The Best Portable Air Conditioner

Portable air conditioners aren’t as mobile as their name suggests, and they’re also one of the loudest and least efficient ways to cool a room. But if you don’t have central air, and a window AC isn’t an option, a portable AC is the next best way to beat the heat—and if that’s the case for you, we recommend the Midea Duo MAP12S1TBL. It’s quieter, more powerful, and generally more pleasant to live with than nearly any of the other two dozen portable ACs we’ve tested (and the hundreds more we’ve researched) since 2016.