After you buy a new car with all the flash and fancy options that you never knew you needed, like a heated steering wheel, you can never imagine going back to poverty spec. ever again. That is just how I feel after using the Ecoflow Glacier for a couple of months.

At this point you may have skipped to the end of this review and taken a look at the price and thought

“Wow, I can get a cooler or small fridge for just a couple of hundred quid, what’s so special about the Glacier?”

Well, I’m glad you asked.

The Ecoflow Glacier is the company's first portable fridge and freezer that can be used as either a fridge, a freezer or both with two independently controllable zones via the unit itself or its app.

Okay, there are a lot of products out there that can do this, but can they also create up to 18 ice cubes at a time within 12-15 minutes? Can other units be charged at home, via a 12v system and using solar? Can the fridge section be cooled to 4ºC from an ambient temperature of 13ºC, and the freezer down to -18ºC in around 20 minutes?

No, well the Glacier can do them all, and it also has a quick freezing mode that will go from 30ºC down to zero in just 15 minutes.

So, before we get started with more details, what’s in the box?

Opt for just the Glacier and you get the unit itself, an AC power adaptor and cable, 12v car charging cable, guides and warranty details, a small plastic ice scoop and basket for the fridge.  The battery is extra, which is not necessarily a big deal, and I’ll get to that later.

The fridge freezer

Unlike some other portable fridge freezers, the large lid can only be opened one way, but once opened you have a massive 38 litres internal cavity.  To give you an idea of what 38 litres looks like, that’s sixty 330ml cans of pop!

To make into two compartments there’s a divider panel that’s found clipped into a dedicated space on the inside of the lid.

The Glacier will automatically know when the divider is placed into position, and on the large, easy-to-read display panel, and on the app, it will show the two independently controllable compartments, clever stuff.  On the front there are five equally large, simple buttons for setting temperatures and making ice.

The ice-maker

Once you’ve made ice cubes for your drinks on a hot day in the middle of nowhere, or on a beach, you will never want to go back to a normal cooler again.

On the right hand side of the Glacier, just above the LED display, there is a compartment in which you pour water, and within 12-15 minutes you have 18 ice cubes (well they are more domes than cubes, but we'll stick to cubes for simplicity) that you can use immediately, or place into a container and keep in the freezer section for later.  There’s no limit to how many cubes you can make, you just need to keep the water topped up, though I estimate that for every batch of ice you lose around 5% battery life.

Incidentally, the tray isn't a typical silicone mould, instead it’s a plastic basket with holes on the bottom, through which a series of metal fingers in the base push through. It’s these fingers that freeze the water, forming domed ice cubes around them. One thing to note, if you're running directly from 12v then you can't make ice - you need the optional battery unit installed, or AC power, to do so.

On the same end as the ice-maker, behind a small ‘catch’, you’ll find a hose for draining out excess water from the ice maker compartment

Powering and charging

As I mentioned earlier, the basic Glacier package doesn’t include a battery, but without one it can still be powered by AC, a 12v car socket, and if you have a portable EcoFlow battery capable of at least 180w output, that’ll do nicely.

If you opt for the battery, Ecoflow say that by using a 240w solar panel it can be fully charged in around 2.1 hours, AC charging in 2.2 hours and 4 hours when using your vehicle’s 12v.

With the the optional 298Wh battery installed, and using Eco mode, the Glacier can run for up to 40 hours, that’s assuming the outside temp is around 25°C and Glacier's temperature set to 4°C.

In normal use, starting with 100% battery, I set the fridge to 4°C and the freezer to -18°C, and it took just under 25 minutes to reach the desired temperatures which drained the battery to 87%.  With both compartments empty I left it switched on for the next 12 hours, and it still had 29% battery life left.

The App

I find myself using the EcoFlow App more than the controls on the actual unit, not because they’re difficult, it’s a portable fridge so there isn’t a huge amount of settings to manage, but it’s easy works seamlessly.

Accessories

If you are buying a Glacier to keep in your 4x4, boat, camper van or shed and it’s permanently plugged in, then you don’t necessarily need any of the accessories.  However, if you are like me and regularly move it around from vehicle to tent, beach, garden, and then carry back to the house, then I would recommend buying the detachable lever and wheels.

Even though 23kg may not be that heavy, the Glacier measures 776 × 385 × 445 mm (not including the handles) so it's large and quite cumbersome.  Add food and drink to the mix and you will want those wheels and lever!

This is the longest product review I’ve written in a long time, but there's still more to mention,  like the two internal LED lights within the fridge freezer compartments, and that on the additional battery there’s an 100W max. USB-C charging socket, so it’ll charge your accessories whilst keeping your lamb chops lovely and fresh.

Overall I’m totally happy with the Glacier, and if I don’t get to get to test another other fridge freezer other than this, that’s fine by me.

price:

• Unit - £1,049

• Unit with battery - currently £1,249 (usually £1,348)

• Unit with battery & wheels - currently £1,358 (usually £1,457)

more at » uk.ecoflow.com

Reviewed in Issue 51 - September 2023