Best Countertop Ice Maker of 2020 – Expert Picks, Reviews And Buying Guide

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Today we'll be talking about portable ice makers. Specifically, we'll be sharing our views on some of the best countertop ice maker options available on the market in 2020.

Technology is a wonderful thing. It has enabled so many things in modern life that make life easier. Ice makers may not be as important as smartphones are these days, but what would people do without them?

These days, ice makers are used in homes, schools, hospitals, commercial spaces, and countless of other different places. Think, for a second, about the alternate world when there's no ice on demand. Scary, right?

Long gone are the days when the only option you had when you wanted ice was to put ice in an ice mold, put it in a freezer the night before, and hope it will be well frozen the next morning.

That's the best thing about ice makers – they make ice on demand. And, depending on the kind of ice maker you get, some even keep it cold for you in freezer storage.

In our two last posts, we’ve done a review on undercounter ice makers, and commercial nugget ice machines, respectively, and we thoroughly enjoyed doing a deep dive on those.

Today we’re going to do a deep dive on countertop ice makers, also popularly known as portable ice makers.

Not only will we give you a top 10 list of the best portable ice maker options in the market, but we will also give you a comprehensive buyer’s guide with some useful tips on how to pick your next ice maker, in case you want to be an informed buyer in this particular niche.

By the end, you should be a connoisseur of portable ice makers. Dive in!

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Countertop Ice Maker Reviews

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… And What’s the Best Portable Ice Maker That Keeps Ice Frozen?

Now, you might probably be interested in knowing if there is a portable ice maker that keeps ice frozen for a long while or, better yet, has a built-in freezer. The truth is that we really struggled to find one with a proper built-in freezer.

They are just not a thing in the countertop ice maker niche as they would severely hamper the portability of the ice maker.

That said, we did find some options with really well-insulated storage bins that were capable of keeping ice frozen longer than most other models on the market.

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Portable Ice Makers – Buyer’s Guide

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What is a Portable Ice Machine?

A portable ice machine, also known as a countertop ice maker, is an ice maker with the ability to make lots of ice without needing any special installation or storage niche.

As you might have gathered from the name, you can put it on a countertop and use it without worrying about any further logistics.

Now, even though the name is different from undercounter ice makers, portable ice makers work in much the same way. You have a cooling system that gets water to freeze into specially shaped ice cubes, and they do this in a fairly short period of time.

Don’t worry, in case you’re interested in this, we’ll go into the details of how a portable ice maker works below. For the most part, however, they work much the same as gas-cooled systems, which is the main reason why they are so light and easy to maintain.

It is because countertop ice makers are so small and light that they are often preferred, not only for regular kitchens but also RVs or tailgate parties.

You don’t need to have any specialized knowledge to install them or operate them, and they demand a lot less electricity than undercounter ice makers. For that reason, they’re also preferred by boat owners.

You’ll also find them at beach bars and at many poolsides, making them a very popular option.

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How Does a Countertop Ice Machine Work?

In order to answer this question, we should start with a little more general one:

How does an ice maker work?

This is a pretty interesting question if you think about it, considering the fact that we’ve had ice for over a century now.

In fact, we’ve had it for so long that we have come to take ice making for granted. I mean, all you have to do at the bare minimum is fill an ice mold or tray with water and put it in a freezer. 30 or so minutes later your water comes out the freezer as ice.

At the core, isn’t it the same idea with ice makers? Stick water in, get it frozen, and then take it out as ice?

Well, as much as that’s the high-level view, there are some variations in ice-making methods. Take clear ice makers, for example.

These don’t take pockets of water and freeze them into ice like your home refrigerator. They use a special layering method. A thin layer of water is first frozen, then another layer added and frozen and so on. It’s a ‘bottom-up’ style of ice making that resembles the formation of icicles in nature.

That way, no ice escaping particles will be caught in the water and form microscopic cracks and the ice remains crystal clear. 

But I digress.

What we’re most interested in here is how a countertop or portable ice maker works, so let’s take a look at that.

A portable ice maker works a little differently than your friendly home freezer. Rather than put an ice mold filled with water inside it, you just put in the water, which the portable ice maker freezes directly, which means you’ll get the ice a lot faster than you would from a standard freezer.

Below are the steps that occur in order for that ice to be made in countertop ice makers:

• The ice maker has a reservoir, which is filled with water. The reservoir has a fill line that tells you when it’s full. The important thing to note here is that there isn’t a water line feeding water directly to a portable ice maker. That’s why it’s portable: it doesn’t have to deal with these inconveniences. The tradeoff to this is that you have to fill the reservoir manually. You can do this with a container, such as a bucket, or by connecting a pipe to a faucet and directing the water into the reservoir.

• Once the water reservoir is full and the ice maker is switched on, the water in the reservoir is pumped through a hole at the bottom and through a water filter (if the ice maker has a water filter). It goes from the bottom all the way up to the ice tray, which sits at the top of the ice maker. The beauty of this design is that if the ice tray overflows then the extra flow will just spill right back into the reservoir, ensuring safety.

• Next, the refrigeration cycle begins. The average portable ice maker has ½-inch stainless steel prongs attached to a heat exchanger, which are then lowered into the ice tray. These prongs will get very cold very fast, and the water in the tray that comes into contact with them will begin to form ice on their surface in a few minutes. These prongs are shaped like bullets, and so the ice that forms on their surface tends to take on the shape of a bullet and the cubes are hollow where the prong was. That’s why it’s called bullet ice.

• The prongs will remain in the ice tray for some time, and the size of the ice cubes that are formed largely depends on how long the prongs are in contact with the water. The longer they are in, the thicker the ice that is formed. For the smaller ice cubes, a 6-minute wait is usually enough, with larger ice cubes taking about twice as long. That said, a lot of other factors can affect the time it takes to form ice cubes, including how long the ice maker has been running, the quality of the water, and the ambient temperature, among others.

  

• Once the ice is at the desired size, the ice tray will empty any leftover water back into the reservoir. The heat exchanger will also start heating up instead of freezing the bullet prongs just enough so that the ice cubes will slide off them and into the ice bin, which sits above the water reservoir.

• On a good ice maker, there is usually a sensor on the storage basket which closely monitors the level of ice in the basket, shutting off the entire ice maker as soon as the storage basket gets full.

It’s interesting to note a few things here:

• First of all, your average countertop ice maker is not a freezer. It can make ice, but it can’t keep it icy. It is very rare to find a portable ice maker that has freezer storage and you should expect to pay a pretty penny extra when you do find one. So you should either use the ice right away or take it and store it in your freezer for later use later.
• Many ice makers have a cool feature where any water from melting ice in the storage bin will simply drain back into the reservoir, where it will be used to make more ice. This helps to prevent wastage of water.
• The reason why a portable ice maker makes ice so quickly is that the bullet prongs come into direct contact with the water, which freezes the water much faster than a freezer (a freezer simply lowers air temperature so that water will freeze on its own).

So, I was a little curious about how exactly the refrigeration cycle worked, just so we could make this review more complete for those who are as curious as I am. If you’re not interested in that kind of stuff, of course, you can skip this section. If you are, let’s continue down the rabbit hole!

Refrigeration Cycle

The refrigeration cycle, also known as the vapor-compression cycle, is pretty common among ice makers, air conditioners, and even your home refrigerator and freezer.

It’s all based on thermodynamics, which is all about how energy, particularly heat (thermal energy), is transferred.

Your ice maker, just like your refrigerator, has a coolant inside it (often known simply as a refrigerant) that is continuously transformed into a gas (vapor) and then back into a liquid (compression).

It becomes a vapor by absorbing heat from the environment, cooling the environment in the process. When it loses that heat it then turns back into a liquid.

To make this possible, the average refrigeration system has 4 components that allow the coolant to keep changing from gas to liquid and back: the compressor, the condenser, the expansion water valve, and the evaporator.

• The compressor compresses the coolant and turns it into a high-pressure gas that is very hot.
• The condenser is a set of coiled pipes that dissipate the heat from the gas while maintaining the pressure, turning it into a high-pressure liquid.
• The expansion water valve releases the pressure on the coolant by letting it expand. In the process, the coolant rapidly cools down and turns back into a cold gas.
• The evaporator is a set of pipes on its own that uses the coolant to make the interior of the freezer/refrigerator/icemaker cold.

For a refrigerator or freezer, the cold air that forms as a result of the action of the evaporator slowly builds up in the insulated interior of the unit and makes things cold. For an air conditioner, the cold air cools the room down and is distributed everywhere by the air conditioner’s fan.

In a portable ice maker, the evaporator is directly attacked to the bullet-shaped prongs, which in turn freeze the water so that ice cubes form.

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What are the Advantages of Having an Ice Maker?

The most obvious one, of course, is that you don’t have to wait so long to get your ice since it makes ice in a matter of minutes. However, there are other great advantages as well:

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They are very portable

Countertop ice makers are so portable that their uses extend well beyond the kitchen. You can use them in your RV, on your boat, at pool parties, barbecues, and so much more. As long as you have a power source, you’re sorted.

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They are quite user friendly

You don’t need to have any special skills or read overly long and complicated user manuals to be able to operate a countertop ice maker. All you have to do is fill it with water, connect it to a power source, and switch it on. In a matter of minutes, you should have your ice.

They have great storage bins that are insulated to keep your ice icy for a while, and any melted water is simply recycled for refreezing the next time you make ice.

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You can make different ice cubes

This one depends on the type of ice maker you have, though it’s a great advantage when you have a capable ice maker.

You can make ice cubes of all sorts of shapes and sizes with a portable ice maker, ranging from bullet ice to regular ice cubs to ice nuggets.

Many of them also come with a water filter to ensure your ice is clean and high quality.

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They are environmentally friendly

Portable ice makers make ice on demand, and so don’t need to be hooked up to a water line or drainage line. They also recycle all the water from melted ice, so they don’t waste precious resources.

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They come in all shapes and sizes

Portable ice makers come in all sorts of designs, from futuristic-looking ones to more traditional designs, including all sorts of colors and materials. You can pick out whichever one matches your kitchen décor, and your personal tastes of course.

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What Should You Look For When Shopping?

Now that we know so much about countertop ice makers and are (hopefully) sold on the advantages of having one, what should we look for when out shopping for an ice maker? Here are a few factors you should consider:

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The construction and durability of the ice maker

What you definitely do not want is an ice maker that breaks down quickly, especially after a very short period of use. Look for ice makers made out of sturdy materials, including metal casings and strong and durable parts.

The best material I would recommend is stainless steel. You can also check online reviews of the particular ice maker you’re choosing to see if people are satisfied with the durability.

All of the ice makers we have included in this review are of good quality. However, if you want to buy your own, just be sure to read the reviews for a sense of whether the product lives up to all its hype.

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The mobility of the ice maker

If you intend to move your ice maker around a lot, such as if you’re going to travel with it a lot or move it between your main home and your holiday home, then you will want to buy one that’s easy to haul around. Choose an ice maker that’s lightweight and compact.

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The capacity of the ice maker

It’s very important to think about exactly how much ice you’re going to need before you buy an ice maker. Remember that ice makers typically don’t have built-in freezers.

As a result, they don’t store that much ice. You should think about how much ice you’re going to use and how much you’re going to store. Another important question is how fast you need your ice.

In relation to these questions, the three things you should look out for are the production rate in terms of pounds of ice per day, the amount of time it takes to make a single batch of ice, and the capacity of the storage bin.

For example, an icemaker may make 30 pounds of ice per day and 12 pieces every 8 minutes with a storage bin that can store 7 pounds at a time.

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The size and quality of the ice

Most portable ice makers will give you a bit of control over the size of the ice you make. You can make them small, medium, or large. As for shape, there are also quite a number that allows you to choose between cubes, bullets, and nuggets, among others.

The shape of ice you prefer at a given time is dependent on what you want to use the ice for. If you’re trying to cool drinks, then bullets are a good fit. If you want to cool water in water bottles or add ice to a cocktail, then regular cubes should do fine.

Nuggets work well with juice and anything else that doesn’t taste well when diluted too much by melting ice.

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The noise level

In case you’re going to put your ice maker in a small space, you’ll probably want something quiet. Ice makers can range from very noisy to very quiet.

To a great extent, this depends on the production rate of the ice maker, as high production rate ice makers will have more power, and therefore noisier, pumps. Others have hushing technology, which makes them as good as silent.

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The energy efficiency

On the whole, countertop ice makers are actually pretty efficient. Most of them will even indicate the energy usage in the specifications (I’m yet to see a model that does not). That way, you can compare them.

You can also check to see if an ice maker has an Energy Star certification. These are the most energy-efficient ones on the market. It’s important to check on energy if you’re going to use your ice maker frequently. If you only intend to use it frequently, then that probably doesn’t matter so much.

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The design

The design of the ice maker will determine how user-friendly it is. What you want is a well-constructed water reservoir and storage bin as well as an easy to understand control panel. There should also ideally be some sort of indicator to tell you when the ice bin is full or the water tank is empty.

An ice scoop in the ice bin certainly helps, and a self-cleaning ice maker is a blessing, though, at the very least, it should be easy to clean if you have to do it yourself.

Apart from these functional aspects of the design, you should also consider the aesthetics of the ice maker. Such things as color, shape, and other aesthetic features should be chosen to match your overall kitchen décor so the ice maker isn’t an ice sore in your kitchen (or whatever other places you fit it in, really).

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The warranty

The warranty matters a great deal, no matter what project you’re considering. Ice makers, in particular, have lots of parts and different processes that need to work just right in order for the ice maker to properly do its job.

In a system as complex as that, the chances of something going wrong are high, and so it’s good to know that you’re guaranteed proper functionality and some kind of compensation if things go wrong within a given time period.

Good quality ice makers typically have a 1-year warranty at the least.

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The price

This is probably the most important factor to consider since your budget will go the farthest in determining the kind of ice maker you buy even before you consider everything else.

You should look for ice makers within your budget range. However, good quality in this niche starts at $200. Below that, you’ll be dealing with a “cheap is actually expensive” situation and it certainly won’t be worth it.

On the other hand, the most expensive models aren’t necessarily worth all that extra mulla. Most of that extra money comes from the brand name anyway.

So unless you’re a brand loyalist, you should look for the most affordable high-quality model you can find. You can even wait for sales when high-end models get deeply discounted.

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FAQ Section

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How do portable ice makers work?

Countertop ice makers use the refrigeration cycle to directly freeze the water. A coolant is channeled into a heat exchanger with bullet prongs sticking out of it and into the water in the freezing tray. These prongs are quickly chilled by the coolant and freeze the water they come into contact with. Read the section on how ice makers work above for a more detailed explanation.

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How often should I clean my countertop ice machine?

Each manufacturer has their own recommendation for how often you should clean your countertop ice maker. However, it is generally advised to clean it between 2 and 4 times a year.

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How much power does a portable ice maker use?

The amount of power used by a portable ice maker varies according to the brand or model, as well as how often you use it and how well you maintain it. It’s therefore quite hard to put a number on it, though each model should have the average energy use in the specifications.

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How long do countertop ice makers typically last?

Most of them have a 1-year warranty, so you can expect them to last at least that long. However, given you bought a quality ice maker and you maintain it properly, it can last for 3 or more years.

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Should I use tap or filtered water for the countertop ice machine?

It’s better to use filtered water. Chlorine and other impurities in tap water can radically alter the taste of the ice. Filtered water ensures you get high quality and well-tasting ice.

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Best Countertop Ice Maker – The Bottom Line

And with that, we come to the end of these best countertop ice maker reviews. As you can see, there are lots of great ice machines on this list. You’re bound to find something you like.

If you don’t, then you can use the detailed buyer’s guide to help you choose your next ice maker wisely.

We hope you enjoyed reading this review as much as we enjoyed preparing it.

Stay cool!

Last update on 2024-12-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API