Kings 30L Drawer Fridge Review

What You’re Getting

An affordable, low-profile 30 L compressor fridge in a black steel cabinet, only 26 cm high, with a drawer that slides out on ball-bearing runners and a white basket with dividers inside. Above the drawer is a digital display with the controls. It runs on 12V or 24V through an Anderson-style plug, as a fridge or as a freezer.

Quick Specs

The drawer

The whole point is the drawer. Pull the handle and the fridge slides out of its cabinet on smooth ball-bearing runners, almost all the way out, and you reach in from the top. The latch and handle work fine, though they don’t feel super premium. Nothing on top of the fridge has to move, so the space above it in the back of the car stays usable. For us that’s the reason we chose it: we have a roof shelf above the fridge, which stops us from opening a top loader. With the drawer, that problem is gone.

Inside

Inside is a white plastic basket with removable dividers and sliding sections, which keep cans, bottles and vegetables apart and stop them sliding around while you drive. It lifts out in one go, which makes cleaning easy. Kings says the fridge fits up to 24 cans. It’s a bit on the smaller side, though, so you have to pack it with some thought. There’s no light inside either, which makes it hard to see what’s in there after dark: keep a head torch handy.

Temperature and power

The display above the drawer shows the temperature, with buttons to turn it on, change the settings and set the temperature up or down. It runs from +10 °C down to −10 °C, so it works as a fridge or as a freezer. We had it on 3 °C, and as a fridge it works great. As a freezer it’s less convincing: −10 °C isn’t a true deep freeze (that’s around −18 °C), and in hot weather it struggles to keep ice cream solid or to freeze fresh food.

Kings rates it at 45W and gives an average of 1.03 amp hours at 3 °C in 32 °C heat, so just over 1 amp an hour. To keep the profile this slim, the insulation is thinner than in a chest fridge, so the compressor works harder, and the power draw is on the high side for only 30 L. It has a 3-level power cut-off to protect your battery. Power comes in through an Anderson-style plug at the back. There’s no USB outlet.

Fitting it

A drawer fridge has to be bolted down, otherwise the cabinet moves when you pull the drawer out. We mounted ours right into the drawer system in the back of the Prado, held down with L-brackets at the base of the cabinet. At 17.5 kg it’s not something you lift in and out for every trip: once it’s in, it stays. Check the screws now and then, though. After the bouncy gravel road to The Pines Campground, one of the screws that anchor the fridge in the drawer system had come partly loose. Next time we’d put a layer of foam or rubber between the fridge and the mount to soak up the vibration.

Conclusion: Kings 30L Drawer Fridge

The Kings 30L Stayzcool drawer fridge slides out of its steel cabinet, so you reach in from the top without moving anything. It runs as a fridge or freezer from −10 to +10 °C on 12V or 24V, uses just over 1 amp an hour according to Kings, and has a lift-out basket and a 5-year warranty. It’s a budget fridge with some compromises: it’s not a true deep freezer, the power draw is on the high side for 30 L, there’s no light inside, and the latch and handle don’t feel premium. It’s a great little fridge, a bit on the smaller side, and if you have a roof shelf or anything else above the fridge, like we do, the sliding drawer is the answer. For about $275, it’s a lot of fridge for the money.