Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsHas some bad quirks, but overall ok so far
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2023
UPDATE 2
Happy 2024 folks. Fridge is still going strong after a few months, no new errors to report. Everything (and I mean everything) I said in the original review still applies. Handles have been fine for me, but I baby them a lot and hardly pull the cooler with me. Fridge side (when removing the divider) still not reaching proper temp with pre-chilled items inside (regardless of what others think). And once again, I own the larger 58qt version, not the 48qt other folks have alluded to. Vibration of the motor has increased a bit, but nothing alarming.
UPDATE
About a month of owning the fridge now and some new insights as well as defending my honor (lol). First of all, another reviewer (that posted later) had suggested some things I didn't do that caused my issues. For starters my fridge is the 58qt model, not the 48qt model. There's a lot more room to cool, and for all intents and purposes I see no difference between the models with having a different compressor installed (they're the same for all 3 models). Secondly, I've been around fridges quite a bit and know that you need to have things settle before they work properly; due to possibly having coolant being displaced while shipping. There's a sticker that comes with the unit that tells you to wait 24 hours before using the device - and that's what I did. Finally, I've owned the fridge for a month now and have used it daily both on trips and at home - and guess what? Same exact thing I said earlier in my review is accurate with all the same issues. The only problem that has arisen that didn't come up originally was a vibrating fan noise. The unit gets louder than I think is normal, but with my experience with other fridges; it's possibly an unbalanced cooling fan. Nothing too major, but something to note. That's all I wanted to say and will keep this review updated as time goes on.
---- ORIGINAL REVIEW ---
There are a lot of positive reviews for this device already, so I'm going to list some of the negative quirks this portable fridge has that will help balance out the praise. Overall, I think it's an ok unit for the price, but it definitely has some limitations.
The biggest appeal of this fridge was the fact that the inner divider could be removed giving you more space to use. Unfortunately, that causes a side effect that another reviewer had mentioned in terms of efficiency. You see no matter how low you set the overall temperature, the fridge side (where the raised indent is) can never really reach below 40F in my testing with a probe. When I loaded the fridge side with food, I was shocked to see anything placed on top of the raised indent to be hovering around 51F, even though my temperature was set to 35F overall. Keep in mind I had removed the divider, so there was only one temperature to set, and was not an error on my part setting the fridge temperature too high.
When using the unit for the first 24 hour burn in period, I got an "E6" notification on my display with a bunch of small beeps. Apparently these "E" codes are not mentioned anywhere in the manual that is provided and I had to look them up on another Euhomy fridge that is similar to this one (CF-55). The E6 "warning" is letting me know the display temperature and the internal probe don't agree. In other words, the E6 warning was letting me know something inside was either too cold or too hot. From my testing with a probe, the fridge side was "too hot" and thus why I got the weird "E6" notification. Remember this isn't talked about anywhere in the manual they give you - I had to look it up.
Finally, a minor grievance with the long handle design on the fridge. As another reviewer had stated, the handle is really on the thin side and can easily dislodge (or break off) if you're not careful with it. The smaller handles are a little bit sturdier, but I wouldn't use them to lift the fridge with stuff inside. If the fridge is empty, then I would feel confident lifting the entire fridge (via the small handles) and moving it somewhere. Otherwise, I would advise you simply have two people lift the fridge from the bottom if there's stuff inside to prevent damage to the handles.
At the end of the day, I think the results all lead to the same conclusion. That conclusion is that the compressor is underpowered for the space it is trying to keep cool. I heard a lot of folks saying portable fridges like this work just as well as mini fridges; and I have to disagree with that statement from what I've seen so far. It also could be a case of the EUHOMY CFA-55 just not being designed or built as well as others. You get what you pay for I guess.
That being said, I still think this fridge is better than any conventional cooler with ice and is good for short trips and weekends where you need something to keep things as cold as possible. I may have been griping about the inability for this fridge to keep temperature of things inside accurate, but even 51F on the fridge side is leaps and bounds better than a cooler with random ice packs floating around in a puddle of water.
I'll keep this review updated with EUHOMY in case I need to call in my 1 year warranty. Hopefully they'll still be around.