Whynter Portable Air Conditioner 12,000 BTU with Dehumidifier,& Cooling Fan for 400 Sq Ft Rooms, Includes AC Unit Window Kit, ARC-12S (5,000 BTU SACC), Platinum

We bought this for a 10'x10' bedroom filled with electronics equipment that keep the room overheated year-round. My son wanted the portable unit, rather than having to bring his heavy, noisy window A/C up from the basement for those unseasonably warm spring and fall days outside of full time A/C weather. He also wanted to be able to use the fan and dehumidifier, without having extra appliances in his room. The heat from the electronics concern me, and the stuffiness cannot be good for a teenager with allergies, so I wanted my son to have a fan on year-round to keep him cool and to help the equipment stay cooler. This portable A/C seems to fit all of our needs! When the A/C is not in use, there is a cap that fits over the vent hole on the window kit, so it's easy to detach the vent tube and leave the kit in place when the fan or dehumidifier are being used (neither require the outside vent).The unit is sleek and modern-looking, The vent hose and window kit were easy for me to assemble in about 15 minutes. The only thing needed is a Philips head screwdriver to tighten the hose to the window kit, and to tighten the screws to the window frame, if desired. One thing that was necessary to add which was not contained in the kit: 4 nuts to go behind the 4 vent screws; otherwise the hose pops off every time you move the unit. No big deal, though.In terms of how the 3 functions operate: 1. The A/C is excellent! It starts bringing the room down by one degree during the first minute of turning it on, and continues till it reaches your preferred temperature setting. The vent hose got fairly warm when the A/C was put on high in a hot room, but as the room reached a cooler temperature, the vent became cooler, as well. We checked the plug during this time, and it remained completely cool throughout. 2. The dehumidifier has easy to empty water collection pans. We haven't tried this function yet, but living on Long Island, I'm sure we will use it over the course of the humid summers here, and will add an update if there is any problem to report. 3. The fan is excellent at all three settings, and is basically silent on low. Even on high, it is decent white noise and not offensive, providing significant air flow throughout the room.There are several items that I would have liked in the description prior to making this purchase, since I would have measured the space and planned accordingly. The directions say that 1. for safety reasons, you need 20' of empty space surrounding the unit, and not to place it near a wall or corner, which could interfere with the intake/air flow. (We have it sitting only 3' from the back wall, facing into the room, and all is well. It cannot get knocked over where it is, and we do not have young children in the house, so it is safe there, and air flow appears fine.) 2. The power cord is 6.5'. For safety reasons, you cannot use an extension cord or electronics multi-plug, since it would disable the overheat/surge safety mechanism in the plug. 3. They said to plug this unit into its own circuit, to avoid tripping a circuit breaker during operation. 4. Although the vent hose is 9' long, and they sell extension vent tubes, for the air conditioner to perform optimally, they highly recommend using the shortest possible length of venting tube. (We have the vent tube extended only 39"; there is an "S" curve from the window to the unit, since the vent drops down from the window kit and fits into the unit about halfway down.) Since we have an old house, we only have one 3-prong plug near my son's windows; luckily for us, it is on its own circuit breaker. If I had known the length of the power cord (which barely fit), the safety issues preventing use of an extension cord, the footprint needed around the unit, the length of vent hose that works best, the need for an isolated circuit breaker, etc. I would have taken all of those issues into consideration and measured before making this purchase. As it turned out, we got lucky, but it would have been very disappointing to receive the unit only to find out in the middle of installation that we couldn't meet the specs they call for. I don't usually write long reviews, but as I got to each installation step, I found another hurdle and wondered whether we would be able to keep the unit. If those spec's had been included in the description, it would have made installation an easy and stress-free experience.If this portable A/C fits your space using their spec's, I'm sure you will be thrilled with its performance! We are! I hope you find this review helpful!

I've had this for almost two months now, having made an "emergency" order during the middle of one of our Summer 2012 heat waves in Chicago when my bedroom window unit finally gave out. It has fully met my expectations, but expectations are the key concept. You must understand certain things about these units before ordering:1. They are noisy. All the mechanicals are now inside your room, not outside your window. I got used to it and have no trouble sleeping, but I am not a light sleeper. Consider your own sleeping styles.2. Many of these units require drainage or emptying a water collection tray. This unit does not. It has a great way of evaporating the moisture it collects back out through it's exhaust. I have never had the unit stop due to it being full and it runs 24x7.3. You must have a way to vent the unit by connecting the hose to the supplied window insert. I had just enough room left above my existing window A/C to insert the supplied frame for the exhaust hose. This configuration takes up space. Plan for the unit and the hose setup to take up room!4. As many other buyers have pointed out, you cannot compare BTUs of these units with that of window units. I took the advice of others and bought a unit one capacity level ABOVE what I thought I needed and I am very glad I did. If I had bought the unit that said it will cool a room the size of mine, I don't think I would have been satisfied. Yes, they are expensive, but buy big or be unsatisfied.Installation:Installation was ridiculously simple. The box was structured such that after cutting the straps, the whole box top and sides lifted right off of the unit. Once out of the box, the pre-affixed wheels made it easy to just wheel it into the bedroom. The hose and window insert were easy to install. There is one design flaw though, inherent in these units. They place the fresh air intake right by the exhaust hose exit in the rear. This means the unit competes with itself to cool the air, because that hose gets HOT!. Simple solution though. Buy insulated duct wrap at the same time you buy the unit and wrap the hose in it from the back of the unit to the window. Or as a temporary measure, wrap the hose in bath towels, especially close to the unit intake, to reduce the heat produced by the exhaust hose.Operation:I turned the unit on after plugging in and it fired right up, producing cold air. It's not freezing cold, like older window A/C's, but it is cold. It took about an hour to take the room from 87 and 60% humidity to 76 and about 40% humidity. Like other buyers, I do find the limited movement of the air output louvres to be annoying. You can only move the airflow form side-to-side, not up and down. If you have a high bed, you'll want to consider raising the unit up onto something, preferably something very sturdy. It has three fan levels, but I usually keep it on low. The remote works well, but no light so you may have to use a flashlight at first until you memorize the position of the buttons by just feel.One thing I haven't tired yet that I do plan on is running it as a fan in the winter. I like to have background noise when I sleep. You can run the unit in fan only mode without the exhaust hose being connected. It's the dehumidify and cool functions that require exhaust to the outside. The fan alone, without the compressor, is actually very quiet but just noisy enough for steady background noise.Efficiency:It claims to be energy efficient and uses an environmentally safe refrigerant. I have to say that it does cool well (as long as you understand you probably need one unit size larger than recommended) and it does seem to efficiently evaporate all the moisture it collects out through the exhaust (there is a fan that stays on constantly to ensure this). But when I got my first electric bill after running 24x7, I knew it was efficient. My energy usage declined by about 25% year over year, with this unit plus another window unit running versus two window units. And that was during a month when it was hotter this year than last.So all in all I am very happy with my purchase. But understand how these units differ form window units and buy one size larger.