2 Things You Should Look for When Buying a Portable Power Station

Are you shopping for a portable power station? Here are five things you should look for when buying one.

With the advancement of battery technology, portable power stations have the capacity and raw power to reliably power electronics that require much greater power than your regular power bank can provide. Although not as powerful as gas-powered generators, they are quieter, lighter, and don't require fuel to start delivering power.

So, getting a portable power station is likely the better solution if you're looking for a quiet and mobile device to power your smartphone, laptop, computer, or TV. To help you find a quality one, here are 2 things you should look for when buying a new power station.

1. Battery Capacity

When looking for a portable power station, battery capacity is the most important specification you should be looking for. The bigger the battery capacity, the longer you can run your devices per charge. So, in general, buy the highest capacity battery you can.

However, considering size, weight, and cost, you might want to go for a more calculated approach when considering the battery capacity of your portable power station.

Since different manufacturers use different metrics to measure the battery capacity of their portable power stations, knowing battery capacity can be confusing. The most popular metrics used in measuring battery capacity would include mAh (milliamp hour), Ah (Amp hour), Wh (Watt hour), and kWh (kilowatt-hour).

Electronic devices usually indicate their maximum power consumption in Watt-hours, which you can find marked on various types of power supplies. If the power supply indicates its power rating in Watts, remember that one watt is equal to one Watt-hour.

To better understand how long a portable power station can power your device, you first need to know its battery capacity in Watt-hours. To do that, you can check its Watt-hour rating. But if it only indicates battery capacity in mAh (milliamp-hours) or Ah (Amp-hours), you can take those numbers plus its rated system voltage (12v or 24v).

2. Battery Technology

Another important thing you should be looking for in a portable power station is battery technology or the type of battery it utilizes. The type of battery used in a portable power station heavily determines the size, weight, cost, charging speed, and how long your power station can keep producing AC power before cutting off.

Lithium-ion (Li-Ion), lithium-polymer (Li-Po), and lead-acid batteries are the most common batteries used in portable power stations.

Lithium-ion batteries charge three times faster than lead-acid batteries and are the most energy dense out of the three. On the other hand, lithium-polymer batteries are less energy dense than Li-Ion batteries but have fast charging capabilities and are generally safer to use than Li-Ion and lead acid batteries. While lead-acid batteries are the most affordable of the three, but are also bulky, slow-charging, and have the least energy density.