Coleman Xtreme Portable Cooler | Hard Cooler Keeps Ice Up to 5 Days

This cooler leaves your stuff nice and cool for at least two days with 2 packs of ice we take this every camping trip

Wanted a cooler that was better than a generic one from a big box retailer but with a comparable price point.The build quality is what is usually expected, nothing more and nothing less but not bad in any way. Lid seals tight and the drain plug is grooved on the inside to help the water flow out better instead of sitting in the bottom when draining. There is an instruction sheet that comes in the inside with tips on how to get the most out of a cooler, FOLLOW THOSE TIPS AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY.I put this cooler to the test a few weekends ago, and I have to say at this price point, it's a great cooler.- Day 1: Filled up the bottom with some beer, gatorade, and a couple sandwiches for an all day softball tournament. Put two large bags of ice over top of the drinks and food. This was at 8am. Played softball / hung out from 10am-6pm in 90 degree heat. At the end of the day, it was still filled with lots of ice and barely any water, and everything I had in it was ice cold all day.- Day 2: I intentionally left the cooler in my car overnight with some drinks left in it and the ice to see how long until it melted. Overnight, some of the ice had melted but there was still quite a bit in it. I left the cooler in my car all day (probably over 100 degrees sitting in my car all day) and in the evening there was about 35% ice and the rest water. As the tip sheet says, don't dump out water! The water is ice cold and will still keep your drinks cold!- Day 3: I left the cooler in my car again overnight and went to work and let it sit all day in the heat again. After I left work around 5pm I check and there were a few ice cubs floating on top of the water, which was still pretty impressive. The water was still pretty cold. I pulled a drink out and drank it and it was chilled.- Day 4: Same deal as day three. Checked after I left work and obviously there was no ice left, but the water was cool. I went to another softball game and we drank the rest of the drinks in there in the evening and they were cool (not ice cold, but good enough).4 days in the blistering heat and my drinks were still cold - I'll take it! The cooler will probably perform great for fall camping trips and the ice will last even longer without extreme heat. Just follow the tips - put ice in over top of everything and only open when you absolutely need to and not for long periods and you'll be good.

I needed a big cooler for when the power went out and we had fridge food to save. This worked very well as it's capacious and really keeps things cool for a long time. It's very lightweight and easy for me to carry when it's empty. It's sort of a truck when not used and so I use it to store things in as well.I wouldn't use it in a child's room as kids like to climb in things and this doesn't have any ventilation unless you count the drain plug. Also, the lid doesn't stay open well by itself so it could easily close on a kid. I do wish it would stay open by itself.I have to say that, having had an older style Coleman for many years, these feel less sturdy and I'd be less likely to offer it as a camp seat to a big person. However, it's held up and doesn't have any dents or breakage. Furthermore, it really does keep food cold a lot longer than the old Coleman did and that's the purpose of this.I can't carry this when food or ice is in it and my son can, so this is for big trips, power outages, and storage when we're not using it otherwise.I think you'll like it if you need to store a lot of food and keep it cold for days at a time. We used it for our cross-country trip to keep our food, supplements, and that kind of thing in it. It not only kept the food cool, but it also kept it from freezing when we were in a business and it was brutally cold outside. Very practical for power outages too. Not child safe without supervision, though.

Look, I know there's this whole cult of $400 coolers and suburbanite outdoors people who swear by them but I really don't need anything that fancy. I just need a large-ish insulated box that keeps stuff cold for a day or two so when I make a cross-country drive to visit people I can bring food there and back. My budget was around $100 and this came in comfortably around half that on sale.I'll just go through my main observations for you:1) Its large, but most surprising is how tall it is. It will not fit standing up in the trunk of my sedan, but only by the smallest bit. It might work out that way for you, but for me it gets strapped in the back seat.2) The lid is hinged on nothing but thin plastic and wishful thinking. There is no bracing on the lid and if you open it all the way you can immediately tell that it's at risk of breaking if pushed too far.3) The lid shuts about 60% of the way under normal force. Anyone just letting the lid fall under its own weight will leave it open just a crack, wasting your precious ice. It's not immediately obvious that it's still open, either.4) The handles are are fine when it's empty and completely inadequate when it's full. With a 40lb bag of ice and some water bottles in it the handles were buckling when lifted. They will break eventually, again you can really tell.So why after all of that is this still rated so highly?5) I put a 40lb bag of ice in this thing, nested some food and a 12 pack of water bottles on top, and it kept everything ice cold for a 15 hour drive, no problem at all.6) Then 48 hours later the ice was still entirely solid and the water bottles still extremely cold7) By about the 72 hour mark the first water appeared.8) At around 96 hours there was about 50/50 water and ice.9) One full week after I put that ice in I was left with basically only water, but when I was draining it I stuck my hand in the flow and it was still uncomfortably, numbingly cold.This thing lives in my kitchen now, full of water bottles with a couple large ice packs in it that I just cycle out once a day. It's *so good* at it's singular job of keeping things cold that I just use it as a drink fridge. At $50-something I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who just needs raw cooling performance and can be responsible enough to work around the flaws. This is *not* going to be a good drink cooler for a party - someone will break the lid or leave it ajar - but for a small handful of careful, responsible people you can get top quality cooling performance out of this budget option.