Polar Bear Coolers H2O Soft Cooler 12 Pack

Polar Bear H20 12pack - First Impressions Type in coolers in any search engine and you will be bombarded with more choices, colors and fancy words then you were probably hoping for. You will soon realize that you need to make one vital choice in coolers. Do I go with a hard or soft cooler? If you choose hard you have a whole new set of things to look for, but if you go with soft coolers your options will vary even more. Some of the big names in the game currently are Yeti, Coleman, Polarbear, RTIC, Igloo and more. Yeti is the dominate name in most peoples mind, Coleman comes in as a popular brand but more on the less expensive side followed by Igloo and RTIC. RTIC I added because they seem to be making huge strides but from all the reviews they are always 3 months behind on their products. Polar bear was not one I had heard much about but after research they seemed to have a huge following. Most of their customers would say things like: "Had mine over 10 years" "Perfect" "Take my lunch every day in one" I decided to give Polar Bear a try for a couple reasons. 1.) Price. Our money is precious and we work hard for it. I want something that is going to work but not break the bank. Polar Bear coolers come in substantialy less than the top competitors of Yeti and Bison. 2.) Function. I wanted a cooler that could take a beating and keep ice while doing it. Polar Bear claims around 3 days of ice retention with their cooler and the new H20 series claims to keep water in, or out, depending your needs. 3.) Looks. Yes I added looks because we don't want a cooler that looks horrible. Most of the times a cooler goes with us on a lot of trips and we are seen with it often so naturally we would want something that looks good too. In the end we went with the Polar Bear H20 12 pack. I figured it looked good, reviews were great and it would go perfect for our lifestyle of paddle boarding, mountain biking, rafting and general camping/backpacking. First Impression - This thing is well built! The outer shell is extremely durable and does not seem like something you could easily break or tear. Polar Bear calls their outer shell Tarpaulin All the buckles, hooks and zippers seem extremely durable compared to most products we receive these days. There are no visible markings or misprints in the design and the stitching seems very consistent throughout. Opening the cooler reveals the inside DuraTemp liner. The inside is one of those things that if you have never had a cooler like this before you are not sure what. The DuraTemp liner is thick, moldable and just like the out does not seem like something you could easily break or rip. The inside was the first thing both myself and my wife said "Oh, wow" as we felt it and molded it. So far we are very impressed with the cooler and the overall build quality. We will be taking it out soon and putting it through the paces. If you feel like watching Ice melt there are several videos on YouTube that will show ice retention day by day. Are these videos impressive? Sure but at the end of the day I don't need to just put Ice in my cooler and let it sit for hours on end. My cooler needs to be able to hold up to Paddle boarding, hiking, camping and ensure i come back to cold drinks and cool food. I will let you know my final thoughts after I put it through the tests.