I'm not really into camping or appreciating nature, but I'm willing to tolerate the great outdoors. (On a limited basis. From my teardrop trailer. Complete with TV and air conditioning.)

When I went camping, I bought a neat Jackery 240 watt power supply and was completely dismayed the first morning to see that it wouldn’t turn on a heater or a coffee maker. (The answer, it turns out, was a lack of sufficient wattage and volts.) To power anything important, a camper like me needs a decent sized power supply and a way to charge it off the grid.

Now that I know better, I tested portable units in the 1,000-3,000 watt range, along with their matching solar panels, from brands like Jackery, EcoFlow, Anker, and Goal Zero to see if there’s much difference in quality and value. The Anker SOLIX C800 PLUS Portable Power Station is the one I tested most recently, and it offers a good value, with 1,200 watts of output/768 kWh, for $649.

In the rush to get the most power for our money, we sometimes forget a truly fundamental quality of a portable power unit: it must remain portable. As the capacity of units increases, so does their weight.