Igloo Heavy-Duty 25 Qt BMX Ice Chest Cooler with Cool Riser Technology

Product Information

The rivets in the side where the nylon web handle attached would be the weakest spot on the cooler, but even when the Roadie 24 is filled with cans, food, and ice (it can get up to 40 pounds), the handle performs just as well as when the cooler is empty. Electric coolers are basically portable mini-fridges, and they’re best for those who are truly serious about their cooling needs. Electric coolers are expensive and only make sense if you have a generator running full-time during your camping trips. Size & Capacity It turns out the answer is simple: because it’s the best. In all of our tests, the Tundra was the winner.

Building on the success of the Igloo BMX and Yukon ranges, the IMX 70 is a 66 litre super heavy duty cool box designed for the most extreme of environments, including camping, mountaineering, fishing, or on your boat. Up to 7 days ice retention! While YETI does charge a premium for their brand, that may be perfectly ok for you as the style of the cooler and wide variety of matching gear is mainly what you’re after. Capacity I’ll dive deeper into how it actually performed in my ice retention and insulation tests, but the short version is that it held its own compared to competitors that are 150-250% the price.

Conclusion

Using insulation within their walls, many of today’s coolers can keep ice, drinks and food cool even when you’re outdoors in 100-degree-plus heat. Although you’ll pay more than you would for a traditional type of cooler, you’ll get the convenience that comes with tossing drinks, food and ice into your cooler in the morning and having those items remain cool late that afternoon. In fact, some coolers can even chill items for several days. At the time of this writing, Igloo has 3 different models of their BMX Ice Chest to choose from: The BMX 25QT, BMX 52QT, and BMX 72QT. These sizes hit the normal optimal size ranges that we see most people request. The YETI Roadie 24 is extremely well-built. I can’t say that it’s sturdier or tougher than the Orca or RTIC, but it’s certainly a step in quality above the Igloo BMX 25. Portability Nothing enhances a hot summer day like an ice-cold beverage or some refreshing food like chopped fruit. If you find yourself outside in areas where there isn’t electricity or the availability of a refrigerator, you will need an insulated cooler that can keep these cold treats cold during a hot day.

Though the Dometic CFX3 doesn't have an energy-saving mode like many other powered coolers, it does have different levels of battery conservation that ensure it won't prevent you from starting your car in the morning. And even while cooling, it draws just 50.7 watts, which is on the low end of powered coolers we tested. Our biggest complaint about this cooler is that its cords are barely over six feet long, which just doesn't get you very far from the outlet. It's also very expensive, but if you're ready to take the plunge into the iceless world of powered coolers, the Dometic is consistently the best-performing model we've tested. If you value energy efficiency over longevity and cooling power, the Costway 54 is a budget-friendly cooler worth looking into. At 25 quarts, this Igloo BMX model has a capacity that is equivalent to 37 12oz cans. Plenty of space then for a day trip but for longer duration trips you may find that you need something larger. Although the handles are made of a foam that feels cheaper than the Yeti’s rubber, they were actually more comfortable to carry. We wouldn’t call this cooler easy to carry for one person, especially given how heavy it was when loaded up, but it’s manageable. With two people, it’s a breeze. The IMX 70 cool box features Igloo Ultratherm and CoolRiser technology, meaning that not only is the IMX 70 cool box extremely rugged and strong, but it can keep ice frozen for up to 7 days*! Heavy duty durability, light in weightBeing a new addition to Igloo’s offerings doesn’t leave the BMX series with a long list of size offerings at the moment, but the purpose with this offering is to make them light enough to provide customers an easy time carrying them while being just as tough as the biggest options in the ice chest world. The insulation was better than we expected, but still not on par with the premium coolers in our test. Coleman claims that the Xtreme holds ice for 5 days. We could see that being the case only if it were filled with a lot of ice. This option is able to keep food and drinks cold for up to 4 days, thanks to a foam similar to that used by Igloo, and it comes with a leak-resistant design and an exterior that can handle the worst of weather conditions. Overall, we found little to say against the Yeti Tundra. It’s expensive, but if you want a top-of-the-line camping cooler, this one is well worth the investment. Product Specs Where Igloo easily beats Yeti is at the price point. Yeti has and continues to be one of the most expensive cooler brands in the industry. For many, the price that you pay to own a Yeti just isn’t worth the slight performance advantage you may see. Igloo offers up comparable performance at a fraction of the price.

The YETI Roadie 24 is far more expensive than some of its competitors. While it is stronger in the insulation category (plenty of data on that below), the practical difference isn’t so massive that it warrants double the price. The weather is starting to cool down some here in Texas so the outdoor testing isn’t quite as demanding as if this test were performed in August. Because of this, the ice retention numbers that we found may not exactly coincide with the true numbers that you will experience. There are a lot of variables at play here so we stress that our numbers only be used as a rough guide for what you can expect in similar conditions. Igloo appears to be going through a bit of a facelift among its cooler lineups. As you can see from the many Igloo Coolers that we have reviewed in the past, their lineup is enormous. It can be hard to keep up with all of the products and the oftentimes subtle tweaks that they made to them each year. One of the biggest differences is in the front latches. The Roadie 20 has similar rubber “T-Rex” handles that you can find on the Orca and RTIC, where the Roadie 24 has the hard plastic latches that are much sturdier and easier to open. In the case of the large ones, the 52-quart, and the 72-quart one, we're talking about 4 to 5 days on average. If you adhere to some of tips on how to improve the ice retention in a cooler, then you should be able to extend the timeframe by another day.

That being said, the Igloo BMX series will be more expensive than most other Igloo coolers in the same size range. But this is to be expected considering that you are getting superior build quality, features, durability, and ice retention. Coolers come in varying sizes, even among specific brands and models. Determine upfront what you’re likely to carry in your cooler and how much room that will take. Some coolers offer 54 quarts of usable space inside, which totals more than 85 cans if you’re only using it to keep drinks cold. You’ll get between 65 and 70 quarts of space with some other models.