The Midea Cube MAD50S1QWT is the 50-pint pick: a collapsible cube chassis with a 4.2-gallon tank, a built-in pump that lifts condensate up to 16 feet, and the lowest measured power draw in its class. Dehumidifier Buyers Guide and HouseFresh both rank it at the top of the 50-pint field. The lift-and-twist design is awkward with a full bucket and the warranty runs only a year.
Full review
90% to 40% RH in 7 minutes 39 seconds
Dehumidifier Buyers Guide measured the MAD50S1QWT pulling a 50 sq ft test chamber from 90% RH to 40% RH in 7 minutes 39 seconds, the fastest result across the 34 high-capacity units it has run through the same protocol.
HouseFresh saw a comparable 65% to 45% drop in roughly six minutes in a living room, and reported the unit held its target through several months of continuous service. The rated coverage of about 4,500 square feet of open-plan space matches Midea's AHAM figure rather than overstating it.
230 CFM through a larger evaporator coil
Dehumidifier Buyers Guide recorded 230 CFM on high, more than competing 50-pint units even after Midea backed the compressor speed off to hold the noise down. The higher airflow is paired with a larger-than-average evaporator coil.
In practice that means a damp basement clears after a summer storm in one overnight cycle, where a 22-pint compact in the same room would still be chasing the humidity the next afternoon.
A pump that lifts 16 feet, or a 34-pint bucket
The built-in pump pushes condensate up to 16 vertical feet, which is the feature that makes this work in a basement where the nearest drain is a utility sink halfway up a wall. HouseFresh found the supplied hose long enough to cross an unfinished basement without splicing.
Gravity drain works too, by pulling a plug on the lower housing. Without either, the 4.2-gallon tank holds about 34 pints, roughly three times a typical hOmeLabs or Frigidaire bucket, though HouseFresh flagged that it weighs about 40 pounds when full.
65.4 dB on low, 66.4 dB on high
Dehumidifier Buyers Guide measured 65.4 dB on low and 66.4 dB on high at the unit, mid-pack for the 50-pint class where most top-exhaust rivals sit at 70 dB or higher.
That makes the Cube acceptable background noise in a finished basement or an open living room, and too loud within ten feet of a sofa or in a bedroom. Anyone who needs quiet should take the smaller MAD20S1QWT instead.
512 watts at 50% relative humidity
Dehumidifier Buyers Guide measured 512 watts at 50% relative humidity, the lowest draw of any 50-pint unit in its test set, where most competitors pull 600 watts or more under the same conditions.
That efficiency is what earns the Energy Star Most Efficient tag, and over a humid summer running twelve hours a day it is worth real money against a non-certified unit of the same capacity.
The MideaAir app stopped getting updates
The app handles scheduling, humidity setpoints, remote on/off and a basic history dashboard. HouseFresh reported the initial 2.4 GHz pairing is fiddly but that the connection holds once made, and Alexa and Google both respond within a second or two.
HouseFresh also flagged that the app has not received feature updates in over a year, which is a real question mark against an appliance with an eight-to-ten-year service life. There is no HomeKit support and no weather-linked automation.
Lift-and-twist gets sticky, and the warranty is one year
The most consistent complaint is the lift-and-twist chassis: you twist the upper housing ninety degrees to extend it, and HouseFresh and a number of owners describe the action turning sticky once dust builds up.
The one-year warranty is the other asterisk. Honeywell covers its sealed system for five years and Frigidaire for two, which is worth weighing on an appliance with a compressor and a pump inside it.
Strengths
- +Pulled a test chamber from 90% to 40% RH in 7 minutes 39 seconds
- +Built-in pump lifts condensate up to 16 feet to a sink or out a window
- +4.2-gallon tank holds about 34 pints, roughly three times a conventional bucket
- +Energy Star Most Efficient, with a measured 512 W draw at 50% RH
- +Wi-Fi app plus Alexa and Google Assistant at no extra cost
Watch-outs
- −Lift-and-twist cube is awkward to carry with a full bucket
- −The companion app has stopped receiving feature updates
- −One-year warranty against five years from Honeywell
- −65 dB on low is too loud for a bedroom or a quiet office
How it compares
The performance and convenience pick over the gravity-drain Honeywell TP50AWKN and the manual-empty hOmeLabs HME020031N. Against the smaller MAD35S1QWT and MAD20S1QWT Cubes it adds the integrated pump and roughly doubles the capacity, but gives up their lower noise floor and smaller footprint.
Rating sources
“The best home dehumidifier for those who can't use an external drain which has plenty of design features that make it an easy device to live with.”
“A dehumidifier's job is to dehumidify and the Midea Cube simply dehumidifies faster and more efficiently than any other 50 pint dehumidifier we've tested.”
Our 4.9 score is the average of these published ratings. More about methodology.
