I’ve been watching the “portable power station” space for a few years now, quietly observing the arms race between Jackery, EcoFlow, Bluetti, and a dozen smaller brands with vaguely sci-fi names. All the while, one big battery player just sat on the sidelines: Anker—the same Anker that’s been making the USB bricks, power banks, and cables I’ve been abusing for years without a single failure.  It wasn’t until August 31st, 2023, Anker announced the launch of the Anker SOLIX brand along with portable power stations including the “C1000.”  Keep in mind that all of the consumer power stations are designed, engineered, and manufactured in China.  But because I was familiar with Anker’s quality and value from past products, I leaned toward them.  But there were so many options at so many price points (which seemed to steadily dropping) I decided to wait and let the market mature and stabilize.

When Anker finally got serious about larger power stations and released the SOLIX C1000 Gen 2, this was the first unit that felt like a natural fit for how I actually live and work. I wanted something that could keep our upstairs LG refrigerator/freezer alive for roughly 12 hours, recharge in about an hour, and still be small and light enough to power things that I might use on a remote photography shoot like lights, strobes, and even recharge drone batteries.

The SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 hits that mix surprisingly well.

Design and Build

The SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 is a compact, boxy unit that looks more like a serious piece of kit than a camping toy. It measures about 15.1 × 8.2 × 9.6 inches and weighs roughly 24.9 lb—noticeably smaller and lighter than many competing 1 kWh stations.  Anker claims it’s around 14% smaller and 11% lighter than comparable models, and in practice that means I can carry it with one hand without feeling like I’m doing a farmer’s walk workout.

The front panel is clean and well laid out: a bright LCD display, clearly labeled buttons for the AC and DC sections, and all the ports clustered in logical groups. Venting is tucked along the sides, and the whole thing feels dense and solid—exactly what I expected from a company that’s been iterating on smaller batteries for a decade.

Inside, Anker uses a LiFePO (LFP) battery rated for 4,000 cycles to 80% capacity, which they position as a 10-year “InfiniPower” lifespan for daily use.   If you’ve watched the power-station market at all, you know LFP is table stakes now; anything using older NMC chemistry in this size class feels dated. Anker is firmly on the right side of that divide.

Key Specifications

From a pure spec standpoint, the SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 is extremely capable and competitive:

In other words: this is a true 1 kWh class unit with enough inverter muscle to run serious household loads, not just charge phones and flashlights.

Keeping the fridge cold

My first requirement was boring but important: keep an upstairs LG refrigerator/freezer running for roughly the length of a typical outage.

Anker’s own marketing highlights the SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 powering a 100 W refrigerator for about 12 hours, which lines up with the math for a 1,024 Wh pack plus inverter losses and compressor duty cycle.  A modern, efficient fridge doesn’t pull full power 100% of the time; it cycles. So in practice, “upwards of 12 hours” for a standard refrigerator/freezer is realistic, especially if you keep the doors shut.

Just knowing I can plug the LG into the SOLIX C1000 Gen 2, and go to bed for eight hours plus is fantastic.

Fast turn-around between outages

The second box I wanted to tick was fast recharge. It does me no good if the battery takes all day to recharge between rolling blackouts.

With UltraFast charging enabled, the C1000 Gen 2 can go from empty to full in about 49 minutes using a high-amp AC source.  In the real world, that means if the power goes out at my house, I can drive back to the hotel we’d probably be staying at or even the office which is likely to have power and recharge the C1000 Gen 2 and be back in less than 2 hours.  There are also recharging options from a solar panel or my car – options are good in a power outage.

That speed is a big differentiator versus several Jackery and EcoFlow units I’ve looked at in the past. EcoFlow has been strong on recharge times, but seeing Anker jump straight into the “fastest in class” territory shows they weren’t interested in playing catch-up—they went straight for the front of the pack. Seriously.  They apparently won a “world record” for their recharge time.

A portable tool for creators

For my use, the portability is almost as important as the specs. At about 25 pounds and with a relatively compact footprint, I can bring the C1000 Gen 2 on the road without risking a hernia.

Because it doubles as my emergency backup, I don’t feel like I’ve bought a “photography toy” that sits idle 95% of the year. It’s doing double duty as both creative infrastructure and household insurance.

Software and Smart Features

Like most modern power stations, the C1000 Gen 2 ties into an app. The Anker app lets you:

There’s also UPS functionality with about a 10 ms switchover, which is fast enough to keep a desktop PC or networking gear online during a brief outage. It’s not meant to replace a dedicated data-center UPS, but for home office gear, it’s more than adequate.

Reliability and Brand Trust

This is where Anker has an advantage that Jackery and EcoFlowdon’t have—at least not in my mind.

Before this, I’d already been using Anker wall chargers, phone batteries, and power banks for years, and they’ve been boringly reliable. The jump from “phone battery” to “power station” is big in terms of scale, but not in terms of the core competency:  battery management, charging algorithms, and durable housings.

Jackery and EcoFlow have done a great job popularizing the category, but they’re still relatively new names in my personal ecosystem. Anker isn’t. When I’m plugging in a refrigerator full of several hundred dollars of food—or expensive camera gear—that history of reliability matters.  The 4,000-cycle LFP rating and 10-year lifespan claim just reinforces that comfort level.

Price and Value

Pricing moves around a lot in this category, but to give a sense of scale:

So realistically, this sits in the upper-mid tier of 1 kWh stations: more expensive than the absolute budget units, but very competitive when you factor in the fast 49-minute charging, 2,000 W inverter, and Anker’s track record.

You can certainly find cheaper boxes with similar capacity, but often you’re giving up recharge speed, long-term cycle life, or brand trust. For me, this feels like the sweet spot between performance, longevity, and the comfort of not rolling the dice on a no-name battery pack.

Pros and Cons

What I like:

What I’d nitpick:

Final Thoughts

After watching the portable power station market evolve for a couple of years, the Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 feels like the product I was waiting for: a 1 kWh class unit from a brand I already trust, with genuinely fast recharge, enough power to handle a full-size refrigerator, and just enough portability to make it part of my photography and drone workflow instead of a box that gathers dust between storms.  The SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 is part of a larger, long term power outage plan which also includes the SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 in the short term.  Review coming soon.

If your use case looks anything like mine—home backup first, creative work and travel second—the SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 is an easy recommendation and a very solid anchor (pun absolutely intended) for a small-scale backup ecosystem.