Jackery 300 Plus review: This pint-sized portable power station is one of the best I’ve tested

I’ve tested dozens of portable power stations over the years, from the leviathans that can power a house, to the smaller units that are better suited to laptops and other light loads. But when the nice people at Jackery told me they were launching a power station that can fit into a rucksack, I was itching to have a closer look. And here it is, the Explorer 300 Plus[1].

The first impression I got when I opened it up was how cute it looked. It’s very similar in its looks to all the other Jackery power stations in the range, but on a much, much smaller scale. So it has the same pop-up handle, the same LCD display, and even a little lamp.

In terms of power, it might be one of the smallest units in the Jackery line-up, but it’s by no means the least powerful – or the cheapest, but I’ll come back to the price.

It has a 288Wh battery, and a built-in 300w inverter, which can cope with a surge of up to 600w. That’s obviously not going to boil a kettle, and it won’t power an air fryer, but it’s good enough for small appliances, such as a blender, coffee grinder, charging a drone, or even a big TV. I’ve been using it to power a 100W heat lamp in my wife’s pet lizard’s travel vivarium, which we keep in our motorhome, and it’s coped really well.

It can run the bulb for a good couple of hours on a full charge, which is more than enough time for him to warm up. It gets better, too. The 300 Plus is included in Jackery’s range of Solar Generators[2], which come as a bundle with a solar panel included.

It is, in fact, the smallest solar generator in its range and, fittingly, the solar panel is also very small and neat.

It’s a very lightweight, foldable 40w solar panel that collapses into a small package no bigger than most laptops. So it truly is a solar power station you could fit in your backpack. As a complete package, though, the size and power does become one of its limitations.

The power station is great, to have nearly 300Wh from such a small device is impressive, but a 40w solar panel, even in optimum conditions, is going to take a long time to charge it up. What’s more, I struggled to get to 40W, even on very bright, sunny days. Most of the time it topped out at 20w.

It doesn’t help that the panel has no form of stand, because that makes it tricky to get the best angle. You can, of course, plug in bigger solar panels, but that reduces the portability of the system, and it will charge very quickly off mains. Or you can charge off a 12v supply and USB.

So as a solar generator it’s less useful.

But as a portable power station, it’s just terrific. I love the fact it has Jackery’s typical build quality, and ease of use. Slimming it down didn’t change any of that.

The sockets, leads and buttons all feel incredibly robust. It’s no wonder Jackery can top up the three year warranty by another two years at the moment. And that’s not the only offer that’s on at the moment, there’s a Christmas[3] sale.

Catch it on time, and you can get the power station for GBP270, down from GBP319. The solar generator is GBP339, down from GBP399.[4][5]

So it’s less than GBP300 for a 300w-inverter power pack you can carry around with you very easily, with an LFP battery and a five-year warranty.

What a great deal for one of my favourite Jackery products.

References

1. ^ the Explorer 300 Plus (go.skimresources.com)
2. ^ Jackery’s range of Solar Generators (go.skimresources.com)
3. ^ Christmas (www.birminghammail.co.uk)
4. ^ the power station for GBP270 (go.skimresources.com)
5. ^ The solar generator is GBP339, down from GBP399. (go.skimresources.com)