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 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.
The more capable premium models should keep ice for up to a day and a half. As is expected, the larger hard-sided coolers had a clear advantage over the soft-sided coolers. They are not only larger but utilize thicker insulation, rubber gaskets, and an overall more ice-friendly design.
The options include two tall mesh water bottle holders and a large insulated front pocket (for an iPad or tablet) with a side zipper entry. You can find out more about ice retention tests in this Ozark Trail Ice Life Retention Test video – that will give you an idea of how Ozark Trail coolers work. The hard coolers have a thick rubber gasket, which is actually very comparable to more expensive brands. These and the durable latches help to keep your cooler firmly closed, with no gaps for cold air to seep out.
But they have since been redesigned to be lighter and more in line with other coolers. This issue seems more prevalent in the larger sizes, but can happen on the smaller sized cooler also. ozark trail coolers are Walmart’s brand of coolers and they are some of the most affordable roto-molded coolers on the market, offering great value for money. But they aren’t perfect and there are some problems with Ozark Trail coolers that you should be aware of before purchasing. The Ozark Trail cooler is made from polyethylene, which is the most common kind of plastic in use today. REI had a member sale over Memorial Day weekend and we were able to save 20% on our cooler.
A handful of our favorite backpack coolers have separate interior compartments or exterior pockets for dry storage, a portion of which are non-insulated. Some of our favorite backpack coolers had tons of interior and exterior stash pockets, while other favorites had few or none. While the pockets didn’t make or break a cooler for us, they changed the experience and were helpful in different applications. A wide range of storage capacity exists among backpack coolers.
My own personal beverage drama every summer has really pushed me to do this review. To me, worrying about the temperature of the drinks I have on my boat is the absolute last thing I want to be thinking about when I am heading out on the water. This can cooler even has a bottle opener in the bottom for your friends drinking from a bottle. To achieve the extremely attractive price point that they did, Ozark Trail likely had to sacrifice a few things in the quality department. The result is a cooler that doesn’t have quite the level of fit and finish as, say, a Yeti or an Engel.