Coleman dropped the ball on this one

Ok, I normally don't bash a product.  Its not my style to bad mouth companies, and typically its wasted energy.  But this time i just have to vent.   If you have seen much of my blog you know I think highly of the Coleman company.  I use a lot of their gear camping, we buy a lot of there gear with the Boy Scout troop, and Coleman products are an intricate part of my evac and emergency plan.   Now sure there are better high end products out there in most categories, but the balance between price and performance, Coleman usually comes out way ahead.  That is way I'm so pissed off with my latest Coleman purchase of a Coleman Xtreme cooler.

The one you see here is my work horse.  It lives up to the 5 day title and then some!  I chased it down and paid top dollar at REI for it years ago, when the Xtreme wasn't available most places. Its only draw back is size.  While perfect for family camping weekend, or filling with drinks for a long weekend of friends on the deck, it was way to big to be toting off by myself to keep in my tent at scouting campouts.

Now when I saw the Coleman Xtreme cooler line got expanded to include a 28 liter, I couldn't wait.  Finally a cooler that looked good, and could keep my drinks and food cold the whole weekend without fail, in the size i would use most often. I jumped on the first one I actually saw in the store.

Now for its main function as a cooler, it, just like its big brother, is amazing.  While the small one is advertised as a 3 day, my way of packing gets me 4 to 5 days of cold.  The fact that its designed  slightly tall, so it can hold 2 liter pop bottles makes it outstanding.   So whats the problem, right?   Well, the second main function is mobility.  That means you plan to carry the thing to and from some location, and THAT is where Coleman fell down on the job.

Here is a close up of the handle.  In trying to make a comfortable grip, they don't continue that little "I beam" type structure all the way across the handle, and they fill in with a soft grip.   Well thats great walking around the store with it empty headed to the casher, but that lack of rigidity allows a lot of flex when you cary a full cooler.  I mean a LOT of flex.  In fact, i'm pretty sure its going to break in half on me soon.

Now for most people, their coolers sit in a garage or basement all but a couple of hours, but with BSA campouts monthly, along with other events, I planned to use this cooler frequently. Its disappointing when a small but critical shortfall can hamper a potentially great product.

Oh, and here is my way of packing.  I got this from a fisherman in Florida.  First, freeze 2 liter bottles of water in your freezer (for the little cooler I use 4 for the big one 6 or 8). Why 2 liters instead of the ice/freeze pacs?  because they're free!  If the cooler is hot, or stored in a garage, bring the cooler inside a day before use and let it pre chill, you can even throw a sacrificial bag of ice in if you want to really help cool down the insulation.  So depending on if its just drinks, or drinks and food, you can drain or dump the ice and put the frozen 2 liters bottles in.  Then fill with whatever you're taking.  This is great for food, because if you choose to dump the ice, there is no water to make everything mushy and soggy, but the temp will stay cold.  Nothing worse then a package of beef and hot dogs and sticks of butter swimming abound in a cooler full of water for a weekend.  You can even drink the cold water from the bottles, if need be.  These pictures are of the little cooler on day 3, and you can see the 2 liters are still frozen. They were finally thawed and just cold water on day 5.

I still love Coleman, and i'm going to baby the damn cooler as best i can, but i really wish they would have put dual side handles on the ends like the big one has.