Anker Solix C300 Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

This small power station is far easier than most to lug around, and it’s surprisingly well served by ports and other features.

On the flip side, the Anker Soliz C300 doesn’t have the oomph for home use. It’s a good choice where portability is paramount, and you don’t need powerful mains ports. However, if you can live without them altogether, the DC-only version is a cheaper, even more portable choice.

Introduction

This diminutive power station is about the smallest you’ll find with two AC power ports. Anker’s Solix C300 is designed to be compact and portable, and to provide just enough electricity for a couple of people camping over the weekend.

The Anker Solix C300 can store 288 watt hours (Wh) of electricity, which is about enough to charge a laptop and two phones twice over. Crammed into its front panel you’ll find one USB-A and three USB-C ports, two of which are rated for a massive 140 watts (W). There’s also a car power socket and a handy light.

I’m testing the regular C300, which comes with two AC power ports, together rated for a maximum 300W. That’s not a lot: while comfortably enough for almost any laptop – and other low-power devices like fans or most TVs – it’s far short of the kilowatt or more you’d need to run travel irons, kettles or toasters.

If you don’t need mains ports, there’s a DC-only version: the Anker Solix C300 DC. This has a bigger, pop-up light and a few more USB ports, but it can neither supply nor be charged by mains power. The DC option gets a three-year warranty, whereas this AC version comes with Anker’s usual five years.

Design and Features

• Very portable
• Great selection of features
• No car charging or solar cables

Anker says that the Solix C300 is 30% smaller than competing power stations. While that might be a slight exaggeration, it’s impressively light and compact for a device packing this much power storage. At 4.1kg and with a chunky, moulded handle built into the top, it’s genuinely possible to carry it for some time. It’s not insignificant, though – it would add heft to a backpack, and although there are loops for a carrying strap you won’t find one in the box.

The Anker Solix C300’s upright stance might look a little odd, but its small footprint could be an advantage in a cramped tent, or where you’ve limited space on a fold-out table. It’s interesting to compare the C300 with the Anker PowerHouse 521. That model has slightly less energy storage, slower charging, and fewer, less powerful ports, yet it weighs 400g more and is very slightly bigger.

With the exception of the mains input port on the left side, all of the C300’s ports and features are gathered on its front panel. At the base you’ll find the two power sockets, whose sideways orientation makes cable management easier, but could be an issue if you have a tall mains adaptor you want to plug in. Above you’ll find the car power outlet, which in this case isn’t protected by the rubber bung I’m used to seeing on portable power stations.

Among the Anker Solix C300’s most interesting features are its USB ports. There’s only one 12W USB-A slot, which could be a problem if you have a few older devices. The first USB-C port is rated only for 15W, so it’s most suitable for overnight charging duties on a smartphone. The remaining two are USB-C power delivery (PD) ports rated for a thumping 140W each – ideal for fast-charging laptops, phones, or drones. The central one is two-way, so you can use it with a suitably powerful USB-C power adaptor to recharge the C300 at up to 140W.

You might notice from my photos that the two-way USB-C port is mounted above this power station’s solar input port. There’s a movable cover that prevents you from using both at the same time, so you can’t charge from USB and solar at once. The solar port doubles as a connector for in-car charging, but unfortunately there’s no lead supplied – it costs about £24.

Like other Anker power stations, the Solix C300 has an inbuilt light. Here, it’s shorter and has a cool colour temperature, but you’ll find three brightness levels, along with an ‘SOS’ mode that actually spells ‘SO’.

You can view most details of the Anker Solix C300 via its small but detailed screen. This shows you the batteries’ current state, whether they’re charging or discharging, and how long you have until they’re full or empty. You’ll also see how much power is going out via the mains or USB ports, and how much is coming in from mains, solar or USB charging.

The C300 connects via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to Anker’s useful app, through which you can see more detail, such as the power coming into or going out of each individual port, plus the battery temperature. Here you can also switch the AC and car power ports on and off, and change the rate at which the unit charges from the mains, but you can’t schedule charging, or set the output ports to turn on at a given time. You can, however, set an off timer for the car or mains ports once they’re on.

Charging

• Charge from mains, car, USB, or the sun
• Maximum 330W charging power
• Full recharge in just over an hour

When it comes to charging, the Anker Solix C300 is a highly flexible device. Mains charging defaults to the maximum 330W, but you can lower it to 200W or just 100W – good if you have a very limited electric hookup, or you just want to extend the batteries’ life. As mentioned, you can charge up to 140W from USB, or 120W from a car cigarette input. It’s a real shame that Anker doesn’t include the cable for this, as the C300’s modest battery capacity means you’d only need to drive for two and a half hours before it was full.

There are a couple of other things of note. First, you can’t combine mains and USB/solar charging to fill the batteries more quickly: the C300 switches to mains-only charging as soon as AC power is available.

The other is that this power station’s solar input is limited to 100 watts at 28 volts – be sure to buy compatible panels, along with the necessary cable. In perfect conditions, you could recharge from the sun in three hours, and in less-than-perfect conditions, you’d still be able to eke out any existing charge for longer.

I emptied the C300’s batteries, then recharged it from the mains at 330W. This took 66 minutes, and consumed 333Wh. Assuming that took the 288Wh batteries from totally empty to completely full, it equates to a decent efficiency of 86.5%. Repeated at 200W, charging consumed 335Wh (86%), and at 100W it took 343Wh (84%). The C300 remained reasonably cool, and there was barely any fan noise.

Performance

• Good USB performance
• Lack of headroom on AC ports
• Not especially efficient

We always test power stations as close as possible to their maximum specifications. I’ve never previously had any issues with Anker devices, but the C300 wasn’t perfect. While it happily provided a constant 120W or 200W until its batteries were exhausted, I couldn’t get it to supply the rated 300W.

I usually apply a steady AC load to a power station by connecting one or more other power banks, set to the required charging rate. In this case, I used the Anker Solix F2000, which you can set to recharge at several rates including 200W and 300W. At 300W, the C300 cut out immediately under load, then tried to restart its mains power output before cutting out again, remaining stuck in that loop.

I tried the Anker Solix C300 with other low-medium power devices, including two MeacoDry dehumidifiers, but these caused the same issue. To be fair, compressors often have a big power spike as they start, but even when I used bypass power to ride this out, the C300 was unable to sustain enough power to keep them running. Having ruled out an issue with apparent power (electricity supplied to a device, but not actually used), I had to use a combination of devices to get as close as I could to 300W – the C300 was fine with these, supplying a constant 255W.

I’ve commonly got away with momentarily overloading power supplies by a few percent, and in a couple of cases I’ve accidentally done so by a lot. However, my results suggest that while the C300 might be able to supply 300W, it doesn’t have much headroom. If I were buying the C300, I wouldn’t plan to use it with anything other than the lightest-duty mains devices.

I wasn’t able to test the Anker Solix C300 at its maximum USB load, but it was happy to supply a total well above 100W to a mix of devices. Tested with a constant 60W load, it delivered 269Wh from a full charge – a strong efficiency of 93.4%. Unsurprisingly, given the overhead of running an inverter from a comparatively small battery pack, it was less efficient when providing AC power. From a full charge, the C300 provided 240Wh at a constant 100W, 238Wh at a constant 200W (82.64% efficiency), and 233Wh with a 255W load.

Comparing the amount of energy I put in with what I could later take out, this power supply managed a fair 80.8% round-trip efficiency over its DC output, but only 71.5% when using the AC ports. That’s some way below the best, which can typically go above 80% efficiency for both.

As an indication of value, I divide a power station’s price by how much electricity it might be able to store over a lifetime. Anker says the C300 can store 288Wh on each charge, and that its batteries will still have at least 80% of that capacity after 3,000 charge cycles. Assuming the cells degrade in a linear way, that means the C300 could store 778 kilowatt hours (kWh), which works out at a cost of 35p per kWh. That’s on the high side, but not unreasonably so for a supply in this class. However, if you are considering the C300, you might want to wait until it’s available with one of Anker’s regular discounts.

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