At CES earlier this year, Anker introduced the 535 Portable Power Station, the latest entrant in its Powerhouse lineup of large portable batteries to power electronic devices while camping, during power outages, and other situations where you’re off the grid.
I’ve had some time to test the $500 Anker 535, and it offers a simple set of connection options for charging a variety of devices, and a decent charging capacity that can last for quite some time.
The Anker 535 has a 512 watt-hour battery, and it weighs 16.5 pounds (7.5 kg), so while it’s not something you’ll want to take on a trip, it’s compact enough to store. Out of the way or easily transported in a car to your home.
While I haven’t had a chance to use the Anker 535 on the road yet, I was able to test it around the house and it was comforting to know it was available during a few ice storms in my area over the winter, though we ended up experiencing nothing more than a few power blips here and there.
So while I don’t need the power station in a true off-the-grid situation, I’ve used it quite a bit around the house to power and charge various devices, and it’s worked very well.
There are plenty of ports and outlets, including four AC outlets supporting devices up to 500 watts, a USB-C port that supports fast charging up to 60 watts, three USB-A ports and a 12V car-style outlet. An integrated light bar on the front of the unit helps illuminate your surroundings while making it easy to manage all the devices you can connect to its ports.
The Power Station comes with a 120-watt AC adapter and can be recharged at 60 watts via its USB-C port. For even faster recharging (from 0 to 80 in about two and a half hours), you can connect via both methods at the same time. It can also be recharged via a car power port (although this will take significantly longer at only 12 watts), or via any 12V–28V solar panel charger equipped with an 8mm DC power connector.
On the front of the unit, there is an informative LED display that shows the current battery level in both percentage and a rough graphical display that reports real-time input and output wattage as well as estimated time to full recharge or power. connected devices. A series of icons illuminate across the top of the display to let you know what type of device is currently connected and provide high- and low-temperature alerts.
I really like the amount of detail shown on the display, letting you know exactly which ports are currently active and giving you up-to-the-second data on inputs or outputs so you can tell how much battery life you have or how long to recharge the station, or even It will also help to understand how much power an individual device consumes while charging.
A switch near the AC outlet lets you turn power-saving mode on and off. When turned on, when all connected devices are fully charged, the power station will automatically turn off to save battery. When turned off it will provide continuous, stable power for devices like CPAP machines that run continuously while connected to a power station.
Anker says the 535 Power Station can charge a MacBook Air more than eight times or run a 40-watt CPAP machine for a full night’s sleep, and while I didn’t specifically test those claims, I found it to offer plenty. I checked the capacity for work.
For example, fully recharging an iPad Air from the station’s USB-C port took about an hour and a half and used about 6% of the power station’s total capacity. I tested a variety of other devices at the same time, from recharging a cordless razor to running a HomePod and a lamp, and the Anker 535 had no issues.
Note that the 500-watt limit for the station means it won’t be able to power some high-load devices like hot plates, toasters, hair dryers, and many larger household appliances.
The Anker 535 Portable Power Station is priced at $499.99, but the company has other options available at different price points. At 256 watt-hours the 521 model has half the power of the 535, but it also comes in at half the price, checking in at $249.99. It also foregoes some ports, checking in with two AC outlets instead of four and two USB-A ports instead of three.
There’s also a smaller 511 model at 97-watt hours, which normally costs $219.99 and has a single 100-watt AC outlet, a 45-watt USB-C port, and two USB-A ports.
Finally, there are a pair of older models, the 389 watt-hour 533 model priced at $459.99 and the higher-powered 545 model at 778 watt-hours and priced at $699.99.
Note: Anker provided MacRumors with the 535 Portable Power Station for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received. MacRumors is an authorized partner with Anker. When you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps keep our site running.
