1-Year Review of My CHEAP Portable Car Fridge (Alpicool C20 Long-Term Review)

I've been using the super cheap Alpicool C20 portable fridge for all of my car camping adventures over the past year. How has it held up, and what do I like and not like about it?

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#fridge #portable #camping

[ericsgonewanderin]

I always like how you speak in practical, everyday terms. Your use of anticipating scenarios of how people might use and item, or want to use it, I think is a great way of presenting. Thanks. I've already decided that out on the road this year I'm going to "graduate" from a cooler to a fridge.

[peterschmitt]

I have the exact same fridge. It worked out well on my 7-week trip last summer/fall. What worked well for me is to plug my jackery 500 into the car and the fridge into the jackery. The jackery would charge faster then the draw from the fridge. So the fridge never had to turn off during my trip. It came in handy recently when I was getting a new fridge for my home. I put the Alpicool in freezer mode and stored my freezer contents in it. I stored the refrigerator contents in a cooler with freezer packs.

[exploresouthwest]

One thing I found was good to do with my fridge to help even out the temperature swings was to freeze some bottles of water and stick those in with my normal bottles of water and food and drinks..
It's like adding ice, but without the mess, and you do eventually drink the water at the end of the trip so it's not really wasted space.

[daveorr]

i went all last summer and fall just running mine off a jackery 240 with a 100 watt solar panel plugged into it o it charged in the day and powered the lpicool all night and never got below 70% ever. it worked great. pass through charging is awsome !

[russellrlf]

This is the best review, with the most detail, I have seen on these types of refrigerators. Good job. Great details without being overly complicated.

[spiritandtruthjourney]

I have Alpicool 53 quart which gives me fridge and freezer separately and I love it !!!

[jss]

Good review. Nice to see a review by someone that uses the product for a long period of time.

[pnkbiankii]

I made a simple Reflectix cover (made sure not to cover the side vent👍) for my Alpicool. Keeps it cooler and takes care of the bright display at night. 👍

[QueenBaha]

I’ve had my Alpicool 15 for 3 years and it has NEVER FAILED ME! I live in my minivan & buy only the food I need for cooking 1-2 full meals with my instant pot. I put that food into storage container and place in the fridge once cooled. The rest of the fridge has fruit so I can make fresh liquids to drink. I agree it’s a fantastic buy with small footprint. Also I want to say I really like your channel been watching for a loooong time thanks again!

[rangerdoc]

Just got one on Prime Day. Holy Hell.... They're $230 now, just a year later! I paid $170 and thought I got a deal.
Really impressed with how effective and compact it is. It fits nicely in the rear foot well of my 97 4runner. By the time you deduct the volume of Ice, it fits as much as I was packing in my 50L Yeti. Fits 1L bottles standing up. Haven't calculated the power draw yet.
I put mine on a foam pad to keep it off the hot floorboards & that significantly reduced the noise.

[noyopacific]

I can think of a reason to use the Alpicool for making ice. I could set the Alpicool at it's lowest temperature to function as a freezer and also carry an ice box. I could use a jug of frozen water to cool the ice box and keep another jug to freeze in the Alpicool. I would keep the food that I don't want to freeze in the ice box and keep it cool by exchanging the frozen jugs daily. This would allow me to take ICE CREAM in the Aplicool !!! Excellent review Tristan. Thanks for the video!

[cathybutler]

I have the Alpicool mini. Only holds 10 liters. It takes a much smaller footprint. After using it for month long trip, I wish I would have gone a little larger. Same with my jackery. I had the 240 for this trip and I ended up buying the jackery 500 when I returned home. The 240 worked fine because I moved around a lot. I had no issues and didn't notice a noise while trying to sleep. Love my Alpicool!

[chuckborghoff]

I use my Jackery 240 with my C20. I set it at 38 f, and at 70f ambient temp the Jackery will last about 9 hours. So it’s ok for overnight camping but then I have to recharge the Jackery and try to keep the Alpicool cold. The Jackery takes 7 hours to recharge to 100%. So, I wish I had the 500 or 1000 model. But, I also camp with a regular ice cooler and both will keep my food safe. When we travel and stop to sightsee, I unplug from the car and plug into the Jackery. Overall, I make things work as needed and do not mind having the regular cooler and the Alpicool. Mostly we have power at campgrounds, but some trips we are in both non electric sites or electric sites That’s when we plan food for ice only. Then the car takes care of the Alpicool when traveling. We have camped this way for almost 2 years in our Runaway Range Runner . Your review is right on with my experience. Thanks.

[hippitydippity]

I've been using this same fridge on my sailboat for about 2 years now and it is fantastic and totally agree with everything said. Your comments are exactly the way I use this fridge, economy mode and set the temp about 39 degrees, run off my house batteries and have never had an issue. I actually came back to the Amazon Alpicool site to buy another one, one to use as a fridge the other to use as a freezer for longer off-grid stays and saw this review.

[tinabeane]

Thanks for the review on how it's worked. Since I'm in CA could not get it shipped here (prop 65 and cancer warnings) so got the JoyTuTus brand. I'm very pleased with it and it's nice having cold food on the road. I power it with my Jackery 300, I'm on the move everyday so that works. My compressor does not come on much, maybe once or twice a day for 15 minutes. I've been using it in freezer mode before taking off on a trip, I've gone two days without the compressor coming on. Then it just slowly warms up to 35 degrees. Glad it has worked out for your needs, sweet price you got for it. 👍😊

[bimbles]

I've ran one of these for several years non stop on my boat as a full time freezer... never failed me though before putting anything in it I ran it full power for 3 days to ensure it was fully chilled inside... I power it by 2 120aph leisure batteries hooked into 2 150w solar panels... just bought an alpicool 50l fridge to go alongside it too

[ModernDayPilgrim]

So glad that you gave this review! I have been researching exactly this one you are reviewing and was looking for info on how the Jackery 500 would do with it!
Totally stoked! You made my day! Thanks! 😃🙌🏼🚗

[Curt]

Ive had my Alpicool C20 for about 2 weeks. It sips energy. Very pleased with it so far!

[kevinr]

We have an Alpicool 60qt. pretty much the same as yours, but much larger. Ours has wheels with retractable handle. We made a trip from Texas to California and back hitting Disneyland and several parks, Sequoia, Yosemite, along the way. The thing works great, no ice to deal with. We freeze some of our bottles of water and set the set point 40 degrees while on the road. When we would make an extended stop, say like at Meteor Crater in Arizona and the unit was off for several hours at a time the frozen water bottles kept is cool just fine. The thing works great. We would take in to hotel rooms and plug in with no issue. Next morning load in back of Tahoe and plug in with 12v cord. Well worth the money for anyone who travels the roads.

[genekulp]

Everything you said about this is exactly correct. I have my Alpicool with a Jackery 240. On a multiday trip, I found that it would keep cold overnight, but the power station needed to be recharge fully over the day. Great for a long roadtrip, driving 8 hours or more a day. I always felt that it would hold 2 weeks worth of cold food if you only cooled a few drinks as needed. 20 liters of food (in plastic bags) would be a lot of packages of meat or veg!

I kept the Jackery plugged into the car 12v, so that it would recharge when the car was running during the day. Whenever the car was turned off, during the day at stops or all night, the fridge would keep running. A+ review and fridge.