Xboxaddict.com Article


Xbox Mini Fridge Review

by Josh Morgan


Xbox Mini Fridge


Features:
· $99 USD
· Plugs into either standard AC wall outlet or DC 12V automobile jack (cables included)
· 10L capacity thermoelectric cooler for home or vehicle use
· Holds up to 12 soda cans + 2 snack shelves inside the door
· Two removable interior shelves and two removable door shelves for snacks
· Top of fridge and Xbox logo light up with individual on/off switches
· 5V 2.1A USB port on front door for charging
· Cools items up to 36°F (20°C) below ambient temperature
· Exterior Dimensions: 18" x 9" x 9" (462mm x 232mm x 232mm)
· Interior Dimensions: 13.2" x 6.8" x 6.8" (337mm x 174mm x 175mm)



I have been an Xbox fan since day one of the first Xbox launch. There I was at home playing hooky from work when it arrived in a massive box on my parents' front porch. I went all out with one of the bundles. It came with an extra controller, DVD remote and about 4 games. Only one mattered though... Mad Dash Racing. Ha, you know I'm kidding; Halo changed my life. I'm serious, because of Halo I got really close to a group of local friends when we started having LAN parties at our houses on a weekly basis. From there it evolved to online play when Xbox LIVE launched and chatting on message boards about Xbox and it's games. Since then, across multiple generations I continued to make friends that I still talk to today.

Xbox Mini Fridge


To say I am a fan of Xbox is an understatement, and all this 20 Years of Xbox talk has taken its toll on my wallet for sure. I got the 20th anniversary Xbox Controller, the Dark Horse Master Chief statue on pre-order, and I'm also a backer of the XboxEra "Official Guide" to the original Xbox and it's 20-year history that will begin to ship June of 2022. When the Xbox Mini Fridge was first talked about on Twitter, I knew I had to have one, even more so if it was a limited run.

Xbox Mini Fridge


For those of you that are wondering why this product even exists, I'll give you a small recap. Xbox's marketing team has been on fire all of 2020 and 2021. They've embraced the memes and are using them to their advantage. In December 2019 at the Game Awards the Xbox Series X was shown off for the first time. While press and fans were mostly positive about the news, there were a lot of comments and photoshopped images about it being shaped like a refrigerator. In May of 2020 when Xbox held a digital event showing off new games for the Xbox Series X, they cut to a live feed of Aaron Greenberg (head of Xbox Marketing) over Zoom and he had photoshopped a large Xbox Series X over where his refrigerator usually sits in his kitchen and used it as a background for his segment. In October of 2020 Xbox celebrated known gamer Snoop Dogg's birthday with a life-sized Xbox Series X Fridge and the talks about Xbox releasing this product to the world started.

Xbox Mini Fridge
In April of 2021 all the memes and joke articles became a reality when Aaron Greenberg announced on Twitter that if Xbox won the "Best of Tweets" for best marketing Twitter account that Xbox would produce and sell Xbox Series X themed mini fridges to the public. Word spread like wildfire and Xbox went on to defeat Skittles in a "too close for comfort" win with the final score being 50.9% to 49.01%. Aaron quickly made it clear he was not joking about the mini-fridge, and we would be seeing more later in the year.
Xbox Mini FridgeLate September of 2021 the stars aligned, and I was able to score one for pre-order. Hearing about the pre-order process after, it sounded like a total ****-show and large quantities of fridges were bought by scalpers and listings on eBay started to show up for $400 or more minutes later. I don't know how I scored one, I was simply just refreshing the page and it popped up for me to complete the process. I had no clue about the trouble's others were having until I had already got my confirmation email. I guess the green gods favored me that day.

Xbox Mini Fridge

I was expecting at least a little weight to it as I was lifting it out of the box, but it is surprising how light it really is. This is because it's not really a refrigerator, as it lacks the condensing unit those modern fridges use to cool down the inside. This is better described as an electric cooler. Which isn't a bad thing, but I think some people will be disappointed at the temperatures this keeps your beverages at, but more on that later. The build quality is about what you would expect from a $100 USD novelty item. It looks exactly like an Xbox Series X and even has all the ports and buttons accurately placed on it on front and back. The flat black exterior case matches the Series X perfectly and once plugged in, the white Xbox button on the face glows white and a green light emits from inside the fan holes. There is also a working USB port on the face of the mini fridge that you can use to charge your devices. Opening the fridge, you are greeted with Xbox green interior walls and moveable shelves. This is the highlight of the replica, the look. It looks exactly like a larger Xbox Series X and for that alone it's worth it to me.

Xbox Mini Fridge
I don't know how, but I think people were confused by the term mini fridge because I see a lot of people complaining that it doesn't hold a lot. I swear, you just can't make everyone happy and sometimes I wonder why these companies try. It's right in the name; mini fridge. Not medium fridge or normal fridge, mini fridge. It advertises that it holds 12 cans of pop (I refuse to call it soda!) and they are exactly right. I also fit a few other objects inside to show the space that it offers. It holds 1 gallon of milk, a single 2-liter bottle of pop, 1 Deadpool head, and 1 Xbox Series X, but it cannot hold the PlayStation 5.

Xbox Mini Fridge
As I said above, some people are going to be disappointed that this unit doesn't keep your stuff super cold. I loaded up the fridge with 12 warm cans of pop and let it work overnight and the cans were barely colder than when I put them in. To test how it maintains cold cans, I pulled 12 from our main fridge and put them in the Xbox replica and left those overnight. They were much colder and very close to the temperature of the main fridge. So, it does a good job of maintaining an already cold beverage, but a not so good job of making warm stuff cold.

Xbox Mini Fridge
Now onto the fan. Boy oh boy does this baby rip. I could hear it at the top of my stairs to the basement where I keep all my gaming stuff. It's louder than a PS4 playing God of War on a summer day. It's louder than a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant (it's almost Christmas, look it up). It's louder than your car windows open on the highway. It's louder than Janice's laugh. It's louder than your kids on Christmas morning. It's louder than that time you got your tooth drilled at the dentist. It's just loud. But luckily the lights and the cooling fan are not controlled by the same on/off switch so you can just keep the cooling part off and you'll still have an awesome replica piece of gaming history.

Xbox Mini Fridge
I didn't buy this because I was looking for a working fridge, I have a full-sized fridge less than 20 feet from my gaming space. I bought this as a novelty item that looks great in my gaming area. For that, it is exactly what I wanted. It looks exactly like an Xbox Series X, and it's a great talking point for people when they come by. The lights operate by themselves so I can turn off the ridiculously loud fan and those stay on. If you are an Xbox collector and want another memento from its 20 year history then you are going to love it. If you don't have a fridge in your gaming area and are hoping this fits that bill, then you might want to look into an actual refrigerator with a condensing unit and coils.

Fridge Score: 8/10




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