Alpicool Portable Refrigerator 21 Quart

Update 2/17/2020 - I took this unit on a field trip and it worked great. Caveat #1 While this unit work wonderful I did purchase a 1000W Jackery to power the unit while my Subaru Outback was turned off. The Jackery was expensive 1K however I also use it at home during infrequent power loss at home. I also use it outside to power some power tools. The Alpicool runs easily 7 to 12 hours on the Jackery. Note once the Jackery is used you either have to recharge it using your car which will require 10 to 12 hours of driving or find a 120V outlet. All things consider it was a great value. I did a 8 day trip during covid and used the Alpicool & Jackery with no problem. I spent 2 days without being close to a 120 volt outlet and still had enough power in the Jackery for 1 more night. Note before leaving it is best to start the Alpicool and get it cold only put cold food are cold beverages into the unit in order to conserve Jackery power. I am glad that I purchase both these items, traveling during Covid I made zero stops to purchase food are drink and was able to avoid other people. I have only had the fridge/freezer for 24 hours and here is my data for this 1st review on this product more to come as I continue to test. These car/trailer fridge/freezers on the market are becoming popular and they cost as much as your home fridge/freezers and while I did in depth research online real information is sparce, even the highest price units seem to have significant short comings. I don’t really believe any of the 5 stars can be true on any fridge/freezer product. 1st thing I did was turned on the Alipcool fridge setting to -4 degree F. After 2 hours it was at 4 degrees F settings on the fridge/freezer Max (seems good). At 5.5 hours it reached Zero degrees again not bad for a warm unit startup. At 7 hours running time it reached -2 degrees and remained there overnight. It never went below -2 degree after 18 hours of running time except when cycling. It seems to me that the lower limit is -2 degrees not -4 degrees. I also put a thermometer into my home freezer and it never got below -2 degrees so I am pretty sure this Alipcool fridge/freezer will not go below -2 degrees, which is an adequate temperature for most products. Personal note: When you open the door briefly you will see a sudden and dramatic temperature drop; it does return to the previous temperature within 15 minutes, this of course require more energy. I just wanted to note this for those with children for obvious reasons. Also, I placed the same digital thermometer into the Alpicool after removing it from my home freezer. A few remarks on the accuracy of this thermometer; This thermometer is not designed for testing however it does seem to give fairly accurate results and I have used it for years. It is an outdoor thermometer that seems to correspond to weather channel readings even when the temperature drops in the negative number for days at a time. In theory this Alipcool unit will be used a refrigerator and not a freezer ergo the cold temperature setting will be in the range of 30 to 35 degrees F. Having said this the temperature readings now coming from the Alpicool is 4 degrees F on the E mode. The problem is that my thermometer is showing 18 degrees F. My thermometer was placed on top of the Cotinga Cup in the center of the Alpicool. This is a 14 degree difference from what is seen on the Alpicool unit and is very distressing. After testing with the lithium batteries moved the thermometer back to my home freezer and the temperature returned to -2 degrees. Heretofore now, I have not seen this discrepancy reported in any previous reviews and makes me suspect either my thermometer is wrong are Alpicool unit thermometer is wrong? My next step was to run the unit in its current cold state with an external lithium battery with 150-Watt Hour and the Alpicool setting was to allow the fridge/freezer to drain the battery low. The fridge/freezer was plugged into the 110-volt sine socket. After 2 hours the 150Wh battery shut off. This was not surprising, and my test will continue with the Alpicool using the E setting and 150-Watt Hour battery. I forgot to mention previously that on the cold start up I put two 15 oz. Contagia cups filled directly from the cold-water tap. It took between 11.5 hours and 18 hours for the water to freeze solid. After hooking up the 2nd 150 Watt Hour lithium battery and running the Alpicool it ran for 3.5 hours on E mode vs 2 hours in Max mode. A significant increase in service this would indicate to me that E mode may work for those times when the Alpicool is being run off of the battery. So far, I feel good about this products performance and it is much cheaper than the higher end products. If my math is correct you should be able to run a 1000 Watt Hour lithium battery for over 13 hours. The downside is you just spent an additional $1000 dollars. My next test will begin September 10th when I am planning to go camping. Temporary Conclusion after 24 hours - the temperature discrepancy is distressing and leads me to believe that you must choose a setting below what you would normally set your home fridge/freezer. I fear that choosing a lower temperature could lead to freezing but since I don’t intend to use the fridge for anything like fruit are vegetables, I believe for $200 dollars it is good enough for me.