Anker Solix F3800 Review: A Portable Power Station for All Your Needs

9.0

The Anker Solix F3800

$1,999 at Amazon

Like

• So many output options
• Huge capacity
• Flexibility in integration

Don't like

• Expensive
• Heavy

My personal favorite portable power station changes a couple of times a year. But right now, it's the Anker Solix F3800, and for good reason. 

Anker has been a long-time staple in the game, but to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of some of their earlier models. Luckily, the newer designs in the last couple of years that also tout the "Solix" branding have been much improved, and this lineup has brought us the F3800. 

If you're serious about home backup power and want to have real options to weather whatever storms come your way, you need the Anker Solix F3800.

Anker Solix F3800: The good

Let's talk capacity. Many of the portable power stations on the market talk about "emergency home backup" power. But many of these same units "boast" a capacity of 800 watt-hours. Yes, you can keep your device(s) charged, maybe run a fan and some lights, but that's about as far as you'll get with that capacity. Your options for longterm power are nearly zero in this situation.

The F3800 starts out with 3,840 watt-hours (or 3.84kWh), which is great for those basic needs over an extended period of time, or for increased needs (climate, cooking, temperature) in shorter spans. But, like many other manufacturers these days, Anker uses the Solix F3800 as one of its most versatile modular platforms. You can add up to six additional expansion batteries (Anker Solix BP3800) of the same capacity for a total of 26.88kWh of capacity. That's enough power to run most homes in the same fashion they normally operate for two or three days.

But that's not all: Act now and you can add a second Solix F3800 with six more expansion batteries for a whopping 53.76kWh of capacity. That's all you ever need. And if not, you probably already have your own power plant anyway.

Modular capacity is great, and it's definitely the direction the landscape is trending for many reasons. But that isn't my favorite thing about the Solix F3800. Shall we discuss output options?

My favorite thing about this unit on a day-to-day basis is its ability to output not only normal 120-volt receptacles, but also split-phase 240 volts in the same single unit. Most portable power stations only allow you to use receptacles that output 120 volts. And to be fair, that power is fine for the vast majority of things you'd want to plug in. But what about ovens or clothes dryers that are not gas-powered? Those require 240 volts. You could also choose to use this to charge an EV, or, using another nonstandard output, a 30-amp "RV" output, so you can also power those off-grid camping trips.

There are other manufacturers that offer 240-volt outputs, but most of them offer this by combining two separate control units to give you 120V+120V = 240V through a combo box or transfer switch of some flavor. The Solix F3800 also offers a variety of combination boxes to purchase separately in the form of transfer switches, but these are used primarily for the people looking to provide backup power to their entire home through the F3800 platform. These options are not needed to get 240 volts -- just plug in directly to the side of the power station.

Anker Solix F3800: The bad

I'll just put it out there -- price. For most people, the Solix F3800 at $4,000 isn't super friendly. And if you're wondering about a ballpark pre-tax cost on that 53.76kWh setup? It rhymes with flirty-gate thousand dollars (if pieces were purchased separately). I'm not saying that these products aren't worth their list prices. But I would highly recommend looking for other deals -- maybe during Black Friday?

If you're truly looking for a portable power station, it probably depends on your portability needs. If you're just needing to move this unit around the same building, on the same level, then you're probably just fine. But if you need to haul this to multiple locations, then grab a friend. While the wheels are somewhat helpful, this thing still weighs over 130 pounds.

The interface and layout of the Solix F3800 is pretty clean. Overall, I like the arrangement and the design choices that were made. However, I can tell you that we've had a lot of hands on this unit, and a few people have found the location of certain buttons or controls less than intuitive. As well, there were times when buttons were pushed and functions did not execute. I did not personally experience this, so I'm not deducting points for it. But it's worth mentioning since I've received that feedback more than once.

Anker Solix F3800: The bottom line

Pricing aside, I think everyone who has an interest in home backup should consider this. The capabilities of the base unit, combined with the future potential expansion options, make this great for any scenario.

How we test portable power stations

Currently, we look at two main performance metrics for portable power stations: charge time and discharge capacity. Every company that sells portable power stations provides the expected number of watt-hours its products are supposed to last. For the Jackery Explorer 240, that's 240 watt-hours; for the Ecoflow River Max, it's 576 watt-hours. Bluetti AC200P claims 2,000 watt-hours. 

That means if you run a device with a 1-watt output on the Jackery Explorer 240, it should last for about 240 hours. You'd get 576 hours from the Ecoflow model and an impressive 2,000 hours using the Bluetti generator. That would last you almost three months. For reference, a USB-C iPhone charger draws up to 18 watts, a 3-quart Instant Pot draws 700 watts and a standard microwave draws around 600 to 1,200 watts, depending on the model. How accurate are those figures?

Usable capacity

A power station's capacity should be a no-brainer. You should be able to look at a device's rated watt-hours and purchase accordingly based on your needs. Generally, you can do that. I've found that you typically won't see the entire capacity rating as usable power. 

Lots of factors can affect this, and most of them center on how the manufacturer chooses to build their units' internals to manage their charged capacity. There is some (usually negligible) amount of power that goes to fuel the various indicator lights and readable LED panels on the units. Some of the larger units even have their own operating systems, so it's almost like powering an additional mini PC on the inside. Other units can have power-saving features where they reduce outgoing bulk power as they come close to depleting their charge.

To run our capacity tests, we connect several 10,000-lumen LED work lights, rated at 110 watts, to each unit. (The number of work lights is based on the overall watt-hour rating of the unit under test, or UUT.) We record the outgoing voltage and wattage using external measurement instruments or the UUT's own measurements if available. Once we have this data, we can leverage the calculations into a dizzying array of information about the UUT's performance. The main piece of information we look at here is the observed capacity, based on our measurements, compared to the UUT's stated capacity.

Here's that mass of data in a nifty chart, where longer bars indicate power stations with greater percentages of battery capacity that you can put to use.

In every case, that percentage ends up at less than 100%. Most manufacturers say you should calculate expected usage at 85% of the stated capacity. Two of our smaller units (green bars) both clocked 98% capacity -- the Jackery Explorer 240 and the Togo 350. Generally speaking, the midsize units (blue bars) didn't fare well. The large-sized units (yellow bars) did better, with the Bluetti AC200P scoring highest at almost 96%. As for our extra-large units (purple bars), the 3,600Wh EcoFlow Delta Pro fared the best, with a usable capacity rating of just over 92%. Behind it, Oupes, Mango, Yoshino and Dabbsson each had extra-large power stations (at least 2,200Wh) that scored above that 85% benchmark for usable capacity.

A quick word on our math here. If you blindly accept both a unit's stated capacity and our work light wattage rating of 110 watts, the numbers look very different. For example, we will take the GoSun PowerBank 1100 (to make the math easier) and attach four of the 110-watt lights. That load rating is now 440 watts and the GoSun's capacity of 1,100 divided by 440 is 2.5. We would expect to see 2.5 hours of usage. The actual run time for this unit was 2 hours, 50 minutes -- 113% capacity. Sounds great, Right? We're missing some key factors. Without going into a long(er) explanation of how to more accurately measure power, the fact that this unit has an output of 110 volts AC (compared to 120VAC) and the actual output wattage to the four lights is 352 watts, our real expected run time is 3 hours, 8 minutes, which drops the capacity rating to 90%.

Charge time

Charging performance can be nearly as important as knowing your capacity stats. It helps to know how long your device will take to charge, especially if you're crunched for time or need to be able to charge quickly for whatever reason. Will it take 1 hour or 2? What about 10? Or 12? (That's an actual number from our tests.)

We report three data points for charging performance. Each unit is plugged in for AC charging and we record how long it takes to reach 50%, 80% and 100% charge. Half full is probably the least amount of power you're going to want, especially from the smaller units. 80% is the "magic number" for many rechargeable batteries. 

Here's a simple-ish way to illustrate it: Imagine a swimming pool with room for 100 people, each person representing 1% of the total space. When you first start charging, and that first person dives in, you don't have much to worry about. You're not going to run into anyone else, so dive, splash around, whatever you want. As we add people, it gets a bit more crowded and complicated. You've got less room for people. Once you have 80 people in the pool, that next person is going to take a few extra seconds to choose their entry without causing any issues rather than just jumping and hoping no one is in the way.

Each manufacturer deals with this purposeful slow-down in its own way, so you won't see the same performance changes from one manufacturer to the next. True to the analogy, person number 100 into the pool can sometimes be very slow, taking several times longer to get in than any of his predecessors.

Take a look at the full charge test results below. Charge times are listed in hours, so shorter bars indicate power stations that charge faster. In many cases, you can see how the charge rate is fairly constant between 0% and 50% (red) and from 50% to 80% (yellow), before slowing down from 80% to 100% (green).