Its actual, measured capacity came in at 76.2 quarts, which is higher than anything else we've tested. Just want the biggest cooler we've tested? You're in luck - that'd be our current top pick, the 80-quart Cabela's Polar Cap Equalizer Cooler. The worst offender, offering only 65 percent of its claimed 30-quart capacity, was the Tourit Backpack Cooler. Claiming space for 20 12-ounce cans at a 2:1 ice-to-can ratio for a total of 22.5 quarts, I found the internal volume of the soft-sided cooler to actually be 26.42 quarts, which is 117 percent of the stated volume (about one extra six-pack compared to other 20-quart coolers). Yeti's Hopper Backflip 24, a soft-sided backpack cooler, had the most understated volume of all coolers we've tested so far.
Meanwhile, for almost half the price, the 55-quart Lifetime High Performance Cooler came in well above spec at 62.4 quarts measured - and while it didn't hold its ice as long as the RTIC did, it still finished an excellent performer. That's enough to hold 67 cans with a 2:1 ice-to-can ratio. That's several quarts less than the 45 quarts they spec.Īmong all of the large-sized coolers we've tested (60 quarts and up), the 80-quart Cabela's Polar Cap Equalizer cooler offers the greatest capacity with an actual, measured volume of 76.2 quarts. The $219 RTIC wasn't as spacious as expected, either, holding just 39.6 quarts of water before overflowing with the lid closed. Rovr pegs the capacity of its $400 Rollr wheeled cooler at 60 quarts, but I could only fit 52.8 quarts of water inside when I measured for myself. If anything, the smaller, cheaper models were mostly conservative in their estimates, with ones like the Coleman Xtreme and Igloo Latitude wheeled coolers coming in several quarts more sizable than advertised. Then I measured out the exact number of quarts each cooler could hold - important information to have when you're dealing with large quantities of melted ice. To that end, I carefully filled each cooler with water to the point that closing the lid would cause some water overflow. That meant putting those manufacturer capacity claims to the test, and I wanted a better, more universal metric than just counting how many cans I could cram into each one. I did my best to account for those size differences as I evaluated each cooler's relative performance, but first, I needed to be sure that I had accurate measurements. I was able to fill the Lifetime High Performance Cooler with 62.4 quarts of water without causing it to overflow when I shut the lid.
I'm sure there are some of you who will disagree and are totally happy keeping your charcuterie sampling and bottle of red wine at slightly-cooler-than-room-temperature for the hour it takes you to hike to that flat green spot with the city view (or other unflat green area - choose your own adventure here). None of them get that cold, and they don't hold their median temp for long at all. However, the others are much cheaper and a couple come in backpack format, if that's your thing.īut, to be fair, my personal opinion is that all soft-sided coolers are bad choices.
The competitors sport very thin walls, and that's just not going to do much for your insulative capabilities. You could tell before the tests were run that this cooler was going to be the better performer. The performance wasn't close enough for me to pretend like I could name another victor even if I wanted to. Just scroll down a bit and look at the graphed-out data for yourself. The results usually speak for themselves.
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