Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am an HVAC professional. Many people complain that units do not cool very well, and typically the problem is that they failed to calculate the size of their room, amount of insulation, or heat load. If this is the size unit you need, keep reading! This unit works well. That is, the air blowing from the vent is very cold. The remote temperature sensor is an excellent idea, as in most houses the air very close to the unit will get cold long before the air at the far side of the room, causing the unit to turn off when the rest of the room is still warm. This unit resolves that issue--just set the desired temperature on the remote control, set the remote down, and point it toward the air conditioner and it will maintain the temperature. The three fan speeds are more than sufficient to let the user choose between a quieter unit (quiet being very relative, read on!) and having the cold air thrown further across the room. The fresh air intake or exhaust switch is a nice option, though it is a very small amount of air--I'd estimate about 2-4% of the air being moved by the unit. This is useful for preventing a well-insulated room from getting stale air, but it won't let you cool your room with outside air if it is cool outside and hot inside--you will still need to either run the air conditioning compressor or open a different window in the room. However, the unit is made of inferior materials. For instance, the part of the unit that separates the condenser (outside section of the unit) from the evaporator (the inside section of the unit) is made of very thin 3/8" styrofoam. The styrofoam sweats on the outside, indicating that you are losing some of the cold air you are paying for. In addition, the styrofoam is so thin that the interior of the unit is illuminated--it does not stop the sunlight from penetrating, so if you need to sleep in a dark room during the day, this may be a concern to you. The unit has two air vents which move independently up, down, left, and right, but there is only a slight perceptible difference in the actual airflow observed when moving the vents from blowing full left to full right. The unit is very loud. Before I purchased this unit, I researched the noise levels. Many units can be loud from poor installation and vibration, but I ensured this unit was installed properly and that all vibration was minimized. It is not the installation that is the problem, it is the design. The thin, thin styrofoam does not insulate from noise any better than it does from heat. The manufacturer's website claims that the unit emits 52dB of sound on low speed (this would be a very quiet air conditioner). Using a decibel meter, which measures sound, I was getting 65-67dB from this unit at a distance of 6-8 feet. (This is, by comparison, loud). It is louder than my clothes dryer, though not as loud as an average vacuum cleaner. Still, it is hard to sleep with the unit running on its lowest speed, and I am one who prefers white noise. The side filler panels (the accordion-looking pieces that expand left and right to fill the window frame) are painfully thin and leave large gaps within their own housing (what I mean is that this is not from poor installation, it is a design flaw) where bugs can get in and I can feel hot air blowing in from outside. If your window frame is larger than the unit, you will need to get some sort of foam insulation panels to help block the outdoor air from just blowing inside your room. In short, this unit performs as expected, but its design flaws lead me to put this unit outside in my shop instead of my bedroom. I much prefer my LG window air conditioner, which is built much better. It is quiet, seals well, and seems to be made of superior materials.