VTOMAN FlashSpeed 300 Power Station review

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REVIEW – Power stations are convenient gadgets for providing extra power any time I’m off the grid for a while, whether camping, picnicking, or whatever. Smaller ones, like the FlashSpeed 300, can easily recharge phones and computers or provide power for lights and fans. Rated at 300 watts, this power station is limited in what it can power, but it makes up for that in being light and portable.

⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $269.99 (MSRP)
Where to buy: VTOMAN or Amazon

What is it?

The VTOMAN FlashSpeed 300 is a portable power station that can be charged by outlet, car, USB, or solar panel and in turn can provide power via AC, DC, or USB ports.

What’s included?

Power station
12-v power cable
AC power cable
USB-C to USB-C cable
USB-A to USB-C cable
User manual

VTOMAN also sells a variant of this product that includes a solar panel.

Tech Specs

Output: 300W
Weight: 7 lb
Dimensions: 10.5 x 9.5 x 5.25 inches
Inputs: DC and USB-C
Outputs: DC, USB-C, USB-A, AC
Battery: 230 Wh

Design and Features

The VTOMAN FlashSpeed 300 looks similar to other small power stations, rather like a thick and sturdy lunchbox with an oversized handle. The exterior is all plastic, mostly black in color except for the ends and the highlights, which are yellow. The front has a display, the right side has all the inputs and outputs, and the left side has a light. It’s simple, practical design.

Assembly, Installation, and Setup

I unboxed the 300 and found that everything was well-protected with custom foam inserts.

When I peeled the thin sheet of protective covering off of the display, it left massive amounts of a sticky residue. I had to scrub it off with rubbing alcohol and a microfiber cloth, which scratched the display, as it’s plastic and not glass. What a mess! It looks like VTOMAN has taken some shortcuts to cut costs.

The manual says that the 300 can take up to 2.5 hours to fully charge, so I used the included AC adapter and began to charge it. There are a pair of identically-shaped DC ports on this side; one is for input and the other output. While they are labelled, it’s with white text on a yellow background, which is hard to read. There are no clear boundaries that separate inputs from outputs. (As a comparison, look at the front of this Jackery power station, which clearly marks its input section.) I don’t know what would happen if I plugged the input into the output (or vice versa), but I could see someone making that mistake by accident. I think VTOMAN should do a better job labelling and organizing their inputs and outputs.

When I plugged in the charger, that turned on the LED display. It told me that it was already 82% charged and that the adapter was providing 64 W of charging power. That worked perfectly.

The right side of the 300 is where are the ports are located. Most of the time I will charge it up using the AC converter. In an emergency, I might recharge it in my car using DC power supply. I could also charge it using a solar panel, but I would have to buy this separately. VTOMAN sells panels that range from $259 to $799 in cost. Finally, I could charge it using the USB-C port, though I’m not likely to do this, since anywhere I would have USB-C charging I would also have AC power.

There are two buttons on the right side. One is labelled “ON/OFF” and the other “AC OUT”. These are mis-labelled. The “ON/OFF” button doesn’t turn the power station on or off; it merely activates and deactivates all of the DC ports; similarly, the “AC OUT” activates and deactivates the AC ports. I don’t have to turn the 300 on in order to use an AC outlet; I only need to have the “AC OUT” on. I think VTOMAN should hire a human interface expert to help them redesign the entire interface experience for their users.

The good news is that the display correctly shows which button has been pressed, and once I got used to the quirks of the port labels, I had no problems using the 300.

The left side of the FlashSpeed 300 has a third button and a small, built-in light. If power were out in my house, I should be able to use this as an emergency source of lighting to help me plug various devices and gadgets into the ports. There’s only one problem: The light is on one end of the power station and the ports are on the other end. The light doesn’t do much to help with this. It would be a lot more useful if the light and all the ports were placed together, like they are in this Bridna power station. (Of course, a better thing to do would be have a good flashlight handy, like this one from Speras, but that’s not always possible.)

Each press of the light button cycles through its four settings:

Steady on
Blinking on and off
SOS pattern
Off

The display is a monochromatic LED. It has indicators for remaining battery life, incoming and outgoing power (in watts), status of the two buttons, and warnings for the fan, errors, and temperature problems. Though simple, the display works well.

Performance

In order to test this power station, I ran it through a set of tests. The first test was easy mode: I recharged my iPad Pro and my iPhone 16 in its Otterbox case. It barely even noticed that these devices were there. Total output was only 7 watts; for reference, when turned on, the 300 draws 4 watts, which I assume power the display and internal circuits. It’s worth noting that there’s only one USB-C port on the 300. Both of these gadgets are USB-C, so I had to use the USB-A to USB-C cable for one of them. Given that most gadgets have moved on to USB-C these days, I think VTOMAN should flip things around and have 3 USB-C ports and only 1 USB-A port.

The second test was slightly harder: I powered my 17-inch MacBook Pro. The power out fluctuated from 10 to 20 watts, and might have been more if I had put it under a load, but this was not enough to challenge the 300.

The third test was harder: I powered a fan and the AirPulse AU4 Bluetooth speaker. Together they still only consumed 72 watts of power, most of which was the fan. The VTOMAN didn’t have any issues providing the AC power these devices needed.

For my final test, I took the 300 out into the garage. My wife and I are building shelves to hang on the walls of her office, so I used the 300 to power a couple of video lights to provide the extra light we needed to apply stain and poly to the wood. Together they took around 80 watts. The 300 provided the power and didn’t have any problems in the cooler temperature (it was around 60 degrees in the garage).

Final thoughts

Most of our lives these days are lived in the convenience of perpetual power, but occasionally we are off-grid. For those times, it’s nice to have a power station or three handy to recharge our gadgets or power our devices. The VTOMAN FlashSpeed 300 is a power station that is small in size, easy to carry, yet capable of providing 300 watts of power. It can use a variety of input source and provide power to a variety of outputs. This gadget certainly has room for improvement, notably for their screen protector and their interfaces, but functionally it performed well in my tests. I am expecting it to be a big help next time I need some extra power.

What I like about the VTOMAN FlashSpeed 300

Sturdy and practical design
Hefty handle for carrying
Multiple ways to charge and power

What needs to be improved?

Clearly mark and delineate inputs and outputs
Use a different screen protector that doesn’t leave a sticky residue

Price: $269.99 (MSRP)
Where to buy: VTOMAN or Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided free of charge by VTOMAN. VTOMAN did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.