This may be a long review: I bought an Engle 65 cooler as my first roto molded style cooler. I was impressed with the ice retention compared to “regular “coolers. The major issue with that cooler and others like it is the vacuum lock that is created when it is hot out and the cooler is opened then closed. The next time you try to open, it is almost impossible unless you unscrew the drain plug. I did not think much of this issue at first but it became more annoying as time went on. My wife refused to get anything out of the cooler because she could not open it. Several friends and family also commented on the difficulty getting drinks out of “my” cooler. After a few years of this, I set out to find a cooler that had a release valve built in so it was more user friendly. I stumbled upon Blue Coolers.
I ordered a Blue Cooler 60, and received it in less than a week. The cooler seems well built and on par with other coolers, I have looked at. I also bought the accessory bundle and the divider and basket are awesome. The latches are easy to open and I like them better than the smaller latches on my other cooler. I decided to do a head-to-head ice retention between these two similarly sized coolers.
To give information on this test I live in south Florida. It is the middle of the “heat wave” where daytime temps are easily 100 degrees. The Blue cooler I ordered is white my other cooler is tan. I wanted to make it fair so neither cooler was placed in the sun so color could not be a factor. Both coolers were filled completely with ice and placed in the back of an SUV for three days. At the end of the third day both were removed from the SUV, drain of water and placed into my garage. On the fourth day, I opened both coolers twice. The first time was just to open it; the second was to test the vacuum lock/valve. The valve worked flawlessly. On the 5th day, two already cold drinks were placed into each cooler. One drink was removed from each cooler at the same time. This was done twice. At the end of the 6th day, the water was drained out of the coolers and remaining ice was dumped out. You can see a noticeable difference in the amount of ice that remained in each cooler. Blue cooler definitely won the ice retention.
The only drawback to the Blue cooler is it is noticeably heavier than my other cooler but I plan on this cooler being in the back of my truck and not carried around so it does not affect me. If you were to use this cooler as a mobile cool get the wheeled one. I would love for Blue coolers to make a 45qt, which would be the perfect size road trip cooler.
