****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is an amazing bottle. I've been using it for about two months now and am not sure how I lived without it. I fill the flask with ice and liquid. 24 hours later not only is my drink still cold, there's also a lot of ice left. I top off the liquid and can often go another day before it starts to warm.The photographs of the colored finish doesn't do it justice. To me the photographs looked like some cheap, plastic-like finish. That's not the case at all. In person the textured coating looks and feels beautiful, durable and high quality. Zooming in on the photos give you an idea of that quality, but it's definitely better in person. I found the all stainless steel showed finger smudges quickly and because of that looked dirty/messy. The black finish doesn't show any smudges and always looks pristine.I purchased the separate Hydro Flask Straw Lid which makes it easy to get quick sips and then seal it back up. Initially I had 3-4 straws crack and lose suction (making them useless). After getting those replaced, I did a lot of experimentation and found two things to avoid cracking the straws:1. Don't press the straw all the way up the connector inside the lid. The width at the top of that connector is a little too big and puts stress on the straw.2. Cut the straw slightly shorter than specified by the cut guide. The 40oz flask is the tallest, but the full length straw is actually about 1/8" too long so it pushes against the bottom, creating a slight bending in the straw and causing even more stress on it.After following the two guidelines above my straws are maintaining very well now. Even so I suspect straw replacement will be a fairly regular thing so I ordered a set of third-party replacements (for some reason Hydro Flask doesn't sell replacement straws).
