Best portable air conditioners of 2025

To test portable air conditioners, we heated a climate-controlled room to 92 degrees. After the room temperature reaches 92 degrees, we turn off the heat and turn the portable AC unit on cooling mode, with a medium fan speed and a set temperature of 68 degrees. We run the unit for 2 hours and 30 minutes and repeat the same test twice for each AC unit. We then use the data collected during the tests to measure two things:

• How consistently a portable air conditioner keeps the room temperature within 5% of 68 degrees
• Room stability is within 5% of the lowest individual air conditioning unit temperature

Once we have this information, we compare the results across units to see which ones maintained the set temperature for the longest period of time. We also look at which units have maintained their lowest individual temperature for the longest period. We did this so that if the unit didn’t reach 68 degrees on time, we could still track how well it continued to maintain the lowest temperature it achieved. The higher the ratio, the better the unit’s performance.

When looking at performance, it’s important to note that the units we tested don’t have identical specifications, so direct performance comparisons aren’t the only thing we take into consideration when arriving at our list of the best portable air conditioners. We also look at the unit’s features and other options in relation to its price and specifications to determine its overall value.

We also don’t make direct performance comparisons when looking at units of vastly different sizes and capacities, for example, the 12,000 BTU Midea MAP14HS1TBL versus the 5,500 BTU Frigidaire FHPC082AC1. For this reason, we compared the performance results in two groups based on coverage area. Specifically, we compared the smaller Midea, Black+Decker, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, and GE models (which all have 350 square feet of coverage) to each other and the larger Black+Decker, Wynter, Haier, LG, and Midea models (which have 500 to 550 square feet ) against each other.