6 Best Portable Air Conditioner of 2024

If you have recently been shopping for a portable AC, then you know there are a number of options available on the market-from small hand-carried units for a small home office or bedroom to semi-permanent units built to fit several spaces. Here are our best pick down below .

Here are the best portable air conditioners you can buy in 2024:

• Best Overall: De'Longhi PACAN120EW 3-in-1 Portable Air Conditioner
• Runner Up: Shinco 8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner
• Best Budget: Global Air YPL310C 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner
• Premium Choice: Whynter ARC-14SH 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner
• Best Energy Saving: LG LP1419IVSM 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner
• Best for Small Space: NewAir AC-10100E 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

Best Overall: De'Longhi PACAN120EW 3-in-1 Portable Air Conditioner

De'Longhi PACAN120EW 3-in-1 Portable Air Conditioner

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The DeLonghi America PACAN120EW has a comparatively low decibel rating of 53 at its peak setting, but with one press of the Whisper Mode button, you've reduced the noise level by almost half. Whisper Mode tends to be an incredibly powerful fan setting that helps to spread a good volume of cold air without the noise level of a high fan setting.

The screen on the DeLonghi America PACAN120EW has three different light colors to let you know when you're getting close to your set temperature and when you finally hit it, keeping you updated from around the room. The DeLonghi America PACAN120EW is a fantastic machine, but it might be much better if they were tweaking one little thing.

Runner Up: Shinco 8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

Shinco 8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

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Shinco SPF2 (8,000 BTU) is our option for those running on a tight budget – or for those looking to cool and dehumidify a smaller room. It has comparable features to its more costly alternatives, but the dehumidifying capacity of 60 pints a day makes it less suitable humidity.

Best Budget: Global Air YPL310C 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

Global Air YPL310C 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

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The Global Air 10,000 BTU unit is no-frills when it comes to functionality, but it is a very powerful unit that makes use of a streamlined, appealing architecture that fits effortlessly into every space while offering smooth and quiet service. If you choose not to empty your unit, you'll enjoy Global Air. It uses a self-evaporative device that also acts to cool the condenser by recycling any residual condensation.

Global Air has a 2-speed cooling fan along with a 4-way air direction to help disperse the air uniformly across the room. The remote control helps you to control the air conditioner from across the room, while the digital controls give you an on-board alternative.

Premium Choice: Whynter ARC-14SH 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

Whynter ARC-14SH 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

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With other portable air conditioners, this device is only useful during hot seasons. The Whynter ARC-14SH, on the other hand, is useful during the year due to its 4-in-1 versatility. It has two main modes: heating and cooling. Its cooling range is 61 ° F-89 ° F and its heating range is 61 ° F-77 ° F.

So, when it's winter, you can also use the Whynter ARC-14SH for space heating. The other two modes are normal functions found in most portable ACs. They're just a fan and a dehumidifier. The dehumidifier will extract up to 101 pints of moisture from the air in one day.

The Whynter ARC-14SH uses a dual-hose ventilation system to increase its performance while remarkably matching the room's air pressure and feel. That's necessary for a wide space.

Best Energy Saving: LG LP1419IVSM 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

LG LP1419IVSM 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

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The LG LP1419IVSM incorporates a lot more equipment than most portable air conditioners. Let 's start with the most critical one, the dual inverter compressor. Ordinary compressors turn on when cooling is required and off when room temperature is set. They've just got two ways – on and off.

In comparison, the inverter compressor powers the engine at different speeds to satisfy the cooling specifications. This means that the engine does not necessarily run at the optimum rpm, which saves energy.

Combined with a brushless DC motor, the LG LP1419IVSM runs remarkably softly for a portable AC of its size and strength. At the maximum fan speed, the noise frequency is about 52dB, which is louder than most portable ACs at the lowest fan speed.

Valued at 14,000 BTUs of cooling capacity, the LG LP1419IVSM rapidly reduces temperatures in spaces up to 500 square feet. If you need to cool down a wide-open living room, bedroom or some other space, the LG LP1419IVSM is a great option.

Best for Small Space: NewAir AC-10100E 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

NewAir AC-10100E 10,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

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The AC-10100E has a BTU rating of 10,000 making it suitable for rooms under 300 square feet while taking up limited space. This unit uses a single hose system and works with a window mounting package that can handle windows up to 42 inches.

The AC-10100E is self-evaporating, which ensures that you rarely have to think about emptying the unit 's moisture build-up. Although this isn't exactly an auto-evaporative, it's almost there.

The AC-10100E comes with a 12-hour timer, sleep mode, remote control, and auto-fan feature that automatically retains the fixed temperature by increasing and lowering the fan speed.

How To Choose The Best Portable Air Conditioner?

BTU

Your key requirements for portable air conditioners are from here. BTU, or British Thermal Unit, is a means of measuring the performance of a portable air conditioner which, in turn, determines the size of the room for which it is suitable.

Units with a higher BTU level are designed for use in larger spaces. Lower numbers for smaller spaces. Use a high BTU unit in a small room, and you'll end up with an overworked unit that won't be able to remove as much humidity, leaving you with a clammy, moist space.

Here estimates for four different room sizes:

200 sq ft - 8000BTU

300 sq ft - 10000BTU

400sq ft - 12000BTU

500sq ft - 14000BTU

VENTILATION

Portable air conditioning systems need to vent the hot air as part of the actual cooling process. The hot air has to be pushed directly to the outside of the building, or else you're cooling and heating the air in the room at the same time, and that's not exactly efficient. The airflow is connected through a hose, which can be sent out through a window, through a wall, or out of a sliding door. Make sure the hose is as straight as possible, with no loops or kinks, so that the air flows as easily as possible.

HOSE

A single-hose portable air conditioner pulls air from inside the room, cools it, and then sends much of the air back to the room. Any of this air is used to cool the machine, and the remainder is blown through the exhaust hose of the air conditioner.

Dual-hose systems suck the air out of the building, cool it down, and then release it back into the field. The machine gets hot during the process, so that one of the intake hoses pulls out of the air to cool off the unit. The air is then expelled into the second hose.

NOISE

You might not know it at first, but the noise level of a portable air conditioner is certainly worth considering.

You do not like having a machine that is a bit louder within your own space or office. In the other hand, putting one in another part of your house where you can do stuff like watching TV or hosting guests might be a major hindrance if it's loud.

DRAINAGE

When cooling, portable air conditioners extract water from the air. The eventual consequence is the condensation and build-up of water within the device, which needs to be handled.

Self-evaporative units eliminate all the condensate that is built, so that you can operate the unit without thinking about it overflowing.

Partially self-evaporative units could evaporate much of the moisture into their own hot air exhaust, causing little to no water to empty on its own.

Which Brands Make The Best Portable Air Conditioner?

LG

It is a South Korean multinational louder corporation. It's the fourth-largest chaebol in South Korea. Its headquarters are situated in the LG Twin Towers building in Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul. LG produces electronics, chemicals and telecommunications goods and runs subsidiaries such as LG Electronics, Zenith, LG Monitor, LG Uplus, LG Innotek and LG Chem in more than 80 countries.

De’Longhi

The company was founded in 1902 by the De 'Longhi family as a small industrial component manufacturing factory. The corporation was incorporated in 1950. Historically a large manufacturer of portable heaters and air conditioners, the business has grown to cover almost every group of small domestic appliances in food storage and heating, as well as home washing and ironing, segments.

Conclusion

If you want to do a little more homework on a particular portable cooler, look at what other consumers are saying on the Amazon product website. Find out what various customers are saying about usability, ease of use, customer service and overall experience. This will give you an idea of what to expect if you're going to opt for the particular air conditioner.