NewAir AI-100BK 28 lb Portable Ice Maker Review

NewAir AI-100BK portable ice maker can produce up to 28 lbs of ice cubes in 24 hours – slightly more than most others. So how does it compare to competition?

Ice production

NewAir AI-100BK portable ice maker can produce ice cubes in 3 different sizes. According to manufacturer it makes a batch of 9 bullet shaped ice cubes with hollow inside every 6-15 minutes. In reality it usually takes 10-15 minutes for the ice maker to produce a single batch.

Ice cubes aren’t hard frozen which makes them soft and chewable. On the other hand they do freeze together if you put them in freezer (they are easy to break apart with an ice pick though) and they do melt a bit fast in drinks due to hollow inside. It kinda makes it up for it with making ice fast.

Although NewAir AI-100BK isn’t refrigerated and ice cubes do melt inside, it seems to be well insulated so the melting process is slow.

Before you use it for the first time you should let if sit upright for a few hours to allow compressor fluids to settle.

Features

NewAir AI-100BK portable ice maker isn’t feature rich but it does have some basic features. It has sensors that detect when you need to add water or empty ice basket and will pause ice production until you do so.

Control panel

Control panel of NewAir AI-100BK is simple and very similar to most portable ice machines. It only has two buttons: Power (for starting/ending ice production) and Select (for selecting ice cubes size setting).

It also has indicator lights for when you need to add more water or empty ice basket. There are three more indicator lights to display which ice cube size setting you have chosen (each size setting has its own indicator).

Quality

For the most part NewAir AI-100BK feels well made however some consumers have complained that their unit broke after 6-12 months of use. It’s hard to estimate how common such occurrences are.

Conclusions

Overall NewAir AI-100BK is a pretty good portable ice maker however there’s nothing particularly special about it. It’s quite similar to other models in its price class. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, just makes it harder to reason why choose this particular ice maker over the others. If you are looking for a good ice maker machine you might want to read our Best Portable/Countertop Ice Makers article.

NewAir AI-100BK 28 lb Portable Ice Maker Details/Specs:

• Type: Freestanding / Portable / Countertop
• Ice output: up to 28 lbs per 24 hours
• Ice cubes per batch: 9
• Ice cube size options: 3