Verdict

Compact, neat and easy to carry around, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus is built for those who need light amounts of power for items such as phones and laptops. In my tests, this power station was efficient using its standard AC power socket. However, the relatively short number of charge cycles until the battery hits 80% capacity does make it more expensive to run than some of the competition.

Introduction

While the idea of a power station that provides kilowatts of power and can handle any appliance sounds good, the reality is that these devices are only transportable by car, and they take up a lot of room.

With the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus, you get a much smaller device that’s easier to carry around and will take care of your essentials while you’re away from mains power.

Design and features

• Lightweight and compact
• Available with and without solar panels
• Maximum 600W output

The Jackery Explorer 300 Plus is available as a standalone power station or as the Jackery Solar Generator 300, which also includes a fold-up 40W solar panel for off-grid charging. There’s a £69 price difference between the two, making the solar option pretty good value if you’d like to keep the battery topped up away from wall sockets.

With a 288Wh battery inside, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus is considerably smaller than its big brothers, such as the Jackery Explorer 1000 Plus. At 3.75kg, this power station is light enough to easily transport.

I’m impressed by Jackery’s build quality, with the flip-up handle making the power station easy to carry around, and then folding down to stay out of the way.

There’s a smaller range of ports than on a larger power station, but the choice is still good. It’s nice to see two USB-C ports, rated at 100W for the pair. This kind of port will help charge modern phones and laptops. There’s also a standard USB port rated at 15W.

There’s only a single AC output on this power station, taking a standard UK power plug. Rated at 300W (with a boost to 600W), this is really designed for lighter use, such as powering a light, a pump for air beds or that kind of thing.

There’s really no point in the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus being able to support higher-power devices, as the small battery wouldn’t last long under load.

There’s also a standard car output, which you can use to power regular DC devices, such as portable coolers.

It’s good to see a torch on the front. This power station is small enough to use as a makeshift torch, and the light also makes it easier to see what you’re doing when in front of the device.

Similar to other power stations, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus has a useful LCD at the front, which shows the current battery status, the input power, the output power and the remaining runtime left in minutes.

Compatible with the Jackery App, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus can be controlled from your smartphone. The app shows the same information as the display, plus it has controls to toggle the AC and DC ports on and off, as well as use the torch normally or blink out an SOS.

Via the app, I could also turn on the battery saving mode, which stops the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus charging when it reaches 85% and stops discharging when it reaches 15%. That’s a 30% reduction in usable battery capacity for an increase in battery life of around 30%.

Given the relatively small battery here, I wouldn’t say it’s worth trying to extend lifespan at the expense of capacity.

Solar and charging

• Not the fastest charger
• Works with solar and USB-C

Charging is fastest using an AC outlet and the kettle-style lead provided in the box. Taking two hours to charge, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus isn’t quick to refill; larger power stations with bigger batteries can often charge faster, thanks to more thermal headroom and bigger fans, as well as better charging circuitry.

This charge time is also a way behind the similar-capacity EcoFlow River 2, which can fully recharge in just an hour.

Other charging options include USB-C (four hours), car (five hours) or solar panel (four hours if using a 200W panel).

With the Solar Generator version of the product, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus ships with a SolarSaga 40 Mini panel, which is capable of a peak output of 40W. On the sunniest of days, this combination will take around seven hours to charge the battery. Provided you’re not fully draining the power station each day, this size solar panel will at least keep the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus topped up.

The solar panel is brilliantly designed, folding up into a rigid briefcase-style package that’s easy to move around.

In my tests using an AC input, I found that it took 348Wh of power to charge the battery fully from empty. That’s 120% of the battery capacity, which makes the charging 82% efficient, which isn’t bad for a device this small.

Performance

• Efficient on AC power
• Expensive per kWh of storage

Measuring the AC outlet on a 50W load running an air purifier on maximum, I found that the battery discharged 253Wh of power. That means that the discharge cycle is 87.84% efficient, which is a big step up from the EcoFlow River 2.

Longevity isn’t so good. Using a LiFePO4 battery, the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus is only rated to last for 15000 charge and discharge cycles until it is at 80% capacity. That’s half the number of charge cycles of the EcoFlow River 2.

Overall, and assuming there’s linear degradation of the battery, that means that it costs around 82p per kWh of storage, not including the cost of providing the charge power. That’s expensive and around double that of the River 2’s cost.

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