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5 hours ago
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ZDNET's key takeaways
- The Oupes Mega 1 is on sale at Amazon for $449.
- It's a compact, powerful unit that can handle surges up to 4,500W, and it weighs less than 30 pounds, making it quite portable for the power it supplies.
- The handles aren't very comfortable for extended carrying.
I cover a lot of portable power stations here on ZDNET and use them in my personal life, as well. After coming in contact with so many, most of them are made by one of the big three names in this market: EcoFlow, Bluetti, or Jackery. I test a lot of power stations from other manufacturers, but the truth is that many just don't make the cut.
Also: The best portable power stations you can buy
But the Mega 1 from Oupes did make the cut. It's not perfect, but it's definitely got a lot, especially for the price. And it's found a place in my truck as a reliable portable power station.
The unit is a 1,024Wh unit with 2,000W (4,500W peak output) unit and weighs in at a shade under 30 pounds. It can run things from CPAP to refrigerators, and can be recharged using AC, vehicle 12V, solar, or a combination of AC and solar, giving it a great amount of flexibility.
The weight puts the Mega 1 squarely into the portable category, and makes it perfect for in-vehicle usage. A 60+ pound unit is quite a hefty and unwieldy box, while a 30-pound unit will fit into a trunk or footwell of a car, or in the bed of a truck, and it can be picked up and moved about with relative ease.
Ample cooling, and also the ability to connect it to extra batteries.
Powering the unit are a bank of LiFePO4 cells that are good for 3,500 recharge cycles -- that's a daily charge/recharge for over nine years. I can't quite test that yet, but I can give its durability a test, and I'm more than happy with how robust the Mega 1 has turned out to be.
There's a slew of power output options, from a bank of four AC outlets to the USB-C and USB-A ports (100W and 18W maximum, respectively), to the 12V car outlet and two DC5521 ports. That's quite an array, enough to satisfy all but the most extreme off-grid challenge or unexpected power outage. But if the 1,024Wh power capacity isn't enough, the unit can be augmented using up to two B2 2,048Wh battery packs.
All the ports work as expected, and put out what they it says on the spec sheet. I pushed the AC outlets up to 4,500W peak load and the unit handled this, and when pushed beyond this it carried out a gracious failsafe, and worked fine again after a restart. The unit is rated to IP54 which means that it's has limited protection against dust ingress and is fine around splashing water from any direction. A modest, but realistic rating.
Also: The best cheap portable power stations you can buy
Oupes, knowing that it's the new kid on the block when it comes to the power station market, is offering a five-year warranty along with a 30-day return window, which is quite generous.
The handles on the Oupes Mega 1 aren't the most comfortable.
Do I have any complaints? One thing that jumped out at me were the handles. They're not all that comfortable given that they're designed to lift a 30-pound weight, and the edges of the handles are pointy and sharp.
The company needs to get the engineer that came up with these handles to pick up and put down the unit a few dozen times. It's not a deal breaker by far, but it's definitely something Oupes should address in the future.
ZDNET's buying advice
The price is very good for what you're getting. The Oupes Mega 1 normally retails for $549, which is a decent price for what you're getting, but there's currently 18% off over on Amazon, bringing the price down to $449.
At this price, the Mega 1 should definitely be on the radar of anyone who's looking for a powerful yet portable power station, doubly so if they're looking for one that can be expanded using external batteries.
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