Anker 535 Portable Power Station Review

At CES earlier this year, Anker introduced the 535 Portable Power Station, the latest addition to its PowerHouse line of large, portable batteries for supporting electronics while camping, during power outages, and in other situations where you are off the grid.

I had some time to test the $500 Anker 535, and it offers a handy set of connectivity options for charging a variety of devices, and decent charging capacity that can keep things going for a while. a good moment.

The Anker 535 includes a 512 watt-hour battery and weighs 16.5 pounds (7.5 kg), so while it’s not something you’ll want to take with you on a hike, it’s compact enough to be stored. away from your home or easily carried in a car.

Although I haven’t had a chance to use the Anker 535 on the road yet, I was able to test it in the house and it was comforting to know that it was available during a few ice storms in my area during the winter. , although we ended up only experiencing a few power outages here and there.

So while I didn’t need the power station in a true off-grid scenario, I used it a lot around the house to power and charge various devices, and it worked great.

There are a host of ports and outlets, including four AC outlets supporting devices up to 500 watts, a USB-C port supporting fast charging up to 60 watts, three USB-A ports and an outlet 12V vehicle type. A built-in light bar on the front of the unit helps illuminate your surroundings while making it easy to manage any devices you might connect to its ports.

The power station comes with a 120 watt AC adapter and can also be recharged at 60 watts via its USB-C port. For even faster charging (0-80% in about two and a half hours), you can connect via both methods simultaneously. It can also be recharged via a vehicle power port (although this will take considerably longer at just 12 watts), or via any 12V-28V solar panel charger equipped with a DC power connector 8mm.

On the front of the device there is an informative LED display which shows the current battery level in percentage and a more approximate pictorial display, and it reports the input and output powers in real time, as well as the estimated time to fully charge or power connected devices. A series of icons at the top of the screen can light up to let you know what types of devices are currently connected and provide high and low temperature warnings.

I really like the amount of detail shown on the screen, letting you know exactly which ports are currently active and giving you up-to-the-second data on input or output so you can tell how much time you have left or how long the station will take to recharge, or even just to understand how much power an individual device consumes while charging.

A switch near the mains sockets allows you to activate and deactivate an energy saving mode. When turned on, the power station will automatically turn off once all connected devices are fully charged, saving battery power. Turning it off will provide continuous and stable power to devices such as CPAP devices that run continuously when connected to the power station.

Anker says the 535 Powerhouse can fully charge a MacBook Air more than eight times or run a 40-watt CPAP machine for more than a full night’s sleep, and while I haven’t tested these claims specifically, I found it to offer plenty of power for the tasks I tested.

For example, fully charging an iPad Air from the station’s USB-C port took about an hour and a half and used about 6% of the powerhouse’s total capacity. I’ve tested a variety of other devices from powering a room fan to charging a cordless shaver to running a HomePod and a lamp, all at the same time. time, and the Anker 535 had no problem keeping up.

Keep in mind that the 500 watt limit for the station means it won’t be able to power some high load appliances like hot plates, toasters, hair dryers and many larger appliances.

The Anker 535 Portable Power Station is priced at $499.99, but the company has several other options available in a price range. The 256-watt-hour 521 model has half the capacity of the 535, but it’s also half the price, at $249.99. It also sacrifices some ports, checking in with two AC outlets instead of four and two USB-A ports instead of three.

There’s also an even smaller 97-watt-hour 511 model, normally priced at $219.99 and featuring a single 100-watt AC outlet, a 45-watt USB-C port, and two USB-A ports. .

Finally, there’s a pair of older models, the 389-watt-hour 533 model priced at $459.99 and the larger-capacity 545 model with 778 watt-hours of power and priced at $699.99.

Note: Anker provided MacRumors with the 535 Portable Power Station for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was received. MacRumors is an affiliate partner of Anker. When you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us operate the site.