Unlike most of the gear reviews on our site, we’re going to keep this one short. Why? Because we’re not fans of this product and want to quickly let you know why. 

Build Quality: the stainless steel that Hydroflask uses, dents easily and accrues grime inside the bottle very quickly (compared to bottles we’ve used from Zojirushi and Laken). The saving grace for this bottle is its cap (it’s incredibly durable and will last for years of use) and the fact that this bottle doesn’t sweat at all. 

Performance: keeping beverages cold was lackluster compared to Zojirushi and Laken. In hot and humid Thailand, we were lucky to get 8 hours of cold water with the Hydroflask, while both Zojirushi and Laken would keep our water cold for 22+ hours. Granted, this bottle does perform better in cooler weather (12+ hours), but it begs the question: shouldn’t an overly-heavy insulated water bottle be able to perform well in all conditions?

Value: no doubt about it, this bottle is overpriced compared to the competition and in regards to its performance rating. However, given how popular Hydroflask has become, it maintains a much better resale value than other brands (as long as you baby it and don’t dent it). Long story short: if you want the most bang-for-your-buck, avoid Hydroflask.

For us, we’ve retired our Hydroflask water bottle and moved onto solely using Zojirushi products – the build and usability of these bottles are significantly better than Hydroflask. Does that mean we don’t recommend using Hydroflask products? Not necessarily… since Zojirushi products aren’t as widely available as Hydroflask, this bottle still remains a “good enough” substitute for Zojirushi. And while you should take our advice with a grain of salt, please check out the Zojirushi Cool Bottle or the Zojirushi Vacuum Mug before jumping on the Hydroflask bandwagon.

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