About Outback Rated

I have also travelled through 26 countries, and walked the Torres del Paine circuit in Patagonia carrying 21 kg. Carrying everything you own for days teaches the same lesson from a different angle: you live with decisions you made months earlier, and gear that quits far from help is a completely different problem to gear that quits at home. In Australia, that distance is measured in hundreds of kilometres of dirt road.

Why I built this

Searching for Australian touring gear returns the same 5 products, in the same order, with no reasoning attached.

What those pages routinely leave out is the entire Australian half of the decision. They quote overseas models in quarts that are sold here in litres under a different part number with an Australian-spec plug. They give warranty as a single confident number when the actual Australian terms split cover by component, or when the long number applies only to the compressor on recent models. They never mention who repairs the thing, which Australian entity stands behind the brand, or whether you can get a thermistor for it in 3years. Several of them say “tested” in the title and publish no evidence of any test at all.

Meanwhile the things that genuinely decide the purchase here (draw against a real dual-battery setup, ambient temperature above 40C, warranty terms as offered in Australia, service agent coverage, parts supply, and what it costs to freight a 40 kg fridge back from a regional address) get a sentence each, if that.

I wanted a site that did the Australian half properly and showed its working.

What this site is, and is not

Outback Rated is a research site. Comparisons are built from manufacturer documentation, Australian retail listings checked directly and dated, owner-reported experience treated as pattern rather than proof, and the Australian warranty, service, compliance and freight facts that decide whether a purchase is a good idea.

It is not a testing lab. We do not physically test the products we compare, we say so on every relevant page, and the full method is set out on our How we research page. Read that page before you trust anything here. It is written specifically so you can judge the work rather than take my word for it.

I write about the decision and the system with authority because I live with one. I do not write about a product I have not owned as though I have. Those are 2 different things and this site keeps them apart deliberately.

There is no team here. When this site says “we”, it means me, and a house standard I try to hold to. I would rather tell you that than let the plural imply an office full of people in lab coats.

How it is paid for

Some outbound links to retailers on this site are paid links. If you buy through one, the retailer may pay us a commission, at no extra cost to you. That is the only way this site earns anything. No brand pays for coverage, no manufacturer sends us free product, and placement in a comparison table is not for sale. Commission is not a ranking factor, and the rates involved (roughly 0.5% to 3.2%at Australian retailers as at July 2026) are far too small to be worth a reader’s trust.

The detail is on the full affiliate disclosure page, including what to do if you think commission has influenced something.

Tell me when I am wrong

If you own one of these fridges, or you find a price, specification or warranty term that has moved, send it through the contact page. Corrections get made and dated on the page itself.

Nothing improves a research site faster than a reader who knows more than the writer about a specific product, and on any given model that is very often the case.