If price is your main concern make one yourself. Specially if you don't need 110

1. buy a 12v battery of your choice (deep cycle are best, but car batteries will do in a pinch, UPS batteries if you want small)

2. buy a tool box of adequate size for your battery, allow for extra room

3. order a "float charger"

4. Order USB and cigarette lighter ports as desired

5. wire it all up inside the toolbox

I've made a few with minimal effort, they're great for camping and my latest one even allows me to jump start a car

There are plenty of guides out there with more detailed steps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49Do__99Yr4

I'm currently making one for a friend, let me know if you guys want to see pics of the components

Surelly something capable of being trickle charged from a solar panel would be a superior option, at least for camping or any sort of situation were having no access to power would last for days.

Thinking about it, the "power outage" use case is probably more than sufficiently different from "camping" that which is the one you care most about has a big weight on the requirements for the portable power station.

Project Farm on YouTube just reviewed a bunch of these battery banks. Check out the video.

I don't have a recommendation but thank you for not calling them a "solar generator"

I was at the 24 Hours of Lemons at HPR this year and we developed a crack in our exhaust manifold at 2am. Tried to weld it using onsite power but kept tripping the breaker. Plugged the 30A MiG in to our Ecoflow and zapped away. Still had 80% juice when done.

Project Farm says Jackery

In addition to whatever power bank(s) you end up buying, you might consider getting a portable solar charger. I've used mine in like 3 different power outages, either because the outages were extended or my power banks had slowly lost charge over the winter.

I got one with like four charging ports which was nice because I could charge my phone and recharge my power banks and USB lantern at the same time.

Well add me to the less than detailed Anker recommenders... I've never used their portable power stations but I have many Anker and Soundcore (same company) products. I rate them as a "best bang for your buck" type company. I've never been disappointed with an item I've gotten from them, there are better more expensive products but I prefer best value over absolute best performance for those kind of electronic items.

We have a Jackery and we're quite happy with it. It's come in handy for a lot of random uses and they have a wide variety of charging options and capacities so you only pay for what you need. Battery life is good, build quality is good, we have no complaints.

Go with solid state. Lighter and it'll last much longer. https://yoshinopower.com/?srsltid=AfmBOop4ZfctUfN3-XeCk8RO2vJY9pKENf9lsin80O5n-z8iinHKzerR

Don't bother with anything from the brand "allpowers" I've had a few of their power stations and they were all junk. Your best bet really is to build one yourself. Buying a battery/inverter/mppt and a pelican style case to put it in is vastly cheaper than buying one of these power stations, and when the battery or whatever shits the bed it can be replaced easily.

I think Anker products are generally pretty good. Another option that might seem a bit left field is the DJI unit if you want to shell out more for a product with more power, options and from a solid brand, it's maybe a bit more aimed at drone pilots and videographers but it's also viable for camping and general use as well.

I've been pleased with my Ecoflow River 2 Pro for the brief time I've owned it. I've been using it as a UPS for my CPAP, and I'm planning on taking it camping once it stops being so cold. I can get about 2 full nights of use out of it if I use all the comfort features my CPAP has, or probably a week+ if I turn off those things (e.g. the humidifier).

I recently went through a 8 day power outage from hurricane Milton.

I bought an Anker f2000. It retails new for ~$2000. Even that can only power my fridge for maybe 23 hours.

I don't own one, but I might recommend these coolers from Anker instead. I'd buy one if I had the space. link to refurbished unit

It last 42 hours on battery, can be charged via the car or solar, goes down to freezer temps, and the battery is detachable and can be used to charge your devices. It would be much easier to keep essentials cold for a week using this, even if it's small, and it would be great for car camping.

I like my Bluetti stuff but in some aspects Ecoflow has more flexibility (dual fuel), though at a higher price point.

A few high points :

Historically (from Internet and friends, that is to say - anecdotally), Ecoflow has had better customer service than Bluetti but I've not had any problems with Bluetti. I've not had any problems with the products but they quickly refunded me the difference on their "30 day price" guarantee when I asked.

I decided against Jackery when I started this journey because they were higher priced and not using LiFePO4 yet. Not sure on prices but it seems they've updated the battery chemistry.

My use case is home power outage so 2kWh was my min capacity (AC200P) and I eventually got an AC300 too. I have an EB3A just because I caught it for $70.

The EB3A is annoying as desktop computer UPS, don't try it... Unless you're okay with it running fans when it charges pretty often whenever it drops to 99%. There were also UPS mode switching problems on older versions. Never experienced that but I stopped using it after two days because of the constant charge cycling.

EDIT: prices between brands are as I remember them when I was doing comparisons and I have not checked prices in 1 to 3 years. So, likely different now.

I have a GoalZero Yeti 1000x. I haven't put it through the paces too much yet, but it seems to work well.

It's not LiFePO4, but I chose it cause it allows you to expand it with additional batteries as needed, and it technically supports integrating with your home panel (though I have no plans to do either thing yet).

They try to be a bit more "plug and play", so they use semi-proprietary jacks for their solar panel integration. They seem to count on the fact that most people are scared of electricity so they try to make it easy, but they definitely charge for the convenience (for the solar panels specifically).

Their "high power port" that you can use for solar panel input is really just standard APP connectors in a vertical configuration instead of horizontal, so you can easily buy a cable that allows you to plug into it. They just try not to tell you that openly for liability, I'd assume.

Other brands I've looked at previously include jackery and westinghouse. I might have bought one of those, instead, but I got a good deal on the goalzero.

I think the biggest thing is that the battery cells themselves always have a finite life, so it's most important to see if you can get something with a replaceable battery, or expandable capacity.

I have several Ecoflow batteries. Delta, River Pro, and River 3.

No complaints. I’ve used them in power outages. The delta is large enough to power an oil filled heater, and any of them can keep my fridge and network appliances running.

I’ve since gotten solar, but I still keep the portable ones around. The River 3 acts as a UPS and emergency power for my CPAP machine, and the others are still an extra 2kW for whatever I might need.

Asan aside, they also work great for monitoring device power use in lieu of something like a kill-a-watt. I’ve used them intermittently to confirm power draws on devices in my house in order to optimize my power consumption for my solar setup and find inefficiencies in my home.

I recently got a Jackery for camping and I like it! Haven't had it long enough to tell you long term problems, but my initial impressions and first real usage were good. The displays are nice, I didn't test bluetooth/wifi (seemed like a waste of power), but the solar panel and other charging options all worked well. Build quality was good. I wish I'd splurged to get a bigger model though, the Explorerer 300 Plus didn't have quite enough juice for all our needs.

We just used one of our Cyber Power PSUs as a portable power supply on my last camping trip and it worked pretty well for a couple of days. We only used it to charge our phones though. If you need consistent power then you're better off getting a Honda EU1000i generator.

imagine going camping and taking ur laptop with LOLLLLLLLL