To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. There's also a sleek and convenient carry handle that clips down and out of the way when not in use. The insulated bottles saw a modest temperature increase, while some of the non-insulated contenders reached temperatures 40 degrees above the ambient air temperature. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Because that means that you'll have to be more careful with how you handle it than other, more durable plastic and metal containers.

Overall, if you hike, backpack, or bike and want to save weight and be able to drink from streams quickly, this is the best filter bottle option we have tested.

If you're looking for something super simple to lug around town, then you'll want to avoid these bottles. Two of our highest-scoring bottles, the Hydro Flask Wide Mouth with Straw and Iron Flask Insulated, were hard to tell apart in this regard.

The Klean Kanteen TKWide was the only container with a straw that did not impart a plastic taste because its straw is also stainless steel. The Lifestraw Go is a cheaper type of plastic; when drinking directly from the bottle (with the lid off), we could definitely taste it. The Iron Flask is attractive and lightweight, plus its straw-style lid promotes hydration more readily than a standard wide mouth. We tested it while biking and loved the ability to refill our bike water bottles quickly, take a few swigs, fold up the bottle, and throw it in a pocket.The Speedflask also has an easy push-button flip cap but was taken down a notch because it did not prove to be leakproof during that portion of the test. Others leaked after the room in which they were sitting heated up for the day, building up pressure in the bottle. It's apparent that there's no chemical leaching because the water tastes just as clean from this vessel when it's warm as when it's fresh. These bottles have been used in multiple situations — from keeping us and our kids hydrated at the local park to helping us fill up with spring runoff in the mountains.

The straw seems to be made of a cheaper type of plastic, and the filter does not do enough to remove that particular chemical taste (although we did find this bottle to be effective at removing chlorine from municipal sources).The top-scoring metal bottles with plastic straws, like the Hydro Flask Wide Mouth with Straw and the Iron Flask Insulated, only imparted the slightest plastic taste—perhaps not enough for most people to notice, especially if you're drinking cold water from them.

This bottle is the most affordable glass option in our lineup and features a pop-up flip cap with a rubber bubble seal. Because it's a filter bottle, we were hesitant to put any flavoring into it to avoid contaminating the filter. The Brita Stainless Steel Filter Bottle also has a push button flip cap with a satisfyingly squishy silicone bite straw, a soft and comfortable two-finger carry loop, and will fit in your cup holder. A stainless-steel bottle will be more durable than a glass one, while the most insulated bottle may not necessarily be the best fit for your next backcountry adventure.The Grayl GeoPress has an outer container that you fill with untreated water and an inner chamber with a filter that you press into the outer container. An outlier was the classic Nalgene Wide Mouth, which imparts surprisingly little taste to a bottle of hot water and is also surprisingly resistant to flavors.