BougeRV CRPRO25 Portable Car Fridge Review

Keep Cool This Summer

But in modern times, where technology is abundant, we think it’s time to upgrade from cooler to fridge. A portable fridge like the BougeRV CRPRO25. With a 26-quart capacity, it’s roughly the same size as most ridged, plastic coolers. Unlike a cooler though, the BougeRV unit is not reliant on icepacks to keep it cool. It’s fully powered and can work as a fridge or a freezer, capable of setting temperatures as low as -8F or as high as 50F.

BougeRV makes a variety of portable fridges in different sizes, colors, and shapes. The CRPRO25 is available in black or white, and uses either 12V/24V AC or DC power input. That means it can plug into a cars accessory port (aka cigarette lighter), or a conventional wall outlet. It consumes up to 45W in MAX mode or 36W in ECO mode, which can be set by the user. This is designed to help ensure a vehicle’s battery is protected from being run down. While operating, the fridge hums along at a reasonable 45 dB sound level. For reference, that’s quieter than a conventional refrigerator, and slightly louder than a library.

To see how life with a BougeRV CRPRO25 portable car fridge is, we received a unit directly from the company to put to the test.

Useful Touches

The fridge features a touch-button LED panel that’s easy to read, and even easy to operate. In direct sunlight, it’s a bit hard to see, but otherwise great. While on the topic of great, there’s an LED inside the fridge that lights up every time the lid opens. This is much appreciated when grabbing a drink from the fridge at night in the dark.

To keep the BougeRV unit in place, there are two safety tow straps on either side. This allows the fridge to be strapped down in a cargo area. With a dry weight of 26.89 pounds, we just had the fridge on a rubber mat and loaded up, it never moved; even when driving around the high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway.

Putting it to the Test

That was just part of our evaluation of the fridge over the course of a 2,500-mile North American road trip. On this adventure, we drove a 2023 Ram 1500 Limited which includes a 115V conventional outlet on the back of the center console. This allowed us to plug the fridge in with a regular two-prong plug during our trip.

We set the fridge to 42F and used it primarily to keep drinks cool as well as some food items like fruit, chocolate, and leftovers. On our first day, it took about an hour for the fridge to get most of our drinks cooled down to the desired temperature. From that point on, over the course of eight days, we never had a warm drink again.

When the truck was running, the fridge automatically cools everything down to the previously set temperature (42F in this case). Other than the initial beep from the fridge when it turns on, we barely noticed it operating at all. There’s just a faint hum from the cooling fan.

When the truck is off, the fridge doubles as a cooler and keeps items cold for hours. If we went to get a drink 3 hours later, it was barely any warmer than when the fridge was running. Even the next morning, 12 hours later, items in the fridge were still fairly cool.

Stationary Power

For the campers and tailgate partiers, there is another way to keep the portable fridge running without a vehicle or plug. BougeRV offers a 220Wh Portable Power Station that’s a giant rechargeable battery.

When fully charged, it can keep fridge powered for up to 6 hours. In my experience, I was getting around 5 hours of charge. There's no performance decrease from the fridge while powered by the Portable Power Station either.

Once depleted, the battery recharges to 80% capacity from either a wall outlet or car plug in around 3 hours. The weight of this power bank is 3.3 pounds.

The Verdict

Swapping from a cooler to a portable fridge makes a lot of sense. The ability to cool items, not just keep them cool, is a major plus on a road trip or camping adventure. Having a unit that works as well and is as easy to use as the BougeRV CRPRO25 Portable Car Fridge is well worth the investment.

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Promo Codes

Save 30% on all CRPRO 30Qt fridges at bougerv.com with the promo code BJ30. Also, save 25% on all BougeRV fridges with the promo code BJAFF25. Both offers expire on August 1, 2024.