Verdict
Well priced, the AAOBOSI Car Fridge 50L is a rugged, portable fridge or freezer with a good amount of space inside. Without wheels, it’s not the easiest fridge to carry around, and it doesn’t have a battery for off-grid use. However, with stable temperature control and the ability to run from any 12V source (or via the mains), this is a good fridge freezer for use in a car boot or in a garden at a party.
Pros
- Rugged
- Easy to use
- Good temperature control
Cons
- No wheels
- Expensive to run
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TypeThis is a portable fridge (or freezer) that can run from a 12V car connector, or be plugged in. -
CapacityThere’s a total of 50-litres of space inside this fridge.
Introduction
Traditional coolboxes are fine for short trips, but you lose a lot of space to ice and they’re no good for longer periods. For camping or sticking in the back of a car, the AAOBOSI Car Fridge 50L is a useful alternative.
Powered via a 12V input, it can be run from a car, power station or mains socket, and it can be a fridge or a freezer. A touch more portability, say with the addition of wheels, would be nice.
Design and Features
- It can be a fridge or freezer
- App control
- Removable basket
The AAOBOSI Car Fridge is available in four different capacities a 17-litre, 24-litre, 30-litre and the 50-litre that I have on review. All versions are visually very similar, but the 17-litre version doesn’t have the two cup holders on the lid.
Externally, the AAOBOSI Car Fridge 50L looks and feels like a traditional coolbox. It’s made of rugged plastic and feels pretty tough. The lid has two rulers, in centimetres and inches, which I can’t work out how they’d ever be useful.
Handles on both sides make it relatively easy to pick up, but the fridge weighs 15.6kg when empty, so it’s not the lightest.
When full, the wire basket inside lifts out, so you can at least remove some of the contents to make the fridge easier to carry. Even so, a set of wheels, such as those on the Anker EverFrost line, would make life easier.
Inside, there’s a single compartment, so the AAOBOSI Car Fridge 50L can only act as a fridge or a freezer, not both. If you need both a cold and frozen compartment, you’ll need the EverFrost 53-litre model or the EcoFlow Glacier, both of which are quite a bit more expensive.
The wire basket fills most of the space inside, but there’s space to the side of it, too. The model I have can hold 64 cans or 37 bottles of water, which is notably more than the Anker Everfrost. The deeper compartment is able to comfortably accommodate 2-litre bottles of drinks upright while still being able to close the lid.
There’s a single power input on the side, and AABOSI provides both a mains adaptor and a standard car plug. There’s no integrated battery option for this fridge/freezer, unlike with the more expensive EverFrost; however, you can use an external power station if you want power away from a car or power socket.
The control panel allows you to set the temperature to your preference and shows the battery capacity and the fridge’s operating temperature. I found the interface easy to use, and the USB port is a nice extra feature as it can be used to charge a phone or other device.
There is also an app available to download to control the temperature and view the battery percentage, which is interesting, given there’s no battery option. More useful is the Battery Protect option, which will turn the fridge off as the voltage drops, protecting you from accidentally running your car flat if you forget to turn the fridge off.
Performance
- Decent temperature control
- Relatively expensive to run
- Runs a little cold in fridge mode
I loaded the AAOBOSI Car Fridge 50L with cooler packs, to simulate having food in it, and started by setting the device to 4°C. The fridge’s average temperature was 2.73°C which was 1.23°C cooler than the target temperature, which is a chunk cooler than I’d expect. I’d probably knock the target temperature up a degree or two.
I measured standard deviation, which showed that most temperatures fluctuated just +/-0.86°C from the average. Anything below 1°C is a good result, showing that this fridge maintains stable temperatures.
In fridge mode, I estimated yearly running costs of £15.60, with a cost per litre of 31p. That’s quite expensive compared to a full-size fridge freezer, but in-line with the competition.
To test the freezer capabilities, I set the AAOBOSI to -18°C. The average temperature was -16.2°C with a standard deviation of +/- of 0.56°C. Again, temperature fluctuations of below 1°C is excellent. In freezer mode, the cost per year jumped to £57.50 a year, with a cost per litre of £1.15. That’s quite a bit more expensive than running the Anker EverFrost in freezer mode.
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Should you buy it?
You want a simple, portable plug-in fridge or freezer
Rugged, with a decent capacity and good temperature control, this is a good choice for use in a car or in the garden for a party.
You need something easier to transport or use off-grid
Look for a portable fridge that has wheels if you need more easier transportation, or a model with an integrated battery for off-grid use.
Final Thoughts
The AAOBOSI Car Fridge is both rugged and dependable and is a good choice if you don’t need to move it around much, say leaving it sat in the back of a car.
It’s also been priced well. If you want something more flexible, the Anker EverFrost is more expensive but has an optional battery, a bottle opener, wheels and a flip-up table.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every fridge freezer we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
We test for at least two weeks.
We use temperature sensors to monitor the internal temperature to help us accurately compare models from different manufacturers.
FAQs
There’s no battery integrated into this fridge, but you could use an external power station.
