Tech review: Portable power gift guide 2025

Jim Rossman, Tribune News Service on Dec 3, 2025

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Everyone needs a plan for when the power goes out.

Portable power stations can help you keep the lights on and the coffee brewed in an emergency.

My mom lives outside Houston, and when there’s a hurricane in the Gulf, she wheels out her power station and plugs in her lamp and coffee maker and her weather radio.

Here are three power stations of varying sizes that can help you make it through the next power outage or camping trip.

Jackery Explorer 1000 v2

This is a very portable yet powerful power station.

Weighing in at just 23.8 pounds, the Explorer 1000 v2 uses LiFePO4 batteries that are rated to hold more than 70 percent of their power after 4,000 recharge cycles. This means you can charge up and use it daily for more than 10 years and it’ll still keep the power flowing.

It has USB-A and USB-C ports to keep your phone and other gadgets charged up, along with three AC outlets to power your appliances and lamps. There’s also a 12-volt/10amp accessory port to power things like portable refrigerators.

The batteries have 1,070 watt-hours of power and the AC inverter can provide up to 1,500W of electricity, so you can power a full-size refrigerator for up to 12 hours or heat up dinner in a 1,200W microwave.

It can charge from a wall outlet in just 1.7 hours or from a pair of 200W solar panels in just 3.8 hours. There’s also an emergency super charge mode that’ll give you 100 percent charge in just 1 hour.

It has a folding handle and is very easy to carry around or toss in the trunk for a campout.

There’s a color screen showing all the input and output activity and it can also act as a uninterrupted power supply with a response time of less than 20 milliseconds.

It can also be controlled by an app on your smartphone.

Full retail price is $799, but at the time of writing it was priced less than $500 from jackery.com. Sales happen pretty frequently.

Ecoflow Trail Series 300 DC

This is a really small and light power station with the form factor of a camping lantern, including a woven carrying strap.

Weighing in at just 5.69 pounds, the Trail 300 DC has a 288 watt-hour LiFePo4 battery with a 300W DC output.

The DC in the name means this power station only provides DC power. It doesn’t have an AC inverter and can’t power things like a coffee maker.

What it does have is two 140W USB-C ports, one 12W USB-A port and one 12v/10amp DC accessory outlet.

It can recharge from USB-C, an XT-60 (110W) solar input or the 12v outlet.

Ecoflow says the Trail 300 DC can charge up your phone 16 times or a portable electric cooler for up to 23 hours.

This is a perfect power station to take on a day hike or an overnight camping trip.

It’s easy to carry and can even handle an occasional drop.

The full retail price is $249, but Black Friday sales have the price down at $149 at ecoflow.com.

If you like the form factor, Ecoflow also has a Trail 200 DC with a slightly smaller battery, and they’ve announced the Trail Plus 300 DC, which includes more output ports and a LED lantern which will be available soon.

Anker Solix C2000 Gen 2

Anker has updated it’s C2000 Power Station to a Gen 2 model and as its name implies, it has a battery capacity of 2,048 Wh with LiFePo4 batteries rated for 4,000 cycles.

LiFEPO4 also means faster recharging. With AC and solar, it is capable of charging from zero to 100 percent in less than an hour.

From an 1,800W AC outlet, the C2000 Gen 2 can charge up in about 90 minutes. It can handle 800W of solar, needing three hours to charge up. You can combine those two recharge methods for the fastest charge.

Anker also sells a charger that connects to your vehicle’s alternator for an 800W three-hour charge.

The C2000 Gen 2 has a 2,400W inverter to power almost everything, including a full-size refrigerator for 32 hours.

Outputs include five AC outlets, one TT-30 RV outlet and a 12V/10A accessory outlet. As for USB, it has two 140W PD Fast Charge USB-C, one 15W USB-C and one 12W USB-A port. Inputs include AC (1,800W) and XT-60 solar (800W).

The C2000 Gen 2 measures 18.1 inches × 9.8 inches × 10.1 inches and it weighs 41.67 pounds, which is pretty darn light for a power station of this capacity. It also has two carrying handles on top and it’s flat, so you can stack things on it, like an expansion battery.

Yes, Anker sells a 2,048Wh expansion battery that can double the capacity of the system.

It also comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and has an app to control it from anywhere. Its color LED screen lists all the information you’d need to monitor the unit’s performance and charge levels.

Anker lists the C2000 Gen 2 for $1,499, but I found it on Anker’s website for $739 just during Cyber Week (Dec. 2-Dec. 7).