It's an entry level portable air conditioner at 262.5 GBP. But I didn't have any choice because it was the only unit left in stock anywhere in my area. It works better than I expected, but not as well as I hoped.
Issue 1 - Thermodynamics
Heat rises and the astute amongst us would notice that fixed air-conditioners are generally mounted near the ceiling. This way they can pump out the hot air and replace this with cool air, which is denser and goes to the bottom and thus the cycle repeats. THERMODYNAMICS!
This little unit does not appear to have magic and unfortunately needs to conform to the laws of thermodynamics. This means that initially it was only cooling the area up to the height of the intake. My feet and knees felt great and if I worked sitting on the carpet it was quite nice. My cat also seemed to enjoy it. Clearly it would be tricky to hang it high up in the ceiling, so I ended up using a picnic table to raise it. Now my entire body feels the effect when I am sitting down at my desk.
Issue 2 - exhaust
You need to exhaust the hot air via the supplied duct and there is nice little expandable piece of plastic that you can mount on the window and clip the duct onto. However, depending on how your window opens, you may not be able to just have that little piece sticking out without the window open and letting in hot air anyway.
This picture shows that if you have sliding windows, then the system can work very well. If you windows swing open in certain ways (like mine), then the system will not be able to operate at full efficiency
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Conclusions
After I put it on the table and, despite the compromises, it still makes a worthwhile difference. I have an Oregon Scientific "weather station" thingy that also senses and displays indoor temperature. My approximately 215 square foot study was reaching 34.5 degrees C in the afternoons. The unit was about to keep the study at around 27 degrees C (it was set to 22). This is the difference between sweating profusely and being a little bit uncomfortable, but still able to work. The study catches all of the afternoon sun and the unit was able to keep it at around 24 C until 1pm. Normally it would be around 30 C by this time.
It works even better in the evenings, since the open window is not letting in very hot air constantly, so I used it to make the bedrooms bearable for sleeping, even though they are bigger than the unit is really capable of dealing with according to the specs.
