NewAir AI100R Portable Ice Maker Review

I received the NewAir Icemaker in Red for Christmas. Once it was unwrapped, I wiped it down, plugged it in, added the water and let it do its thing. It works great! Within 15 minutes, I heard a "popcorn popping" sound and realized it was the first batch of ice cubes falling into the "ice tray" (and this is the only noise I've heard from the machine). I was pleased with how quickly it produced the ice and how within an hour or so I had to remove the ice from the tray and move it to my freezer so that it could continue to make ice. I was expecting approximately 10 people for Christmas dinner that evening and thought that I was going to have to run out to buy ice for the party, but this little machine produced more than enough ice to get us through the day with our regular drinking and through the dinner party.

I should note that I have only been using the machine for about a week now. I do not keep it on constantly as the "freezing unit" turns off once the tray is full, so the ice on the bottom will begin melting. The upside is that the ice tray has holes in the botton and the water from the melted ice will drain back down into the water tank (which is probably why the manufacturer recommends draining it daily). Because of this, I run the unit long enough to fill up my ice tray in the freezer (a large one that came with the automatic ice make that no longer works) and then I turn off the machine. Because we typically use a lot of ice, I have only drained the machine once as I tend to use the full water tank full of water when refilling my tray.

The ice machine does have 3 ice cube size settings, but I have only used the Large setting based on reviews from users of this and other ice makers. I actually love the large ice cubes as they are similar in size to those cubes in bagged ice, and easily go into my metal water bottle.

It's red color is perfect for my kitchen. It blends well with my other red small kitchen appliances which include Kenmore, KitchenAid, Cuisinart, Keurig, and Oster reds. They're not all the same shade of red, but they all compliment one another as does this machine. It's compact size is also a bonus as it does not require much counter space. While it is a solid machine, it is not so heavy as to make it too difficult to move from the counter to the sink to drain the water tank.

Overall, I'm in love. The pros (function, production, color, size, quiet) are much greater than it's con (ice melts when tray is full). I would recommend this unit to a friend looking for a compact ice maker.


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