REASONS TO BUY
Inexpensive
Compact
Lightweight
REASONS TO AVOID
Overly complicated lid design
Small capacity
Lacks durability
Thermos Intak 24 Review
A bottle designed to help you drink more water, though its small size requires frequent refills
Credit: Thermos
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Our Verdict
This is a plastic bottle with a flip cap and a relatively small capacity. The bottle is too small to be useful on hikes, especially out in the New Mexico desert, where we did our testing. The Thermos Intak 24 is better used indoors, as a bottle that can accompany you to the office. The bottle comes with a meter on the rim so that you can record the number times you've refilled it — making it good for those who are trying to up their hydration! Its small capacity makes it best used at work or school, where itcan be refilled easily for optimal hydration. The flip cap is secure, but a bit over-built in our minds.
Our Analysis and Test Results
Due to its mostly plastic components and relatively small size, the Thermos Intak 24 received slightly lower than average scores in our metric comparisons. The lid is complicated and difficult to clean and the plastic bottle and lid components make it less durable than others. The Intak received its highest score in our weight metric because of the materials used in its construction. Overall, this is a bottle that is best suited for indoor use where it can be refilled often.
Performance Comparison
The Intak has both a button and a latch to keep the lid on. Additionally, the whole lid screws on like a traditional bottle.
Credit: Jane Jackson
Ease of Use
The Thermos Intak 24 has a flip-cap design with a latch or button feature that opens to a small drinking spout at the top of the lid. This design is useful since you don't have to take the lid off every time to drink. That said, it makes the bottle more complicated to use. We found these lid options to be novel, but not necessarily that much more efficient than a traditional bottle. The many parts that make up the lid of the Thermos Intak make it difficult to clean. That said, the mouth of this bottle is wide enough to clean the inside easily.
Durability
The lid and flip-cap closure mechanism on the Thermos Intak is the weakest link in terms of the durability of this product. There are two flipping clip loops that are plastic and seem likely to break off after lots of time in use. This water bottle has lots of plastic parts in its lid system that lowered its overall durability score. We found that simpler bottles are more durable in general.
The flip cap was troublesome because it got in our way when drinking from the spout pictured above. The size of the spout is nice for regulating the amount of water you take in.
Credit: Jane Jackson
Weight
The Thermos Intak gets high praise regarding weight in our side-by-side comparisons. This bottle has a relatively small capacity, only 24 ounces, but this means that it is also lightweight. Weighing in at 6.72 ounces, this bottle is on the lighter end of the spectrum Its small capacity, though makes it a good bottle to use around town where it can be refilled frequently.
Here, the Intak takes in a wet morning in the desert. We found this bottle to be best suited for work or home, rather than the trails.
Credit: Jane Jackson
Taste
The Thermos Intak does retain flavors to some extent, like most BPA free models. Plastic, unlike glass and to a lesser degree metal, tends to hold flavors for longer. That said, we were able to rinse the bottle out and remove flavors from the Intak without much trouble. The lid, with all of its nooks and crannies, is where flavors will hide since it is the most difficult part of the bottle to clean. A glass bottle is a good option if you are concerned about taste.
The Intak and the LifeStraw Go side-by-side for a size comparison.
Credit: Jane Jackson
Value
The Thermos Intak is a bottle of good value due to its seriously low price. It is relatively simple and has a low volume, so it makes sense that it does not cost all that much. If you are looking for a basic bottle with a few features, like clip loops and a button opening mechanism, then this bottle is a good choice.
Conclusion
The Thermos Intak is a small capacity bottle designed to help you monitor your water intake throughout the day. It has a complex lid that can be difficult to clean and can sometimes retain flavor, but the price is right on this bottle if you are looking for something basic. We found the bottle to be easy to use, but a tad overly complicated as a bottle we used in our everyday.
—
Jane Jackson
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