Best portable power stations: Stay charged when camping, overlanding, or during a power outage

How easy and intuitive is it to use? Ideally, anyone would be able to find using a portable power station as easy as recharging gadgets at home. Measuring user friendliness also involved investigating how easy it was to use the associated app to monitor recharging and battery status.

Design plays a critical role in how useful a portable power station is. Does the port layout work well, or does it lead to playing musical chairs with plugs to get everything to fit? When considering design, we also assessed how easy or challenging it was to carry the power station with the built-in handles.

When testing, we considered how the price measured up against the portable power station's overall battery capacity and extra features. Did the price tag feel justified with the capacity and features?

Portable power stations come with a range of ports. Some models have great variety, like standard AC ports, USB-A, and USB-C, but not all of them are quite as versatile. We assessed each portable power station for ease of use when it comes to charging versatility.

Read our full review of the Anker Solix C1000 portable power station

The Anker Solix C1000 is for anyone who wants a no-fuss portable power station that gets the job done, and does it well. Packing 1,056Wh of capacity, this model is perfect for a weekend at the campground, outdoor movie nights in the backyard, or an occasional power outage. Like most Anker products, this Solix C1000 offers a seriously impressive features-to-price ratio. We often see it on sale, but even at full price, it’s one of the most budget-friendly models that refuses to skimp on features or performance despite the affordable price.

In testing portable power stations, the Anker Solix C1000 earns top marks for being an all-around great model. It's intuitive to use, not massively heavy, and it simply does what it’s designed to do. You get six standard AC ports, two USB-C, two USB-A, and one car socket.

Of course, the Anker Solix C1000 can be recharged via a solar panel (up to 600W input), normal AC wall power, or your car’s power socket. Anker says this model can go from 0 to 100 percent charged in 58 minutes with standard AC wall power.

If we’re getting picky, we love a portable power station with an external light, and the Anker Solix C1000 delivers. The light bar that spans the top of the power station has several light options that are perfect for getting the C1000 up the stairs without falling or providing warm light at the campsite.

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With 286Wh of capacity, the EcoFlow River 3 Plus could be your new favorite camping accessory. It excels in portability, weighing just a bit over 10 pounds with an overall design and built-in handle that make carrying it around the campground effortless. Connect to a solar panel for a perfect camping experience. There’s also connectivity to the EcoFlow app, which is great for monitoring power output or recharging status while you’re not near the power station. Its quiet operation can also be great for home use during power outages to keep a lamp on and recharge phones.

EcoFlow makes some of the best portable power stations available, and the brand has a massive lineup of options. The River series focuses on portability, which makes them ideal for camping and outdoor adventures. The River 3 Plus has 286Wh of battery capacity, which will be great for keeping phones topped up on a weekend camping trip and keeping the Thermacell anti-mosquito device operational.

Because it’s so compact and lightweight, the EcoFlow River 3 Plus doesn’t come with a massive amount of charging ports, but it should be sufficient for most campers. It has three standard AC ports, one USB-A, one USB-C, and one car output option. There’s also a light strip at the bottom of the portable power station that can help light up camp come nightfall. Connect the EcoFlow River 3 Plus to a 220W solar panel and you’ll be in for a full recharge in as little as 90 minutes. Assuming there’s sun power to harness while camping, the EcoFlow River 3 Plus will easily be able to fully recharge every day.

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Not everyone wants a portable power station simply for camping. You might want something that ensures your home stays powered up should the lights go out. Other people want to head off in the van for months and plenty choose to live a life off-grid entirely. The Bluetti Apex 300 could be just the model for keeping an entire home on-grid. It can handle dual 120V and 240V output from the single unit, comes with plenty of ports, and has a second generation LiFePO4 battery which can last for up to 17 years.

Bluetti also added advanced features on the Apex 300 like scheduling recharging during off-peak hours to get the best rate and giving alerts for upcoming extreme weather which kicks on auto-charging.

For plenty of (usually awesome) reasons, not everyone stays on grid all the time but you probably want power. The Bluetti Apex 300 is a beast of a power station that provides 2,764.8Wh on its own, but can be expanded to a whopping 58,000Wh.Bluetti says that’ll keep an entire house powered up for one week. It’s more than capable of powering appliances that need serious juice like the washing machine, refrigerator, EV charger, and plenty more. The Bluetti Apex 300 also comes with the ability to receive up to 2,400W of solar charging.

The Bluetti Apex 300 is unique in its distinct lack of USB-A or USB-C ports. To get those, you’ll need to grab the Hub D1 Power accessory which gives two USB-A, two USB-C, a 50W Anderson for solar panels, and two car cigarette lighter ports. 

Since it weighs almost 84 pounds, this is portable but only barely. It’s certainly not something you want to move around often, honing in that the Apex 300 is ideal for RV trips, van life, off-grid homes, or for whole-home backup. It’s probably not a great option for a weekend at the campground unless you want a strength workout, too.

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Read our full review of the DJI Power 2000 portable power station.

Content creators have a lot to keep charged up, like cameras, mics, drones, lights, and probably a coffee maker. Creators also often work in locations that don’t have standard grid power. The DJI Power 2000 packs in 2,048Wh capacity with great features for content creators. It comes with three standard AC ports, a 30-amp plug, four USB-A ports, four USB-C ports, and two SDC ports for quick recharging of drones. Paired with its quiet operation, which won’t disrupt work, the DJI Power 2000 is optimal for creators using on location or in the studio.

DJI is great when it comes to offering high-quality creator gadgets like drones and the wireless mics found all over YouTube and TikTok lately. The brand’s largest portable power station is the DJI Power 2000, which can keep all of the essential content creator devices charged up and ready to roll. 

DJI also made sure the Power 2000 operates at a quiet decibel level. Maxing out at 29 decibels, it’s quiet enough that you could sleep next to it when powering up a CPAP machine or using it while filming in the studio. 

When testing the DJI Power 2000, it proved its worth as a multi-tasker, charging up a phone and camera battery and cooking dinner in the air fryer at the same time. Major points to DJI for the expansion ability on the Power 2000. It would get spendy and incredibly heavy, but the DJI Power 2000 is compatible with up to 10 DJI Expansion Battery 2000s, which would make for a total of 22,528Wh. That kind of capacity could make it a contender for whole-home backup.

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