Best Portable Air Conditioners of 2025
To test portable air conditioners, we heated a climate-controlled room to 92 degrees. When the room temperature reached 92 degrees, we turned off the heater, turned the portable air conditioner on to cooling mode, set the fan speed to medium, and set the temperature to 68 degrees. We ran the unit for 2 hours and 30 minutes and repeated the same test twice for each air conditioning unit. We then use the data collected during testing to measure two things:
- How a Portable Air Conditioner Keeps Room Temperature Within 5% of 68 Degrees at All Times
- How it always keeps the room temperature within 5% of the minimum temperature of the air conditioning unit alone
Once we have this information, we compare the results across devices to see which ones maintain the set temperature the longest. We also looked at which units maintained their respective lowest temperatures the longest. We do this so that if a device doesn’t reach 68 degrees within a specified time, we can still track how consistently it maintains the lowest temperature it reaches. The higher the percentage, the better the unit performs.
When looking at performance, it’s important to note that the units we tested didn’t have the same specs, so a direct performance comparison wasn’t the only factor we considered when coming up with our list of the best portable air conditioners. We also look at a device’s features and other options against its price and specifications to determine its overall value.
We also don’t make direct performance comparisons when looking at devices with vastly different sizes and features, such as the 12,000 Btu Midea MAP14HS1TBL versus the 5,500 Btu Frigidaire FHPC082AC1. Therefore, we compared the performance results of the two groups based on coverage. Specifically, we compared the smaller Midea, Black+Decker, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, and GE models (which all cover up to 350 square feet) to the larger Black+Decker, Whynter, Haier, LG, and Midea models ( It covers an area of ​​500 to 550 square feet).
