When you are out on the water, people often sneak over to grab something from the cooler and may not latch it back up. With a hard plastic latch, you run the risk of brushing by the cooler and hitting your shin, which I have done and is awful. One of my favorite features though is the rubber wheels vs. the hard plastic wheels on the Pelican and Yeti. Not only will the rubber allow for a slightly smoother roll when you are pull this cooler along, but it will also be quieter. You won’t wake the neighbors up when you are pulling this down your dock. There are very few head-to-head comparison tests between the Ozark Trail and other coolers like Yeti, so it’s hard to tell exactly where it stacks up in terms of ice retention. But from what I can see it’s one of the lower performing roto-molded coolers when it comes to ice retention. Luke is a co-founder of bestcooler.reviews, a cooler expert and author of 70+ reviews on this website. Rather, they are a good companion for a lunch outing or small picnic. Specifically, the smaller models will have ice life that starts at just a couple of hours and creeps up to around half a day. The more capable premium models should keep ice for up to a day and a half. Their low-cost, soft-sided cooler options don’t have a lot of storage volume or insulation to help them out. And while we are on the subject of the premium soft-sided coolers, there are a few additional features specific to them. I chose these coolers because they were the closest among the brands when it came to internal storage. My own personal beverage drama every summer has really pushed me to do this review. To me, worrying about the temperature of the drinks I have on my boat is the absolute last thing I want to be thinking about when I am heading out on the water. To achieve the extremely attractive price point that they did, Ozark Trail likely had to sacrifice a few things in the quality department. The result is a cooler that doesn’t have quite the level of fit and finish as, say, a Yeti or an Engel. For the fishermen out there, you will enjoy the molded-in fish ruler on the lid of the cooler. Also, you will find a larger variety of layouts and cooler types. For instance, you will have the small, simple coolers that are designed to hold people’s lunch for the day as well as higher-end premium coolers for those who are after longer ice life. Ozark soft sided coolers struggle to keep ice for more than 2 days, whereas the Yeti soft sided coolers can keep ice for 2-3 days and sometimes even longer than 3 days. We will discuss these in greater detail in our reviews below. To start with, you will find an oversized drain that makes short work of any melted ice that is inside. The threaded drain can easily be removed and will be held in place thanks to the mounted chain it is on. And to maximize how much squeeze the gasket produces, having strong latches that provide a lot of clamping force is necessary. You will find the popular “T-latch” design on Ozark Trail coolers. While some brands will have the base of the “T” be what catches the pin, Ozark Trail has instead decided to have a hole in the middle of the latch that catches onto the pin. Though it’s a bit too tall to be able to leave in place when we want to make the bed, it fits just fine on the front seat. If you have a bigger van though, it would double as an additional seat in the cabin. How does this compare to some of the premium coolers on the market such as Yeti? Not to mention, it has a built-in bottle opener and four drink holders on the lid, so you can have a good time no matter the temperature. So there you have it, when looking at just the ability to keep ice cold over a period of 6 days the Pelican has just slightly won, but we are talking about decimal points. I have to say that I am very impressed with the performance of the Ozark Trail 45Q cooler. This cooler is not only smaller in its overall size but also a fraction of the price of the competition. Basically, you have a small cooler, you have a medium cooler, and you also have a fairly large cooler. They also have some great but more mainstream designs for the tightest of budgets, by the way. The style is better, build quality is better, they have better ice retention and more choice. If your budget can stretch a bit they are worth checking out. I really like these coolers as they offer great value but they don’t break the bank. In fact, at the time of writing this Lifetime coolers are even cheaper than Ozark Trail coolers with the 55-Quart selling for under $100.