REVIEW – Ugreen PowerRoam 1200 portable power station review – quick to charge, power to roam – As the market for portable power stations is becoming more mature, a few premium brands are emerging. These brands have high-quality cells, support fast charging, have useful and well-developed apps, and can provide a lot of power options for both input and output. While Ugreen might not be known as one of those premium brands, this new power station competes with them on all fronts. Add in one or two of their solar panels and you have a great solution for powering just about anything off the grid.
What is it?
The Ugreen PowerRoam 1200 is a Portable Power Station, which includes a 1200 Wh LiFePO4 battery, a charge controller, and a pure sine wave 1200W inverter. The power station includes an app that lets you monitor and control the device over wifi or Bluetooth. Ugreen also sent me two of their 200W solar panels (sold separately) to try out.
What’s in the box?
- Ugreen PowerRoam 1200W power station
- AC cable (without a power brick!)
- DC5521 to DC5521 cable
- Cigarette lighter car port recharging cable
- Solar panel splitter cable (allows 2 panels into one input port)
- Zippered pouch to hold all the cables
- Manual
Hardware specs
- Battery Type: LiFePo4
- Battery Size: 1024 Wh
- Cycle life (to 80%): 3000 charge-discharge cycles
- Dimensions: 34.0 × 22.0 × 27.0cm
- Weight: 12 Kg, 26 Lb
- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): Supported, within 20 ms
- App connectivity: wifi or Bluetooth
- Ports: 13
- AC Charging: 80% in 1 hour, full in 1.5 hours
- Solar Charging: with maximum 400W, 4 hours
- Car Charging: at 400W, 12 hours
- AC Outputs:: 6 AC ports, 1200W (2500 W with UTurbo)
- DC Outputs: car charger, 2 USB-C (100W), 2 USB-A (22W), 2 DC5521 (120W)
- Display: 4.7 inch LED display
Design and features
Almost all power stations have the same basic features – a battery, a charge controller, a DC to AC inverter, usually a light, and a host of input and output ports. The Ugreen PowerRoam has all those features, plus a few more that make it a better unit than most.
- It charges very quickly. This is a pretty large power station, with a 1024Wh battery. But you can charge it to 80% in one hour and full in 1.5 hours, using the AC input. Other power stations with the same size (or larger) battery can take up to 8 hours to charge. Another nice feature of the AC charging is that there is no power brick, which increases portability.
- “Extra” power through UTurbo. Officially, this is a 1200W unit, meaning it can provide up to 1200W of AC power at 110V. However, with UTurbo, it can power devices up to 2200W, by reducing the voltage. Because of this voltage drop, you probably shouldn’t use UTurbo mode with sensitive electronics, but it works great for heating appliances like coffee makers, electric kettles, and hot plates.
- Helpful and well designed app. This is probably the first power station app that I’ve found to be useful. It connects either through Bluetooth or wifi, and gives you a lot of control over the device. The app lets you turn outputs on or off, turn UTurbo on or off, control things like time to shutdown, monitor operating temperature, and set parameters for alerts. Everything seems to work well and connection was easy and stable.
- Accepts 400W of solar. Most other power stations of this size allow up to 200W of solar, but the Ugreen PowerRoam will accept up to 400W. I was also able to test the solar panels, and they are very nice. They fold easily with snaps and magnets, and have four kickstands on the back.
I was able to charge the PowerRoam from 30 to 100% in about 5 hours, on a partly sunny day. The solar panels even have a little indicator that helps you align the panels for maximum efficiency, by placing the shadow of a dot in a bulls eye. 
My only complaints from the design perspective is that when you have a lot plugged into it, you have wires on 3 sides. It can make it a bit difficult to fit into small spaces with all the wires on 3 sides. The only other complaint is the handle. It’s big and sturdy, but it’s right on the top, and you can’t move it, which means you can’t put anything on top of the PowerRoam. Perhaps that’s by design, to help with heat management, but it can create some challenges while packing.
Performance
I’m quite impressed with this little unit. We recently took it camping, and I replaced the electrical “guts” of our camping trailer with this device. The solar panels on the roof got plugged in, all the DC lighting and fans got plugged in, and the AC system got plugged in. Over two days, we used this PowerRoam exclusively for all our power needs, which included a portable refrigerator, and an electric kettle and Keurig coffee maker in the morning. It never dipped below 50%, and then would get charged back up through solar during the day. I was able to use the app to turn the AC outlets on when needed, and then back off to prevent the parasitic drain that all DC to AC inverters have. At one point, the PowerRoam turned itself off, but I realized through the app that it was set in “standard mode” which turns it off if there is no operation performed within 5 hours. But I was able to easily fix that by switching it to “always on” mode.
I also recently used it with a power sprayer, while painting my garage. It was great because I did not need to worry about running over 100 feet of extension cord. It easily handled 6 hours of painting, and my only concern was getting paint on it!
What I like
- Good helpful app, connected through wifi or Bluetooth
- No power brick
- Very quick to charge
- UTurbo very helpful, with the right type of appliances
- Solar Panels fold easily and securely – snaps and magnets
- High quality connectors and cables
- Accepts 400W solar
What I’d change
- Wish all the ports were on the front
- Handle on the top prevents stacking
Final thoughts
If you’re looking for a power station with a lot of features, that can power just about anything, and that can charge quickly, the Ugreen PowerRoam 1200 might be for you. It’s not the least expensive out there (although, at about 1$ per watt hour, it’s not bad), but it’s feature-packed and provides quite a bit.
Price: $999.99
Where to buy: Ugreen or Amazon (Amazon and Ugreen both are featuring a $200 coupon as of this writing)
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Ugreen.
