I powered my entire shoot with the Acer 600W Power Station – here’s how it performed

The Acer 600W portable power station is a relatively compact option for taking AC and DC power out in the field. Essentially, it offers a personal array of AC and DC ports as if you had a direct connection to a mains plug that you use at home, just out in the field. The DC, on the other hand, is used for the USB ports. When it comes to taking on charge, it’s also fully compatible with a solar panel, and Acer kindly sent a solar panel along with this review sample, which I’ve been using out in the field during the British summer.

One of the features that I’ll come onto later in the review, but is well worth mentioning, is that it features LIFEPO4 batteries. These are far more robust than previous generations of lithium-ion batteries, lasting up to 3000 cycles, so if you have any worries about the longevity of these power stations, then that should at least help set your mind at rest.

The other thing that people get really worried about, since I last looked at a bunch of power stations last year, was how safe they are. Acer, once again, being a huge manufacturer, has plenty of safeguards in place, including OTP, SCP, OCP, and OVP protection. Basically, this all just ensures everything is level and the power is safe and reliable.

When it comes to what you can actually use the 600W power station for, there’s often a little bit of confusion about the wattage, in this case, 600W, which is the maximum output wattage that this power station can facilitate, and the capacity, which is 518Wh. This is how much actual electricity there is to charge or power other devices. So, essentially, if you have a 60W laptop, that MacBook will get up to 10 full charges. If you’re thinking about charging up your NP-FZ100 from your Sony Alpha camera, then you should get a maximum of 31 full charges, so all are very useful.

Due to the size, weight, and functionality of this particular power station, it strikes a balance between being relatively portable and providing you with that valuable recharge capacity and the ability to run AC power devices, such as chargers, lighting and anything that you would normally run directly from AC power and wouldn’t usually be able to run when out in the field.

One thing that really strikes you about the Acer 600W as soon as you remove it from the packaging is just how well-made it is. It has a high quality compared with some of the cheaper power stations, and when you consider the list of features it offers while you do pay a slight price premium, here it’s actually extremely well balanced.

The unit itself feels solid, and as I accidentally managed to prove during the test, it’s extremely robust, as it suffered quite a few knocks and bashes along the way. While it is slightly heavy at 7.35kg and measuring 301 x 193 x 225mm, it will still fit into a day pack without too many issues.

If, however, you want to use the carry handle, then that’s also a decent size and quality and matches the mix of PC/ABS plastic materials that were used for the construction. Polycarbonate is what most drink bottles are made from, and it’s exceptionally durable. ABS is the choice for Lego bricks, so it should highlight the durability of the exterior.

Taking a look at what’s on offer, there are plenty of ports broken into both DC and AC. For the DC, you’ve got two USB Type-A, two USB Type-C, two DC5521, a car socket and two ACs. The ACs are essentially the wall sockets that you would find at home. Then you have two input sockets.

The first is a car socket, the second is a solar socket, and, of course, you have your mains AC, so you can quickly give it a charging boost.

One of the unusual features of the design is the large camping light that covers a large section of the top front of the battery. This is used for a little bit of illumination when needed, and it’s a nice addition and something many of these portable power stations now include. The light itself is really well diffused, so if you need a little bit of extra lighting on an evening shoot or you’re just relaxing afterwards, then this is a great option.

Otherwise, when it comes to build and handling, it’s all very simple. The simple on button powers up the battery and is very neat. The LCD shows the percentage charged and what the output watt-hours are, and gives you all the basic information about the battery. It’s a really nice indicator, although very simple.

Otherwise, a few features that would have been nice to see but aren’t included would be a wireless charger on the top plate. A compatible app that would enable you to remotely monitor the battery when you’re on a shoot would also be a great addition and is now common with many power stations. However, when it comes to the build and handling of the battery, it’s nice, simple, and easy to use.

First and foremost, when it comes to the features, it has a pure sine wave inverter and internal battery storage to deliver both AC and DC power and also operates as a reliable charging station for all your devices. When it comes to lithium batteries, it’s always good to know there are plenty of safety features built in, and this includes all sorts of protection types, with overcurrent, overvoltage, short circuit and over-temperature all there as standard. So, if the power station suffers from any of these, it’ll automatically switch off rather than doing anything else.

Some of the major features of this power station include fast charging, so you can top it up quickly from a mains power point. It also offers an LED light, which is great for camping and also sheds light onto your scene. It’s really nicely diffused and a lot better than some of the small round lights you see on these power stations, and there’s a very useful LCD display.

The power ports and power options, provided give you a good selection with two USB Type-A, which are 5V and offer 2.4A, and then there are two USB Type-C that offer 5, 9, 12, and 15V at 3A. Then there’s a 12V 3A for solar, and there’s a 12V 10A for the car. While the output of the battery is 600W, each of those port combinations has a maximum output, with USB-A offering up to 12W, which should suffice for most situations. The output power from the USB is 100W, and if you plug in more devices that draw more than that, you will see that the power output is split between whatever you’ve plugged in.

In use, the Acer 600W power station works really well. The fact that it is the size that it is means it’s easy to carry around, and its relatively large carry handle makes it good and comfortable to carry in one hand. While it is a little bit on the large side, it will fit just into a backpack, which, as we were testing these at the same time, made quite a good test of both the bag and this power station. Whilst it does weigh in at just under eight kilograms, so there’s no missing the weight in the backpack. It’s still perfectly possible as long as more than one of you is doing so.

When you arrive at your destination, you then have that 518 watt-hours of additional power. So, when it came to using my MacBook Air out on site, I knew that I had at least 10 charges if I was solely using the battery to charge up the MacBook Air. But as it happened, we had two MacBooks, a couple of drones, quite a bit of lighting and several phones and other devices that all needed charging whilst we were there. What we attempted to do was, when any device got down to about 50%, we plugged it into the Acer 600 power station just to give it a top-up charge.

What we did notice was that our devices were all rather power-hungry, and within a couple of hours, the power station had run down to about 10%. We plugged in the solar panel that was supplied, and this was able to charge the device at about 60W, which would have taken 10 hours to regain full charge. As it was, we managed to get about another 20% built up in the battery, so when we left the location on the first day, we’d actually boosted the battery power from 10% up to 30%.

On the next outing, we used it solely for lighting, and here it really came into its own, being able to power two Rotolight Anova lights for just under six hours. During that time, we did have to charge a few other devices along the way. The lights weren’t running at 100%, so there was still about 20% of the charge left at the end of the day.

When I checked the LCD, it was noticeable that two lights were taking about 150W of power when running at full power.

Back home, we tested out the maximum power that I could draw from the power station just to check the safety credentials of the unit. Essentially, I plugged in everything and maxed out the power draw to about 700W.

Sure enough, the power station just powered down, and once we restarted it, it was absolutely fine. So, the fail-safe just switches off to save the battery and, obviously, your devices.

At the end of the test, I was impressed overall with the Acer 600W power station. It provided most of the power that I needed, but there were several instances, especially on that first test, where I realised that the 518 watt-hours of battery life are somewhat limited, especially when you’re using photographic gear. Also, we do like to have a cup of coffee or tea when we’re out in the field, and our kettle is a kilowatt, so again, we couldn’t utilise that and had to resort back to the Jetboil in order to boil water.

Otherwise, for most uses and for small camping and photographic shoots, the 600W option is highly portable and will provide you with a decent amount of additional power without needing to lug around lots of extra batteries. To that end, it’s really good; however, I still maintain that at least a kilowatt is the minimum amount that you need in the field for photography work. While 600W is good, I would want to see a slight uptick to at least a kilowatt for professional photography and video.

At the end of testing the Acer 600W power station, I am still of the opinion that if you are using a power station professionally for video or photography work, then a kilowatt is really the minimum amount that you need. However, the 600W power station has really made me rethink that.

The fact that it is now so much smaller and compact and weighs only seven and a half, almost eight kilograms, does make it slightly more portable than most of the 600W options.

It’s also a good strong build, as I discovered during the test, and while my review sample might now look a little battered, it certainly survived being dropped and sliding down a slope without any issue. When it came to charging our devices, it did really well, and we did just overload it a little bit more than we would usually do, as the small power station that we usually take with us is far smaller. Having this power station with us, it just felt rude not to make the most of it.

On the second shoot, using the Rotolight Anova Pro 2 lighting, having that additional power and the longevity of full-power lighting really did make a difference. Compared with the 1kW that we often try to take with us, this 600W really did make a difference on that carrying load, so here again, it really does come into its own, and as a lightweight, portable power solution, it’s actually quite worthwhile taking.

As power stations go, this 600 is a great option for professional shoots as long as they’re relatively small and you’re not putting too much demand on them. The 600W will facilitate a small amount of electrical gear, including one or two laptops, charging of devices and running lights, but you are starting to hit that upper limit of 600w. What I did find was that it was actually very difficult on a small product shoot to exceed what this power station could supply.

When it comes to a balance of what’s on offer and the price, I actually think the Acer power station might be one of the best that I’ve looked at yet, and it really made me rethink my opinion that 1kW is the minimum you need out on site.