Hi-Gear 28 Litre Electric Cooler Box powered by 12V in-car Socket or 240V Mains with Integrated Handle, Portable Electric Cool Box for Camping and Festivals, Camping Equipment

Product Information

Quite frankly, few items are as important in a camp environment as having a top-performing electric cool box. From our experience, it is important to carefully examine the features of a particular product to make sure it will match up to the conditions under which you will be using it.

Build quality and materials are surprisingly excellent for the price you are paying – it oozes class and excellence. In particular the matte glass door on the front closes snugly and looks fantastic. The handle, which can also help keep the lid in position when you need the box open, is super-strong and handy. As for the interior of the Hi-Gear, it isn’t partitioned – however, as a result it can easily be cleaned using water and a small piece of cloth without any fuss. Dimensions are reasonably compact at 26.9 (W) x 32.2(D) x 38(H) cm, and we found this an excellent size for a few nights away in our tent. It’s a great option for a mini-break or an afternoon retreat as it is small enough to be easily carried using the ergonomic handle on top. However, it’s probably more of a fridge than a coolbox to take picnicing – just bear this in mind!The EcoCool offers two cooling modes with a cooling delta of up to 25°C below the outdoors temperature on the MAX setting operation. This means that even on a scorching day, you can still get temperatures close to freezing.

The Outdoor Revolution cooler range all provide similar performance. The only difference is the sizes on offer. For the 45 litre, the main attributes are:Thermoelectric cool box – these are well insulated coolboxes which use a Peltier cooler (12V or 240V powered usually) and electric fan to drive heat out of the box and keep your food and drink chilled. The best thermoelectric coolboxes can lower the temperature by about 30°C below the ambient temperature which means they can be used all year round in the UK. Downsides are fan noise, but in a tent you’re unlikely to hear it. I use our Direct Leisure cool box for camping trips that are 2-3 days. It is ideal for us as a family of 2, allowing room for frozen premade food and soft drinks. It is essential that you are aware that this is a budget cool box and not as sturdy as the Vango or Outwell. You do need to be careful of the handle as the side pin it can disconnect connect and snap. Mine has after several years and many camping trips. It was may fault as I was not being particularly careful and I tried to lift not realising that is was caught on something. The ECO Deep Extreme has several different capacity options in the range. The coolers start at a ‘car-friendly’ 26 litre capacity up to our favourite in the range shown above – the 45 litre giant which has its own carry handle and wheels to help move it around. We’ll concentrate on that one for this review. Price – as you’d expect the price of a product can be an instantly recognisable factor on what sort of quality you can expect. Whoever came up with the phrase “you get what you pay for” pretty much hit the nail on the head. Whilst it’s not always the case and there are many bargains to be had, you can as a general rule, expect the higher priced products to offer better quality than a the cheapest option. We’ll dive into the price of Hi-Gear 28-Litre 12V 240V Cooler in more detail in a moment. A 20 litre capacity is not going to set the world on fire if you’re planning a long trip, but it’s ample for a night or two away. Hi-Gear make cheap, dependable equipment and we were impressed with the quality of plastic used on this cooler. It looks more expensive than it is!