Well, we have an ice machine, but we often have dinners with our extended family, and there are a lot of them. We often times come close to running out of ice. This would be handy at one of those dinners.
As far as camping or tailgaiting, I’m sure you can get one of those converters so you can plug it into the cigarette lighter.
Hmm, 3.1 liter reservoir, so does that mean you’re constantly refilling it? I wonder what the liter:cubes ratio is on that, especially since it can only hold 2lbs of the 26 it produces in 24hrs. I can definitely see the use at a party, but perhaps too annoying to deal with at a tailgate–I’d rather use the old fashioned bags of ice tossed in a cooler! Although if this was freshman year again, I’d probably buy one to put right next to my dorm minifridge
I’ve actually been waiting for one of these to appear on the woot off (every other item was some sort of ice maker last woot off!). I was about to check out but a last second search turned up Buy.com who has the silver version for $99 and free shipping. After tax (I live in Texas) its a better deal for me, I’d rather have Silver.
Compressor is loud (louder than my fridge), ice bucket fills up quickly (you have to empty it every 8 cycles or so.) Also the ice is melty, so if you dump it in the freezer it sticks together so that you have to use an ice pick to break it apart. It makes 9 little bullets at a time, so you won’t be using this quickly to fill a cooler. All of that said, IF you make a lot of blended drinks or just love ice, it will be worth it.