Every spec sheet in portable power lists the same dozen numbers, in an order chosen to flatter the product. That's the problem these guides solve: not more specs, but the right order to consider them in.

Get the order wrong and you buy on capacity alone, then discover the inverter won't start your kettle. Get it right and the decision takes ten minutes.

What I look at, in this order

This ranking is the actual content of every guide below. The order matters more than the individual items.

  1. Capacity band versus your real loads. Not the sale price, not the biggest number you can afford. What are you actually running, and for how long?
  2. Cell chemistry. LiFePO4 or walk away. This single spec decides whether you're buying something for two years or ten, and it's the one most often left vague in listings.
  3. Continuous output and surge. Two separate numbers. Continuous decides whether a microwave runs at all; surge decides whether a fridge compressor can start without tripping the unit.
  4. Solar input ceiling. Only matters if you plan to recharge off-grid — but if you do, it's the difference between topping up by lunchtime and never catching up.
  5. Port mix and carry weight. Last, because it's the easiest to check and the hardest to be surprised by. Still worth a look: the right total capacity with the wrong outlets is useless.

Anything not on that list — app features, screen quality, colour — is a tiebreaker, not a criterion.

Three budget bands, and what changes between them

Prices move constantly, so I'll describe the bands by what you get rather than by dollar figures.

Entry. A few hundred watt-hours, modest inverter, often older chemistry. Fine for phones, laptops and lights. The band where reading the chemistry label carefully pays for itself.

Middle. Roughly one kilowatt-hour, LiFePO4, an inverter with enough headroom to start a fridge, and meaningful solar input. This is where most buyers should be, and where the value is densest.

Upper. Two kilowatt-hours and beyond, high continuous output, expandable in some cases. Buy here only when you can name the heavy load or the long outage that justifies the weight.

The step from entry to middle buys you capability. The step from middle to upper mostly buys you endurance, and costs you portability.

Which guide you want

If you're starting from zero and want the whole method — what each capacity band covers, why chemistry decides lifespan, and how to read inverter ratings — the portable power station buying guide is the complete version of everything summarised above.

If you already know your size and want to see how the candidates stack up against each other, go to my portable power comparisons. If you want a verdict on one specific unit, that's in the reviews. And if what's blocking you is simply not knowing how long a given capacity lasts on your appliances, do that first with the runtime calculator.

Frequently asked questions

What size portable power station should I buy?
Start from the appliance you most need to keep running and for how long, rather than from a budget. For phones, lights and laptops a few hundred watt-hours is plenty; to carry a full-size refrigerator through most of a day you want around a kilowatt-hour; and beyond that you are buying endurance at a real cost in weight. The full sizing method →
Which spec do buyers most often get wrong?
Inverter output. Capacity and output are different numbers and it is easy to assume a large battery implies a strong inverter. Anything that heats, such as a kettle, microwave or hair dryer, draws over a thousand watts continuously and will simply refuse to run on an underpowered unit regardless of how much capacity it has.
Is it worth waiting for a sale?
Only if the unit was already the right one. The most expensive mistake in this category is buying the wrong size because it was discounted, since a unit that cannot do the job is poor value at any price.

All portable power buying guides