This is a my first AC unit, so I don't have much to compare it to, but so far it seems to be working well - my little apartment is about 10 degrees cooler, which is good enough for me. The exhaust supplied with these types of units is really silly though - just a thin plastic hose that radiates a bunch of heat back into the room. It's very inefficient - the exhaust hose should just come insulated, rather than forcing people to rig something up. Furthermore, it falls off the unit very easily. Not sure if it's just this model or this brand, but it also only comes with a window vent kit for a sliding window, so if you have a casement window, which many people do, you have to get a separate kit. This is not clear in the item description.