Customer Reviews

Royal Sovereign ARP-1200EX Portable 12,000-BTU Dual-Hose Air Conditioner

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This air conditioner is not particularly powerful nor well thought out. "A leading consumer magazine" says that portable air conditioners don't work as well as window units, so given that, I suppose it works as well as one could expect. It did cool a 400 square foot room, but not powerfully so. And nearly every other aspect of this unit is annoying.

Performance: I started the unit in a 400 square foot room - the size it's rated for - at 84 degrees, with the outside temperature about 95. The room quickly felt cooler, and within a couple of hours had cooled down to 79. There it stayed - the unit could not get it any colder. But it sure felt better than when it was 84. I consider this performance barely acceptable.

I tried it in some other rooms. Rolling it between rooms was not hard, even on a pretty deep carpet. Surprisingly, it didn't cool much faster in a 300 square foot room with fewer windows. And in a much larger room than recommended, all it did was circulate the hot air from near the ceiling, raising the temperature at people level. Don't fight the laws of physics.

Operation: This is where it gets irritating. The air louvers are useless, because they're on the top of the unit. They adjust a bit vertically, but you can't direct the air left or right. This hardly matters because the air can't be aimed at someone unless they're standing next to the unit. It's noisy at all fan speeds, less so on low. I didn't notice much difference in cooling between those settings.

The LED temperature readout is difficult to make out when there's light behind it, and since the air conditioner typically sits in front of a window, that'll be most of the time. The room temperature reads two to four degrees low. So with the thermostat set at 78, the room temperature leveled off at 80 (according to three different digital thermometers).

The remote control works OK, but doesn't get any information from the unit. So if you change the settings on the unit, and then use the remote, the unit will pick up all the settings from the remote. If this is confusing, use one or the other but not both.

The water tank is unlikely to fill except under high humidity conditions, says the manual, and I agree. Our humidity indoors was 35%,. After three hours of operation there was no water in the tank.

Assembly: The assembly instructions need more details. The hose adapters that screw to the window plate can go on eight different ways - facing in or out, inserted into the plate from the outside or inside, and with the latching tabs on the sides, or top and bottom. I ran through most of these before getting it right: Insert the adapters from the outside, putting the flanges through the plate to the inside. Put the screws through the plate into the adapters. The tabs should go at the sides in most cases, so the hose connectors will angle down.

The other thing they should tell you is how to remove the hose connectors. Pressing the locking tabs is difficult. But just turn the connector a bit on the flange. It'll press the tabs for you and pop right off. Once all this is clear, the hose setup is quite convenient. The hoses extend to 44"; if the hose connectors are included then the total length is 52".

Recommendations: A lot of other Royal Sovereign models are available. If I had to do it again I'd get a 14,000 BTU model with louvers facing forward. Always get two hoses. The single hose models don't cool as well because they vent inside air outside. This sucks air back in from somewhere, and it's probably hot.

Product has dual hoses to not create a vaccum in the room. Cools a large space efficiently and for low cost on the electricity. Like this product, would definately purchase again.