It's heavy and expensive, but Anker's new power station is insanely beefy
Just a few years ago, if you wanted electricity during a power outage or on a camping trip your only real option was a generator. The insane progress in lithium battery technology has changed that. The Anker 757 Powerhouse is no pocket-sized power bank—it can power full-blown home appliances for hours at a time and is small enough to sit on your kitchen counter. The Powerhouse is an excellent tool in case of a power outage, camping, or any other time you just need honest-to-goodness wall power when there are no outlets in sight.
At $1,400, the 757 Powerhouse is far from cheap, but it’s still affordable when compared to other devices in the same class. Between the generous selection of ports, the relatively affordable solar panel upgrade, and the fast charge speeds, Anker excels where other companies have fallen short.
The Anker 757 Powerhouse is one of the best options for a power station right now, and it even costs less than most comparable devices. While it doesn’t have as high a capacity or output as some competing devices, the 1500W output is still more than enough to power the vast majority of appliances in case of a power outage or off-grid use.
The Anker 757 Powerhouse is pretty sleek looking (even if it's no PowerStudio 300) with its blue accents on dark gray and plastic panels that do a pretty good impression of brushed metal. The outside may be nothing but plastic, but the entire unit feels very solid. There are some vents with blue accents on the sides of the Powerhouse to allow for active cooling. The fan noise isn’t obnoxious, but it’s definitely noticeable when charging or discharging. The white stripe across the front is an LED light strip with the normal low/medium/high and SOS modes.
The display on the front shows pertinent info like charge and discharge rates, charge level, and remaining time. In addition to the button for the light strip, the car and AC plugs each have their own on/off buttons. Since they have passive power draw, being able to turn them off keeps them from draining the Powerhouse while it’s just sitting there. Additionally, there’s a power saver switch next to the display. In power saver mode, the Powerhouse will cut power going to any plugs it doesn’t detect a draw from after a few minutes. With power saver turned off, though, it will keep power going to those plugs until you turn it off yourself. This is a necessary feature if you have something like a CPAP machine, or you’re using it for anything that runs intermittently, like a refrigerator.
You’re spoiled for choice with ports on the 757 Powerhouse. The ports are divided into three blocks underneath the display. On the left is a single 12v DC car outlet, USB ports in the middle, and plug outlets on the right. The 6 USB ports come in 3 flavors - one 100W USB-C, one 60W USB-C, and 4 12W USB-A ports. It would have been nice to shift some of those type-a ports over to type-c, but that’s a relatively minor complaint. The 6 plug outlets are divided into three 2-prong and three grounded 3-prong outlets, capable of providing 1500W total. That could be across all the outlets, or just through one if you have something particularly power-hungry plugged in. Compared to something like the Jackery Explorer 1500, Anker is offering twice the USB ports and AC outlets for maximum flexibility.
The box the Powerhouse comes in is massive and filled with high-density foam. That’s a necessary sacrifice to make for the sake of secure shipping, given all the regulations around shipping lithium batteries. Thankfully, once it’s out of the box, the 757 Powerhouse is just a bit bigger than a car battery and weighs in at a smidge over 40lbs. It has handles, but it would be a stretch to call it portable. That’s unavoidable when you’re cramming enough lithium batteries into a box to power a refrigerator.
One of the biggest appeals of the 757 Powerhouse is the option to use it with solar panels. Even though the panels from Anker are an extra $900, you at least get the necessary cable to connect three 100W solar panels, even if you aren’t buying them from Anker. This feature is a must-have if you want to take things off-grid for more than a day or two.
One of the most impressive features of the 757 Powerhouse is its charging speed. It charges at 1000W (yes, you read that right; one-thousand watts) and goes from zero to about 80% in an hour on wall power. It takes considerably longer on a car outlet, limited to just 120w, so be sure to charge it before you take it camping. If you spring for the $900 solar panels set, you can get up to 300W of charging which can get you to 80% in a bit over 3 and a half hours according to Anker, but I can’t confirm that without trying them myself.
With over 1200 watt-hours of juice, the 757 Powerhouse is no slouch, having twice the capacity of the Energizer PPS or Duracell Power Source and 20% more capacity than the Jackery Explorer 1000, but the battery life depends entirely on what you’re using it for. I know that sounds reductive, but let me elaborate. If you go camping, and you only need to do things like power a fan in your tent, recharge your phone and laptop a few times, and power some LED lanterns, you can probably easily make it the better part of a week on your initial charge. If you wanted to replace your gas camping stove with an electric one on that same trip, however, you could expect less than an hour of use before running the battery down. This isn’t to say the Powerhouse isn’t impressive, though. Things like heaters and stovetops are made to draw the maximum continuous load that your home’s wall outlets can safely allow, and managing that with something this size is damn impressive.
To be clear, the amount of power I’m talking about here is about what your refrigerator uses in a day to a day and a half. This is one of the few places where Anker has fallen short of the competition. Similar power stations, like the Jackery Explorer 1500 and the Ecoflow Delta Max 1600, have closer to 1600Wh of power at their disposal, but the 757 Powerhouse still has more than enough advantages to be the one I’d recommend.
The Powerhouse allowed me to do some truly ludicrous things, like bring a high powered blender to the park to make some Orange Julius for me and a few friends, and drive my espresso machine over to my mother’s house for mothers day so I could make her a fresh affogato out of the back of my wagon. These are far from practical applications, but they definitely show that practicality is not a limiting factor here. If you can think of any reason you might want power when you’re away from an outlet, the 757 Powerhouse can handle it.
The Powerhouse was also super useful with reasonable tasks. I made the switch from gas to electric tools a while ago, and I don’t actually have a long enough extension cord to get my pole saw to the end of my driveway to trim low-hanging branches, so I usually have to use hand tools. The Powerhouse made this a trivial job since it gives you an outlet wherever you want one. Like a lot of people, I’ve got a shed in my backyard, and it doesn’t have any power running to it. I still have a workbench set up in there for projects, and the Powerhouse has more than enough juice to run heavy equipment like a table saw or drill press for hours at a time. Then there’s camping. The Powerhouse is a campsite champ, and while the solar panel upgrade is definitely highly recommended for that use case, you can still make it a couple of days if you’re just using a kettle for coffee and rehydrating freeze-dried meals.
Yes. If you’re looking for a portable power solution, the Powerhouse lives up to that name to a T. It gives you access to full-blown wall power on-the-go, recharges faster than many competing devices, and is still small enough to be convenient. Whether you want it in case of a power outage, or just want wall power away from the electrical grid, you’d be hard pressed to find a better option. While it isn’t cheap at $1400, you can still spend hundreds more on other power stations, and end up with a worse value.
The Jackery Explorer 1500 is one of the better power stations on the market. With an 1800W output, over 1500Wh of capacity, and a higher max solar charging rate of 400W compared to the 300W of the 757 Powerhouse, Jackery beats out Anker on total capacity, total output, and off-grid recharging. The Powerhouse has twice as many USB ports, twice the AC outlets, can reach 80% charge in a little over 1/4th the time as the Explorer, all for $300 less. The Explorer supports up to four 100W solar panels compared to the three the powerhouse can handle, but whether you buy your solar panels from Anker or Jackery, they’ll run you about $300 each.
The Goal Zero Yeti 1500X has a 2000W output, and just over 1500Wh of capacity, and has a selection of different first party solar panels designed for different use cases to choose from, if you want to use it as a solar generator. These advantages will run you 2 grand, making it almost as much as the 757 Powerhouse with solar panels. Despite the fact that the Yeti 1500X has 25% more capacity, and a third more power output, Goal Zero doesn’t give you very many outlets. You only get two AC outlets, 2 USB-A ports, and 2 USB-C ports, and only one of those is high powered. With the Powerhouse, your type-c ports come in at 100W and 60W respectively, while the Yeti 1500X does sport a 60W type-C port, the other is only 18W.
The EcoFlow DELTA Max line of power stations is more of a “money is no object” approach to power stations. The DELTA Max 1600 comes in at $400 more than the 757 Powerhouse, and holds an extra 400w of charge. It also has the ability to daisy chain more DELTA Max batteries together, and its solar charging limit is 800W as opposed to the 300W max input of the Powerhouse. That being said, you’re paying extra for the ability to expand into those features, even if you have no intention of springing the extra few thousand bucks to get them.
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Connor is 6'5", quite literally making him a massive nerd. His first Android was a Samsung Intercept he bought in 2010, and he's been a rabid Android fan ever since. When he's away from his keyboard, he's usually taking photos or working out.