While this isn’t quite as high as we have seen in other premium coolers, the much lower asking price helps to justify it. For most people, being able to keep ice for 3 days or more is plenty. And it makes Ozark Trail Coolers great for any weekend outing. Lastly, being able to safely and comfortably transport the cooler is extremely important. And when you fill it up with drinks, food, and ice, it can weigh 100 pounds or more! You will find an overhead stainless steel handle with a comfort grip on the 26-quart model and the 52/73-quart models will come with heavy-duty side handles with comfort grips.
We have a hunch this is because their testing was performed under more optimal conditions. Sure, if we were to fill the cooler up to the brim with nothing but ice, never open it, and leave it in a cool/dark area, the ice life would go way up. Having structure is important for protection in soft-sided coolers. A cooler without a hardliner is more prone to having its stored items be damaged while moving. Thankfully, Ozark Trail includes a removable hard liner in most of their soft-sided coolers.
If you’re going to create a top tier cooler, it obviously has to be rotomolded. If you want your cooler to be both tough and durable, you can’t skimp on this one aspect of design. There’s a tick on that little detail on Ozark’s part because their coolers are, in fact, rotomolded. Ozark Trail decided to pass up the opportunity ozark cooler to create a simple cooler for the medium price range to the lower price range. The only group that isn’t served here is the group of people looking for coolers over 100 quarts in capacity. However, that kind of handle won’t work for the larger coolers, so they utilize side handles made of rope for those ones.
I didn’t think much of the comments until I saw the amount of water leaking from my cooler. We tightened the spout and it leaked three more times over two days, so the cooler went back to Walmart. Indeed, not only do they establish a premium first impression but they carry the part nicely all along. Accordingly, the Ozark Trail 12, 36 can and backpack premium coolers share ozark trail canopy a distinct elegance, smooth finish inside & out and a record low-cost. On the other end of the spectrum, soft-sided Ozark Trail coolers cannot be placed in one category all together since they are relatively different. Indeed, while mainstream Ozark Trail soft-side coolers look poorly designed in the best of cases, the premium models are impressive to say the least.
But from what I can see it’s one of the lower performing roto-molded coolers when it comes to ice retention. For a day-trip or shorter adventure, the Ozark Trail 12-can cooler is ideal to keep drinks cool all day long and is perfect for budget-conscious shoppers at $29.97. This high-performance, water-repellent cooler has ozark cooler a removable hard liner and shelf featuring antimicrobial protection for the ultimate freshness. The adjustable padded shoulder strap makes for easy transport, and the mesh pockets provide extra storage space. This Ozark Trail cooler is made for durability and convenience, providing the perfect storage for your best beers.
And the premium cooler backpack and cooler tote take this up a notch by having an EVA compression molded base. Here the ice retention is pretty impressive if Ozark’s own numbers are to be believed. The smallest hard-sided cooler is supposed to last 4.5 days, the 52-quart one is supposed to last 7 days, and the largest one is supposed to last 9 days. We have the hard coolers under the Ozark Trail high-performance line of coolers, then we have the 36-can Jumbo soft cooler, and finally the backpack cooler for the more mobile among us. Outside of the premium models (with their thicker insulated shell), these coolers aren’t designed to keep ice for long periods.
Depending on if you go with an Ozark Trail hard-sided cooler or an Ozark Trail soft-sided cooler, you can expect different features. We will break down the specific features for each type of ice chest in the sections below. The weather was in the high 90s during the test, the coolers were in full sun for most of the morning, and we opened them several times throughout the day. The ice melted in the Coleman in 24 hours and the YETI in 48 hours.
We ended up purchasing a YETI but let me tell you how we got there. We really tried to buy a cheaper cooler but the universe wanted us to buy a YETI. Remember last summer when we spent over $100 on ice for our two week trip to Montana? If you would like to read about how not to pack a cooler click here to read about it.