REVIEW – You may have noticed a large number of power station reviews showing up on the Gadgeteer recently, it’s been a flood of new models and brands almost weekly. This being a typical week, I’ve got a new brand/model that’s shown up for testing, so I’ll dutifully take it through its paces, then add it to my growing collection of power stations which is beginning to resemble a prepper’s doomsday hoard.
What is it?
The Blackview OSCAL PowerMax 700 Portable Power Station is a portable power station capable of providing power to a wide variety of devices, while storing the power in battery form from wall/car/solar/other sources. These power stations are great for camping, RV use, or as emergency backup devices, or simply to create an off-the-grid power source at your house when combined with a solar panel. I hadn’t run into the Blackview or OSCAL brands yet, and couldn’t find much online besides confusing search results for health supplements alongside other battery products. It appears that Blackview also sells phones and other electronics.
What’s in the box?
- Blackview OSCAL PowerMax 700 Portable Power Station
- 150W AC adaptor
- Car DC adaptor
- Manual
Hardware specs
- Wattage: 700 W (1400 W peak)
- Voltage: 110 V AC
- Battery Capacity: 666 Wh
- Battery Chemistry: Lithium Ion
- Charging time: as quickly as 2 hours (150W AC adaptor included plus 100W USB-C PD input)
- Safety features: Battery Management System with overcurrent, overcharge, short circuit, over voltage, and thermal protection
- AC outputs x 2, 1200 W max combined
- 15W wireless charging
- Solar/Car DC charging (Anderson connector)
- DC 6350 charging input, 2x DC5521 outputs
- USB connections: 100W USB-C PD input/output, USB-C 30W PD, 2x USB-A (22.5W max combined), 2 xUSB-A (18W max combined)
- Size: 12″L x 9.7″W x 7.4″H
- Weight: ~16 lbs
Design and features
The front of the Blackview OSCAL PowerMax 700 Portable Power Station is split into sections (DC, USB, and LED), with AC ports around to the right side of the unit. You can click on the pictures above for close ups of each section. I like the generous USB ports especially, including USB-C PD input/output options, something I’m using more and more with laptops and other devices (I think I have a 60+ watt PD charger in nearly every room of the house now).
Each section can be turned on or off with large orange-rimmed switches (and the on/off state is shown on the display). The AC section has two plugs capable of 700 watts sustained output between them (1400W peak).
The LED light is bright enough for emergency use (and would run for days on a lower setting and full battery). The display is a bright color LED display that shows time to full/empty depending on what you’re doing, battery levels, and current input/output wattages.
The carrying handle is solid, and there’s a 15W wireless charging pad built into the top. I prefer the types of handles that can lay flat so you can store things on top of this car-battery-sized device when not in use but this handle feels solid. The whole device is ABS plastic externally and has vents for a fairly quiet internal fan.
Setup
Setting up the Blackview OSCAL PowerMax 700 Portable Power Station is as simple as plugging it in. You can use the supplied AC wall charger (which resembles a laptop charger brick) or a DC car charger…
Or you can pick up a solar panel and pump up to 120 watts in. A nice feature that this unit has is the ability to accept multiple charge types for an even faster charge (like Wall AC plus PD input).
Performance
I tested the Blackview OSCAL PowerMax 700 Portable Power Station by plugging as many random things as I could find into it and running a gaming benchmark on my gaming laptop, which peaked at about 450 watts. The PowerMax 700 didn’t bat an eye charging and running all these devices simultaneously, and at around 400 watts average was giving me an estimated runtime of about 85 minutes when I started. If you’re using it to power something lower wattage like a fan or a light or a small freezer or refrigerator, you can get 12 – 24 hours or even more depending on how low your wattage needs are.
The only negative I could think of while testing it out was the design of the handle and wireless charging station. It was hard to get my Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 in to charge, and difficult to pull it back out again. I think most phones wouldn’t have this issue, but foldables are getting more popular right now so it’s something that Blackview OSCAL should think about in future designs.
What I like
- Multiple charge options including AC + DC
- Estimated time to full/empty shown
- Generous ports for a 600Wh Power station
What I’d change
- Wireless charging spot can be difficult for larger phones
- Top handle doesn’t lay flat for storage
Final thoughts
I just had to share this absolute masterpiece of marketing Photoshop from Blackview OSCAL (above) as I wrap up this review. I’m not sure why this gentleman would need to be carrying a portable power station while fishing from a rowboat, but I’m here for it. In all seriousness though, the Blackview OSCAL PowerMax 700 Portable Power Station ticks all the boxes I’m looking for in a sub-1000Wh power station: generous IO ports, wireless charging, a display that tells me actual hours and minutes to empty (I can’t stand power stations that don’t show this vital info), and a price at or less than $1/Wh of storage at the time of review.
Price: $449.00
Where to buy: Amazon (there’s a $100 instant off coupon)
Source: The sample of this product was provided by OSCAL.
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Wondering if some kind of taser stress test on the charging inputs would be appropriate on the larger power banks. Can any of these devices handle abuse of this kind?
Weird amazon reviews say 4 to 5 hours to fully charge from dead. No thanks
yeah, the included charger is definitely not the fastest, but you can add a Power Delivery USB-C input to reduce that time to 2-3 hours.