Very good portable air conditioner.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Quiet, Efficient, Maintenance Free, Convenient, Not too expensive.

Cons: A sliding glass door adapter would be nice.

The Bottom Line: 
Bottom line, this is a fantastic product that is well built and has an excellent warranty.

Author's Review
I purchased the 9,000 BTU version of this from Home Depot for $499 plus tax about 2 months ago, because I felt it was a good idea to wait some time before writing a review to get a true feel for this product, and I am very satisfied with the unit.

There are three fan speeds, the highest of which is pretty intense, it can be felt across my studio, which is a distance of about 30 feet. I cannot hear the difference in audible sound between the three, the compressor sound overcomes the fan sound, and that is not very loud itself. It's a pretty quiet unit. There are three modes, standard cooling, dehumidification mode, and fan only mode. There is a 24 hour timer, which means that when the unit is switched on, you can specify a number of hours, up to 24, when the unit will switch off. And vice versa, when the unit is off, you can set a number of hours to switch on. The unit has a remote control, batteries included, which has the exact same control buttons as the unit itself. The little Infrared LED on the remote is pretty small, but believe me, its powerful. I dont even need to point it at the unit, its signal will bounce off a ceiling or wall, even from across the room.

The temperature control is digital, and you can set it to either Farenheit or Centigrade. In my experiences, the displayed temperature is around 3 to 5 degrees (F) off from the actual ambient temperature, leaning on high side. This is possibly due to the exhaust hose being so close to the evaporator air input. So I just compensate by setting the desired temperature a few degrees higher then what I really want.

Manufacturer warranty is 5 years parts AND labor through any authorized servicers. On-site service can be requested but that extra service is not part of the warranty.

It is designed for 400 square feet, according to the box. I live in a studio of 480 square feet in total, but the main room that I am cooling is probably more like 450 square feet, and the unit still does a fine job. It always feels so nice to sleep at around 66-68 degrees. (Yeah, I live in South Florida and it still chills the air that much at nighttime)

I happen to also live in the center of a tall 10 story concrete building, so I dont have direct sun beating on any panel of the house, so keep that in mind when I speak about my success. This A/C comes with a window adapter to vent the hot air outside, however my unit does not have any windows, at all. It only has a sliding glass door. The unit did not come with an adapter for a sliding glass door, however I would bet not many portable units do. This was not that big of a problem, however.

I purchased some medium density fiberboard at Home Depot, which was already painted white on one side, the same color as my sliding glass door exterior. I cut it to the exact height of the door, and cut a hole the same size as the exhaust duct, and mounted the duct adapter to the fiberboard, and shazam. It was really not a hard thing to do. The only drawback is that I cannot lock the sliding glass door, however being several stories from ground level, that is not a worry.

The energy consumption is not very much. My central a/c unit is dead (30 years old, and finally kicked the bucket). Previous to owning this, I left the central A/C blower motor on all the time 24/7 (not the compressor, just the blower). Now I do not run that motor anymore, and just run the A/C about 8 hours a day, and the power draw comes out to be just about the same!! My electric bill hasn't changed. Its amazing.

The timer is wonderful. When I get up for work in the morning, I shut the unit off, hit the timer button, and set it to switch on 2 hours before I get home, so my studio is nice and cool when I get home. Thats gotta be the best feature. You can even set the timer from the remote control, so I dont need to walk across the house.

I also have not needed to empty the drip tray at all. Maytag says that the unit pumps the drip tray water over the condenser coils, to evaporate it and dump it outside as water vapor. I believe it. Very neat idea.