely resembles the Anker. In terms of 12-ounce cans of soda, the RTIC cooler can hold around 50 cans with ice, while the Anker can hold up to 60 cans. The RTIC cooler has more length but slightly less width and depth than the Anker, likely because of its 2.8 inches of closed-cell foam insulation. 

In addition to … you know … being a cooler, the Anker Solix EverFrost 2 has a few extra features you won’t find in ice coolers. Notably, the battery on the cooler can be used to charge other devices if you need to, such as phones, tablets and handheld gaming consoles. Also, the Everfrost has a pop-up handle/table you can use for extra table space when you’re at your picnic or campout. The Anker cooler also has an interior light for finding what you’re looking for in the dark.

If I’m being completely honest, the pop-up handle seems super flimsy. I was nervous about using it to roll the cooler around fully loaded but the picture on the website shows it being used that way, so I figured it would be fine. I figured correctly, much to my surprise.

I used the single-battery version of the cooler. You can buy extra batteries for $199.99 and you can insert a second one to make the cooler last longer. According to Anker, it can run for 52 hours with one battery and up to 4.3 days with two batteries. That said, I wanted to evaluate the cooler in its most common configuration, so I stuck with the default battery. 

Testing the weight

To test the weight, I used 12 oz cans of soda and put 50 cans in each cooler. Then I added all the ice the RTIC cooler would handle. The EverFrost 2 has a dry weight of about 50 pounds, while the RTIC cooler checks in at about half of that. Add in the ice, and the coolers checked in at 96.6 pounds for RTIC versus 78.8 pounds for the EverFrost 2. In retrospect, I could have guessed that. Because I added the same number of cans to both coolers, the only variable was the ice itself.

To fit 50 cans into the RTC, I had to stuff them in a bit, and they just barely made it. On its site, RTIC claims the cooler can handle 60 cans, so it was a little disappointing to see it not live up to this. Because of that, I was only able to manage around 10-12 pounds of ice into the cooler. Take a 25-pound weight differential and subtract the ice weight and there you go. 

In this particular case, the weight at capacity — how much the cooler weighs when full — is the more important figure. EverFrost 2 with its cooling hardware outweighs (by almost double) the RTIC cooler, even with ice. When they’re full, a 15 to 20 pound difference isn’t that significant, but the EverFrost 2 is still almost 20% heavier. In this case, the ice cooler wins the fight, although the built-in wheels on the EverFrost 2 cooler make it easier to move around (but not to lift into or out of a vehicle). 

Fast cooling test

We’ve all been there. You’ve got a party starting later that day and you forgot to throw the drinks into a cooler, so now you have to hustle. Which will cool down your drinks faster? In order to test this, I set both coolers out and open to warm to room temperature, or about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Similarly, I had several cases of soda sitting out, also warming to room temperature. Once both the cooler interiors and soda warmed up, I loaded up both coolers with those 50 soda cans and tossed 10 to 12 pounds of ice into the RTIC cooler. 

Additionally, I opened a can of soda in the middle of the top layer and bottom layer of cans. From there, I used a temperature gun to take readings. The EverFrost 2 cooler has a digital readout of the temperature on the inside of the cooler. To measure the RTIC cooler, I measured the temperature of the inside wall. I also measured the temperature of each can of soda. I did this every 15 minutes for five hours and the results are recorded in the chart below:

As you can see, although the EverFrost 2 got colder faster, the cans themselves did not follow suit. In fact, the RTIC ice cooler cooled both the cooler and the cans faster than the electric cooler. 

The one issue I had with the RTIC was after about two and a half hours, the water collected at the bottom of the cooler overflowed into the bottom can, which spoiled the readings a bit. You’ll notice a sudden downward slope when that happened at 9 a.m. We’ll address that more in a bit.

Longevity 

Another situation you might deal with is camping, and in that case, you’re not going to be worried about cooling down your food and drinks quickly, but how long they will stay that way. To test this, I loaded up both coolers with just 40 cans of soda. I wanted to pack in more ice into the RTIC cooler, and leave room for an internal thermometer to see how long the it stayed cold. I tested this for two and a half days, essentially a long weekend trip.

For this test, I put the Anker cooler into Eco mode and filled up the RTIC cooler with even more ice. This time, I did not open and check the coolers every 15 minutes. I left several hours between checks because when you’re camping, you’re not constantly going into the cooler for everything. Also, this was a multi-day test, and I like to sleep.

However, even when opening the ice cooler several times per day, the ice lasted the entire two and a half days, although it was mostly water by the end of the test. Despite that, the ice cooler stayed below 40 degrees Fahrenheit the entire time. The EverFrost 2 cooler in the meantime, also kept below 43 degrees Fahrenheit the entire time (although the cooler was set for 40 degrees). The EverFrost 2 cooler sat at 13% battery by the end of the test period. So, both coolers performed their required duties for the long term, which was good to see.

Price 

The Anker Solix EverFrost 2 cooler retails for $899.99, although as of this writing, it’s on sale for $699.99. By comparison, the 45-quart RTIC cooler I tested costs around one-third that price, at $299.99 (currently discounted to $219.99). Yes, you get a lot of bells and whistles in the EverFrost 2 cooler — the bottle opener, the extra table space, the wheels, the cleaner set up and storage. However, one has to wonder if that’s worth the price. Anker isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel here; it’s just a different type of wheel.

Electric cooler vs. normal cooler: Which should you buy? 

The key argument in favor of the electric cooler is the lack of mess — there’s no ice or ice water to deal with for example. Everything you need to keep cool fits inside the cooler and there’s no need to leave room for ice. Plus, despite a slightly smaller footprint, it actually has more capacity for soda cans — 60 as opposed to the RTIC’s 50, despite the company claiming otherwise. Everything you need to get the EverFrost 2 cooler to do its job is self-contained (you don’t have to run to the store to get ice). There’s also the mobility offered by the wheels. 

The adjustability of the EverFrost 2 cooler is also nice. I remember a few times when I would head out camping and find that some of the food was ruined because the ice was too cold, or something leaked into the water, and you had to wholesale replace the ice. That won’t happen here. If anything leaks, it’s just a matter of cleaning it out and putting everything back. Plus, you can adjust the temperature to be slightly above freezing if you don’t want everything to be literally ice cold.

On the other hand, the EverFrost 2 is expensive and none of those things really justify the extra money in my mind. Of course, your mileage may vary. But if you’re wondering which cooler I’ll recommend for your next camping trip, it’s the RTIC cooler. Electrification is pretty cool and you can’t deny the fact that the EverFrost 2 cooler is handy. But for cooling things down fast and keeping them cool, the old school RTIC cooler works just as well as new school, and for a third of the price and 20% less weight. 

The biggest disadvantage of a thermoelectric cooler is its weight. In this scenario, the electric cooler has a dry weight twice that of the ice cooler. Even factoring in the weight of the ice, they’re still about 20 pounds apart, favoring the ice cooler.

The other main disadvantage is the electricity required. Once an electric cooler runs out of battery, you can add ice to it to make it last longer. However, then you’re missing the point of having an electric cooler.

The duration that ice can last in a normal cooler depends greatly on how often it is opened. Every time you open a cooler, you’re releasing cool air and letting in warmer air, which will melt more ice. During testing, a cooler opened every 15 minutes lost most of its ice within hours. On the other hand, when the cooler was only opened a few times per day, ice lasted for over 2.5 days (although much of it had melted by then)

Can electric coolers run on batteries?

  (function() {
    window.zdconsent = window.zdconsent || {run:(),cmd:(),useractioncomplete:(),analytics:(),functional:(),social:()};
    window.zdconsent.cmd = window.zdconsent.cmd || ();
    window.zdconsent.cmd.push(function() {
      !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
      {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
      n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
      if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
      n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
      t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);
      s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
      'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
      fbq('set', 'autoConfig', false, '789754228632403');
      fbq('init', '789754228632403');
    });
  })();

Xem chi tiết và đăng kýXem chi tiết và đăng ký