"The reviews seem to split on two issues - is it noisy, and does it cool effectively? If half the reviews were right, it seemed perfect for my desk, because I need a way to have drinks (cold soda, or hot coffee with milk) without having to stop for a long trip to the cafeteria. So, I took a chance. First, on cooling: I think some people are confused about how a thermoelectric refrigerator works. "Normal" refrigerators cool food by cooling the air and blowing it around with a fan, or in some cases by cooling all the interior walls. Since the air and walls have a low thermal mass, refrigerators work BEST when they're mostly full of cold items. So, in general you want to keep them full or almost full, and in small ones if possible you want to pre-cool the items before putting them in (unless you have a lot of time available to remove all that heat.) This refrigerator has two zones - a metallic surface from the back to about 2/3 of the front, and a plastic zone at the last 2" near the door. The cooling ONLY occurs through conductivity at the metallic surfaces, so that's where you want to put milk, dairy products, etc. If the refrigerator is full, the food near the front will be cooled by contact with the cold food in the back, and by the cold air between all the cold foods, but it won't get as cold as the food in the back. I think that's what's causing the "this isn't cold enough" reviews - the sodas and milk I put in the back are VERY cold. (I think they designed the fridge for cans to lay on their side, so the back and front wouldn't have different items. But that won't work on anything but 12 ounce cans.) Now, about the noise: Very annoying and loud whine. It uses what looks like a cheap, noisy 80mm square computer case cooling fan, 20mm thick, drawing 0.15A at 12V. There are many much quieter fans out there, but that thickness is hard to find, I just ordered a much quieter 25mm thick one, and I think there's enough clearance that it will work fine. I also ordered noise-suppression screws - the whole thing was less than $10 plus shipping. The important thing is that the replacement fan can't draw more current than the original. Will it work? Stay tuned - I'm going to update after I put it in and, if it does, I'll give the model info and some assembly tips. (If it doesn't work, I'll learn to live with the noise.) Update 3/8/13: I just replaced the fan with a quieter one, and the fridge - which still cools very well - is now totally silent. I'm changing the rating to five stars, based on how cheap and easy it was to do this. I sit about five feet away from it in my office, and I can't hear anything at all now. Before, the noise was a steady whine that I sorta kinda got almost used to, but now that it's totally gone I can tell from its strong absence that it was an ever-present annoyance. Seriously, I have to check the light to make sure this thing's on. So, here's what I did: I bought a Coolink SWiF-801 80mm Quiet Computer Case Fan from QuietPCUSA (online), which sold it for $4.95 plus shipping. (In Amazon, searching for that model brings up a $30 alternative.) There are many other fans and other vendors to choose from, but any you pick should be (1) 80mm square, no more than 25mm thick, (2) DC12V and a MAXIMUM of 0.15A (the one I bought about half that amperage), (3) specifically rated as quiet - this model claims 11 dB, and (4) have reasonable airflow and RPM (this one claims 38 cubic meters/hour at 1500 RPM.) Frankly, you might do better but at five bucks and near-total silence (vs office background) it's hard to justify the effort to try. I'm not a super-DYI guy, but I got a couple of small wire nuts, a small flat-head screwdriver, and borrowed a wire stripper. The back comes out with eight small screws. The fan comes out with four small screws. The new fan's cable had a connector at the end - I cut it off, cut back the outer sleeve and exposed a couple of inches of the wiring. The yellow wire can be ignored, it's for speed control and the Koolatron's original fan - which I removed with a small flat-head screw driver - only has a black and a red wire. I cut off the original fan's wire and very carefully cut into the wiring insulation to expose the thin metal wires inside. Then I pulled on the insulation with my fingernail, exposing about an inch. Did the same with the black and red wires in the new fan, stranded the like-color ends together, bent the exposed wires in half, connected them with the wiring nuts and then screwed the fan back into the back. I'd bought "anti-vibration fan screws" but they aren't suitable for the Koolatron case, so that was three bucks wasted. I cut out four small squares of thin rubber and placed them between the fan and the case, using the screws to make a tiny gasket. (Chances are, that's not necessary, but I'm not taking it all apart to check.) That's it! Just two wires and twelve small screws, about fifteen minutes if you've ever stripped a wire and used a screwdriver. And, man, is it quiet!"
Koolatron KWC-4 Coca-Cola Personal 6-Can Mini Fridge (Compare Deals from $40.99)
"I really like iced apple juice, but the ice was melting before I ever finished my drink. I was going through apple juice like crazy, but never really drinking much of it. I bought this personal fridge to cut down on wasting apple juice (don't like it all watered down from melted ice). It works so well, that I can fill a 12oz glass with juice, put in a few cubes of ice, and seven hours later, the ice has not melted. Think about it...seven hours! If I leave a glass of ice and juice out for 30 minutes, the ice has melted down to little bitty bits and the juice is too watery. I used the "Mastercool MSC52224A Infrared Thermometer in Case with FREE MSC52220 Analog Thermometer" that I bought from Amazon to check the temperature performance. The manual for the mini fridge says that it is capable of cooling to 32 (deg F) below ambient. I checked it on a hot day, a warm day, a cool day, and several times between using the digital IR thermometer and it is consistently 32-45 degrees cooler inside the fridge than the outside temperature. Even on a 90 degree day the ice did not melt and I didn't have to replace my drink. The inside temperature at the warmest spot was consistently hovering around 45 to 47 degrees (F). My drink was at around 36 to 38 degrees, depending on where I measured it. On the days that were around 70 degrees, this fridge read temperatures close to freezing. In fact, I was amazed when I pulled out a frosty glass of apple juice. It happened only once, but still...worth mentioning. I think the trick to getting this to work optimally is to provide several inches of space for the back end where it vents out the heat. I used the thermometer there as well- the vent on either side exhausts at about 90 degrees (F) but at a low volume so it is not very useful as a space heater. The unit runs quiet- very quiet. It comes with both an AC adapter, and a DC lighter-socket adapter for the car. The power switch has three positions- Off (middle) to the right is 110AC, and to the left is 12VDC (car). There is a single green LED to indicate ON operation, there are two warm air exhausts on each side at the rear, and two cool air intakes- one at the back plate, and one on the top at the aft end. This is why ventilation and spacing is important- due to the proximity of the hot air exhaust and cool air intake- there needs to be room for the warm air to dissipate and not be drawn in by the cool air intake. The manual says 6 inches space all around, I've found that about half that works in my situation. I have not tried a six-pack, or tried using it in a car. What I can say is that if you like to have a cold drink handy to sip on all day while you study, this unit is worth every penny. I have not had to waste a glass of juice because it was watered down since using this unit- for that, 5 stars easily."
"So, I purchased this knowing that it's sort of an improved cooler/heater. I know it's billed as a mini fridge but didn't expect it to get as cold as a fridge. I did get a bit confused by some of the reviews stating that it doesn't heat food and doesn't come with a car charger, but I didn't buy it for that. However, it did come with a car charger and has switches on the back for heating v. cooling. I bought this for a cooler since I have a 5 month old and am pumping for her at work. I'm tired of trying to find space in the nasty office fridge for her milk and worrying that people will move it around. Breast milk is safe to store for 24 hours at 59 degrees, so I figured even if my office is 80 degrees (seriously, sometimes it is. We have HVAC issues at times), the milk would be safe during my work hours. I got this last night, brought it in today and stuck a small thermometer in it to make sure the temp works where I need it. Today we aren't having heating/cooling issues in the office and the temp was hovering around 55 degrees until I put my ice pack in it and it went down to about 40 degrees. So, if you want fridge cooling in your office/home, maybe try an ice pack or two in this. You'll need a small one, though, as this fridge is pretty small. My ice pack that came with my milk cooler bag barely fits with milk bottles in there. There is a slight hum, but I don't think anyone in my office can hear it, which is a good thing, and it seems to work pretty well. I don't plan on keeping it on overnight, though, and I cannot speak to long term use. However, if it lasts 7 months while I'm pumping I'll be happy with it. The shelf is kind of wonky; it's not straight and I can't tell if it is the cooler or the shelf itself. However, that's not a big deal to me and it is removable. I just need this cooler to work, which so far it does. It is the perfect size for about four of the Medela bottles (both the 5 oz and 2.7 oz bottles). One note: I chose this one v. others simply because of the price. If you have Prime, it's around $30 and was my cheapest option."
"Received mine in good shape with both Jack and dc cords. The reviews about this unit being noisy aren't true. At least with regard to the one I received. Very Quiet. It sets within 2 feet of me and I can barely hear it. I have had quite a bit of experience with thermoelectric devices in my past and have designed and manufactured a couple of products using this technology. Unlike referigerators, they aren't very good at cooling down warm items unless you keep a couple of things in mind. First, with thermoelectrics, its all about heat load and conductivity. For instance, if you place a coupe of cans of coke or beer in the back of the unit, they will cool down reletivly quickly compaired to a couple of glass bottles of the same thing. The reason is all about "Thermal Conductivity" Aluminum is a very good thermal conductor. Glass isn't. So for those of you who are initially dissapointed with these little coolers, I have some tips on getting much better performance out of your cooler. 1. Always Use Aluminum Cans and Always place them in the back two thirds of the cooler where they can directly contact the conductive liner of the unit. 2. I use mine for bottled water and small yogert containers. NOT GOOD because they are made of plastic and are poor thermal conductors. So to remedy this, I take an empty 12 oz aluminum can and cut the top off making it an open top cylinder. Then, I slide my water bottle into the aluminum liner. It fits perfectly inside the cylinder and cools down much faster. You may have to smash the bottom of the can down so it makes better contact with the thermal liner. 3. For the yogert, I just wrap some Aluminum foil around the bottom and sides of the container and bingo. You can re-use these also and use this method on any container thats not made of Aluminum. So there it is! Its all about thermal conductivity. Another thing to remember! These are NOT referigerators! They don't cool warm things down very quickly so start with items that are already cold. It makes a BIG difference. Using these tips, you should be able to drop the contents of your cooler to about 30 degrees below ambient temperature. Thanks for listening. -Greg"
"There are plenty of other reviews so just going to give my first impression. I just opened the box 5 minutes ago and very happy with it. It is very attractive. I'm not a Coca-Cola fan or collector, but I thought this had more personality over the 9 can holder, so that was a big deal to me. The cover doesn't look like what it does on amazon. It says "Drink Coca Cola in Bottles --- Ice cold". Better looking than the main picture, but you can see what it looks like under where it says "commonly bought with". The inside has a tiny shelf. Kinda neat if you want to put a sandwich in it. For me I bought it for cold soda for when I need to wake up in the middle of the night to work and need some soda in me. The 6 pack fits nicely in it with the shelf so I won't be removing it. I don't drink this much soda so maybe I'll just keep a 4 pack underneath it and made a sandwich to keep in it. The main drawback is it's about 1/2" too short on the inside. They should have made it hold 8 cans not 6. So people could put a 6 pack in and a sandwich. Seems logical. The reason I say it's too short because I could almost stick in a bottle of beer. Unless the 12" coke bottles are 1/2" shorter than a beer bottle, it just seems to make more sense to make it taller since it does say "in bottles". For some people taking away a star because of this doesn't make sense. But if it was slightly taller to fit 4 bottles in standing up it would be perfect in my opinion. A 6 pack and a sandwich, 8 soda for an extended night, or 4 bottles of coke seems better. It is beautiful. Can't wait to see how cold it will get soda (I normally drink room temperature soda so not expecting much). I might even find a nice coke wall clock to hang on the wall above it."
"My wife needed a way to cool breast milk pumped at her work. Through the winter months we used freezer packs and insulated carriers, but with the weather warming up, we were afraid that would not be enough. Looking at mini-refrigerators, the types with actual compressors, it became obvious those were too big, too expensive, and not appropriate for her office environment. These little electrically cooled "mini-fridges" started looking like a good option. This one in particular is good value for the money. It seems adequately constructed, and has a decent snapping latch. The power connectors for AC and DC operation are included, and the instructions are clear enough to understand. One of the first things I did was pop a thermometer in the fridge and run it for an hour. As you'd expect from a peltier cooler, the temp achieved was about 35 degrees below ambient. That bought it to 40 some degrees in our 74 degree living room. It was quiet when running and you can feel the warm breeze it blows out the back if you put your hand within a foot. I plugged this into our Kill-a-watt electricity meter, and found it draws about 50 watts. My wife turns it on when she gets into her office, and off when she leaves. Unlike some mini-fridges of this type, this one doesn't have any warnings about not running it 24/7 (some recommend against that) but, she feels running an empty fridge overnight is just silly. I agree with her there. The fridge does have big air intake grills on the back and sides, and it does need room to flow air when running. My wife ended up giving it a few inches on each side, and that works great for her. She says it cools freshly expressed milk down on its own. When she adds the icepacks to the fridge, they stay frozen almost all day. There's enough room in it for a packed lunch, 6 cans of pop, or as she uses it, 2 baby bottles - with room for 2 more. This is a good buy. It's cute enough in appearance, seems decently well built, keeps things cold, and holds just enough. Can't beat it for the price. Owned it now for just over 2 months - is working fine."
"I've had this for about 7 months now and had no problems. It works extremely well at keeping my sodas cool enough to drink so I don't have to use the communal fridge. I also use it sometimes to hold a couple of sodas and a sandwich or something for lunch. Others have mentioned the latch - it does feel flimsy but I haven't had any problems with it at all. During the summer, I get some sweating inside, so have to periodically wipe out the condensed water, but other than that, I LOVE this fridge! My office won't allow anything that radiates heat, so other brands that heat as well as cool won't work (it's why I picked this one). Yes, it's not as cold as a full refrigerator, but in the summer not having to run to another room to get a cold soda is great!!! Also if you are considering this, bear in mind the size constraints mentioned by other reviews. I use this primarily for my cans of soda so it's not a problem for me. Update: After almost two years of operation, the motor has started making a strange noise. It still keeps things cool, but the noise is too much for me. That said, I'm not changing my rating because for under $50, it worked VERY WELL for two years and that's a great price to me! I tried a different brand when I decided to replace this and it barely cools at all, so I'm getting another one of these."
Koolatron KWC-4 Coca-Cola Personal 6-Can Mini Fridge (Compare deals from $40.99)
