Best Small Coolers

With about 1 inch of insulation, the Coleman Chiller Cooler is great at maintaining a cool temperature. Its performance is on a par with the Yeti (featured below), and it costs $180 less. “The Coleman is relatively easy to open and can take a beating,” Amézquita says. “The rigid flat top can serve as a small table, and a ledge inside can hold a small tray for food.” A large bail handle makes it easy to tote, but the hard-sided cooler weighs almost 3 pounds before you even put anything in it.

The manufacturer claims the cooler can hold four cans with 4 pounds of ice. We were able to fit seven cans in it with less ice, and it was still able to keep our drinks icy cold for 3 hours at room temperature and 2 hours at 100° F.

The Yeti Hopper Flip 8 is the top performer in our lab tests, thoroughly chilling eight cans and ice for hours. If you want to only pack cans or only ice, the manufacturer claims it can hold 11 cans or 10 pounds of ice at once. The semi-soft cooler is claimed to be leakproof and has a heavy-duty zipper that can handle your most extreme outdoor adventures, but it can be tough to open and close. The cooler comes with a grease pen to help lube up the zipper. It has a long shoulder strap that makes carrying it easier, but it is one of the heavier coolers we tested, weighing almost 3 pounds when empty.

If the Coleman cooler is unavailable but you want a small cooler at that price, the Igloo Playmate Pal is a great alternative. The Playmate Pal cooler is a middle-of-the-pack cooler with a hard shell and a handle with a push lock that you can operate with one hand. The manufacturer claims it can fit nine cans, but we got only six in there, along with ice. This cooler ranks No. 1 for preventing ice melt at room temperature, but the Coleman and Yeti (featured above) performed better once the room temperature rose to 100° F.

“The RTIC Everyday Cooler was below-average when it comes to maintaining temperature,” Amézquita says. The insulation is relatively thin, about half the thickness of our top three coolers, so it allows slightly more ice meltage, but it’s a fair trade-off if you want to knock off a couple of pounds from your schlepping load. The soft case is relatively small and weighs 1 pound, which makes it nice and portable. We fit six cans into the soft cooler with ice, but the manufacturer says it is designed to be used with their RTIC ice packs, sold separately ($15 to $35).

“A removable bottle opener is attached to the cooler’s front side,” Amézquita says. “However, this cooler is too small to hold most glass bottles, which are generally 9.5 inches tall.” When you’re not using the cooler, it folds into its lid for low-profile storage.

This semi-soft cooler has an optional shelf to separate your food from beverages and ice. It can fit six cans with ice, although the manufacturer claims it can fit nine. Compared with the other models in this review, it was among the worst at maintaining a frosty temperature once the heat rose. At 100° F, the Titan lost 9 to 10 percent more ice than our top three picks.

The soft-sided Carhartt Deluxe Lunch Cooler is the lightest of the six by far, weighing in at less than a pound, and it fits nine cans with ice. However, the accolades end there. “This cooler, and its very thin insulation, was the worst at maintaining a cold temperature,” Améquita says. It lost a quarter of its ice at room temperature and 58 percent in the 100° F chamber.