Whatever you eventually decide to buy or do, you should be aware of the real efficiency of cooling machines, which cannot ever even approach the 50% that was mentioned by Kloudie. While thermoelectric coolers have the advantage of no moving parts to wear out, their efficiency is really less than 10%. Coolers using a compressor, regardless of the type, have a theoretical efficiency limit of 33% since they all are subject to the limitations of the Carnot Cycle--a result of the laws of thermodynamics that apply to all things, and a feature of all machines that use expansion and condensation of fluids to cool (or heat), which it is physically impossible to exceed. Due to friction and inefficiencies in mechanical parts compressor-type coolers rarely reach over 20% efficiency in practice--including the touted "different technology" units mentioned by Rick, which by clever design may add a few percentage points in trade for many dollars.
Those are the cruel facts of refrigerator life, and the laws of thermodynamics cannot be repealed. So when all is said and done the thermoelectric coolers suffer from not being able to reach lower temperatures, and having at most half of the efficiency of mechanical compressors. They do have the advantage of being silent and probably having longer life, and being cheaper.
You pays your money and you takes yer choice.
