Acer 600W Portable Power Station (APS312) Review
A compact power station with a short warranty
Verdict
Acer’s compact power station is a success on most levels. It can store a fair amount of energy, power most mid-level gadgets, and is portable enough to be genuinely useful on a camping trip – provided you won’t have to carry it too far.
If home backup power is your preference, it’s a decent way to provide uninterrupted power to one or two computer workstations. While it’s a shame it doesn’t offer any app control, you can tweak its most important settings through button presses.
However, the APS312 isn’t especially efficient when compared to other power stations I’ve tested. It also comes with a two-year warranty when many rivals offer five years. At the time of writing, Bluetti’s AC50B offered similar specs and performance with a five-year warranty, for £100 less, making it a much more appealing choice.
Key Features
- A low-medium duty battery power stationThis power station can store half a kilowatt hour of electricity, and provide a peak output of 600W. That’s enough to power computers, lights, and many power tools, but not enough for kitchen or laundry appliances.
- Portable and practicalThis power supply has four USB outputs, two mains sockets, and a car power port. It’s fairly portable, and comes with a useful light built in.
Introduction
The 600W Portable Power Station is the first power device I’ve tested from Acer, a brand more typically known for its computers, tablets and displays.
It’s no half-baked first attempt, though: this is a well-thought-through supply, suitable for medium camping groups or for providing uninterruptible power in the home.
This power station sits in the low mid-range for both the amount of energy stored, and how much it can supply. Its peak AC power output is 600 watts (W); enough to run most household devices except things like toasters, washing machines or kettles.
The power station’s lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries can hold up to 512 watt hours (Wh) of charge, about enough to power a low-energy bulb for two days or keep a modest computer and monitor setup running for three hours. Acer says that, after 3,000 power cycles, the battery should retain at least 80% of the capacity it had when new.
As I’d expect for a power station with these specs, the 600W Portable Power Station is quite compact and portable. It’s fairly easy to carry from a car to a tent, for example, where its range of ports should be enough to top up phones and tablets – there’s a built-in light, too.
Design and features
- Quite portable
- Decent range of ports
- Poor warranty
The Acer 600W Portable Power Station weighs seven kilos, is about the size of a toaster, and has a handle that folds neatly out of the way. Unfortunately, the handle isn’t as wide or rounded as the ones on some competitors, so it quickly gets uncomfortable—while it would be fine for hefting the power supply from your car to a tent, you wouldn’t want it with you on a walking holiday.
All of the power ports are on the front panel. Here you’ll find two AC ports that together share the 600W maximum output, along with two 12W-rated USB-A ports, and two USB-C slots good for 65W each. There’s also a 10A cigarette-lighter style socket with a maximum 126W output and, unusually, two DC5521 DC sockets rated at 3A each.
Above all these, there’s an LED strip light with three brightness levels, together with an emergency mode that signals ‘SOS’ in Morse.
I was quite happy with this power station’s screen, which clearly shows the current battery percentage, along with the amount of power coming in and going out. The percentage flashes when charging. Underneath it, there’s a time estimate to let you know how long the battery will last, or when it’ll be charged, depending on the balance of inputs.
One annoyance – particularly if you’re using it at night in a tent – is that every button press is accompanied by a short beep. I couldn’t find a way to switch this off.
While rivals from Bluetti, Anker and the like offer app control, this power station has only a few buttons. A long press on the AC power button switches between 50 Hertz (UK) and 60Hz (US) operation, while the same on the light switch turns off the automatic shutdown.
This is essential if you’re planning to use any power supply as a backup for a medical device or a mains-powered fridge, as otherwise, the AC ports might automatically shut off during periods of low power use.
My 600W Portable Power Station arrived with a lead I’ve not seen before, combining a car charger-style plug with two crocodile clips. I assume you could use it to charge a flat car battery from the onboard car socket, but there’s no mention of this in the manual or on the Acer website, and Acer’s UK PR team weren’t able to confirm.
This power station uses the same durable LFP battery technology as most of its rivals. If you were to fully charge and discharge it once each day, its quoted 3,000-cycle lifespan would equate to more than eight years of use. Accordingly, it’s a disappointment to find it comes only with a two-year warranty – leading competitors offer five years.
Charging
- Charge from mains, car, or the sun
- Maximum 600W total charging
- Limited car and solar specifications
This power station’s input ports are protected under a flap on its rear panel. Plugged into the mains, its batteries can charge at up to 600W, which should see a full charge arrive in well under two hours. Unusually, there’s no choice over the recharging rate; you can’t, for example, limit it to 300W to make use of a generator or camping hook-up with limited power.
Next to the mains port, there’s a DC input for the supplied car charging cable. This is limited to 8 amps, equating to 96W from a 12V car supply, so you’d need to drive for more than five hours to fully recharge an empty battery. This port also supports solar charging up to 200W, although my sample didn’t come with the necessary cable.
Take care when choosing panels, however, as the input is limited to an open-circuit voltage of 20V, which many 200W panels will exceed. It’s possible to combine AC and DC charging, although in any event the total input power is limited to 600W.
I emptied the 600W Portable Power Station’s batteries before connecting it to the mains via an energy meter. It quite quickly stepped up to about 560W when charging, only slowing down from around 90%. In two recharge tests, the power station consumed an average of 563Wh and took about an hour and 20 minutes to finish. Assuming its 512Wh battery went from fully empty to completely full, that’s an efficiency of 91.6%.
This power station can provide up to 1,200W of bypass power when plugged into the mains. Acer says it can switch to battery power within 14 milliseconds should the mains input die – that’s not as quick as a dedicated uninterruptible power supply (UPS), but it’s a little faster than some competitors, and certainly quick enough not to cause my workstation setup any hiccups.
Like competing power stations, this one isn’t designed primarily as a UPS, so there’s no audible warning when its battery is running low, and no USB or network link available to trigger a safe shutdown in connected devices. I should also flag that, given its bypass power is twice what’s available in battery mode, it would be possible to inadvertently connect more than 600W of equipment and only discover it at the worst possible time.
Performance
- Stable power output
- Reasonably quiet
I test every portable power station with a range of loads to measure how efficiently they can supply power, and whether they’re stable across a range of scenarios. I found that the Acer 600W Portable Power Station was comfortable with anything I threw at it up to and including its maximum rated power. Only when charging, or when powering a heavy load, did its fans become particularly noticeable, and even then they weren’t at all harsh.
That said, I wasn’t overwhelmed by this power supply’s efficiency. Although it was fine when charging, when discharging it provided far less than its rated 512Wh of output. Connected to a constant 500W load it provided just 408Wh before the battery was empty (79.96% efficiency). I measured a high of just 414Wh, recorded for a 200W AC load, which is an efficiency of just 80.86%.
I also test power stations with a DC load, delivered via one of the USB-C ports. This usually gives a higher output as less power is lost in converting DC battery power to mains electricity. Sure enough, here the 600W Portable Power Station delivered a total of 440Wh (85.49% efficiency).
Across the board, I found this power station less efficient than its closest rivals.
One final thing to mention is that this power station’s mains ports are orientated horizontally, rather than in the usual position. It’s very unlikely to be a problem for normal plugs and adaptors, but my top-heavy mains power meter blocked both the on/off switch, and the second socket.
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Should you buy it?
You should buy it if you want a decent camping supply
This power station provides a good amount of storage, and has a reasonable output. It’s portable, has a good light, and comes with a good set of ports, so it’s fine for camping trips.
You shouldn’t buy if you want the best value
While this power supply certainly isn’t bad value, it’s undercut by some rivals offering similar features and performance.
Final Thoughts
There’s nothing wrong with this power station. For a light-medium duty device, it has all the right specifications and managed to live up to all of them in my tests. It feels well-made, looks inoffensive, and is generally fine to live with.
However, I don’t love it. I can live without an app, and I could probably get used to its key beep, but I’m more bothered about this power station’s slightly below-par efficiency. Throw in a warranty that isn’t up there with the competition, and the 600W Portable Power Station comes out as something of an also-ran. And that’s a shame, because it’s fundamentally still a decent bit of kit.
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We test every battery station we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
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We test with a variety of devices to see how long the battery will last.
We test different charging methods to see how quickly the battery can be topped up.
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FAQs
A 600W output is enough to power lights, fans, fridges, and most TVs and computers. It may be enough for some travel kettles, but it’s not enough to power full-sized kitchen or laundry appliances.
It depends on what type of batteries it has. Standard lithium-ion cells might last for around 800 full charge cycles before they’re down to 80% or so of their stated capacity. That’s only just over two years of heavy use. Most portable battery power stations use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells, which typically retain 80% of their capacity after 3,000 cycles – more than eight years of heavy use. We recommend looking for at least a five-year warranty, and choosing slower charging rates if you have the option.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
