Anker Solix C1000 Review
WHAT’S IN THE VIDEO
The video contains information about the specs of the unit, an inverter max power test, a noise / fan check, a UPS test and a round trip capacity check. I also list all the things I like and don’t like about the C1000.
If you don’t feel like watching a video and would just like to know about the pros and cons, they’re listed below for quick reference.
The list below actually contains a few extra points that I feel are worth mentioning since filming the review video.
ETHICS NOTE
This product was sent to me for review but all opinions are my own and I have not been paid for this review. My terms of business clearly state that I will talk about the good and the bad. If a company wants a sales pitch, they need to go somewhere else.
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THE GOOD
Uses LFP (lithium iron phospate) battery which, although fairly standard now, offers a longer life and higher cycle count than Li-Ion cells.
Packaging used is superb. Everything is double boxed with reenforced solid edges and bound.
Great looking product. Modern, clean design with the popular ‘primer grey’ finish (my car is this colour and they call it ‘Brooklyn Grey’). Even the vents on the sides are finished with a sharp blue line. Sensible positioning of AC ports means that even the largest adapters can fit (see video for demo of the large Apple macBook charger)
App is simple and reliable. It could do a little more but what it does, it does very well with the device responding well at all times. I particularly like the timer function allowing a very quick setup of a countdown timer to turn off AC or DC car port.
Efficient battery with good round-trip performance (see video for details).
Fairly quiet. You can use the inverter at 300W with virtually no fan activity (20ºC ambient temperature). Some devices constantly spin up a fan when only drawing 40W from an inverter.
Low parasitic drain. Leaving the product on with Wi-Fi and app connectivity barely touches the battery unlike EcoFlow products which drain a few percent a day when powered up.
Compact for the capacity. The additional battery is extremely small considering it doubles the capacity of the main unit.
The percentage indicator is meaningful which means you can confidently use the battery for high power devices right down to 1-2% without fear of random cutouts.
Huge 600W solar input which, at 60% of battery capacity, beats most batteries in this class.
Excellent UPS means the battery can be plugged in at all times. The unit uses true bypass when acting as a UPS and can switch to battery power in <20ms (13ms measured by other reviewers who have the equipment to do this). True bypass means that you can power fairly large devices with no noise whatsoever. The fan will still come on when you hit the 800-1000W mark but it will sit there outputting 500W without any problems.
Powerful and fast AC charging (up to 1300W) means you can get this back to 100% very quickly.
AC sockets are sturdy and appear to be fully compliant with shutters that work as they should and not some half copy of the design as found on products from other manufacturers.
Inverter provides a rock solid voltage and frequency at full stated load and even above.
Although prices change, I’ll mention value here because you can pick this up for £900 or less which is a good £ to Wh price for this quality.
THE BAD
When the fan does come on, it has a slight whine which is much more irritating than a simple fan sound shifting air.
At high power levels, the fan steps up about 10 levels and it really quite loud (see video for examples).
The expansion battery cable is thick and unwieldy. It has only one position that it must adopt due to the thickness and type of cable. Many solutions now use flexible thick cables for this job which allow you many more options when space is limited.
No feature to limit the charge or discharge. It would be nice to restrict this to e.g. 80% when using this as a UPS or simply to extend the life when charging every day. Having said that, the way this charges (constant speed up to 100%) makes me think that Anker might be factoring this in to some extent and adding some padding around their charge percentages. They might state 100% but it’s actually 80% of what the battery is capable of doing. Probably not as that would be a lot of wasted capacity but I do wonder how they get such a constant charge.
No 12V DC 5521 ports. I need these….for everything (lights, cameras, monitors, switches, mixers etc). They are really handy to have avoiding the use of a clunky 12V car port.
The unit cannot charge from solar and AC at the same time. This usually isn’t a problem with a power station of this smaller capacity but it would be nice to have.
I’m not sure if the unit is happy about having solar connected 24/7. As the light fades and the power drops to nothing, the unit starts clicking continuously unless you remove the solar from the back. This stops when it’s completely dark but I don’t know whether this time inbetween is good for the controller.
It comes with a rather curious choice of solar cable. I would expect XT60 to MC4 but Anker assume you will be using 2 x Anker 400W solar panels and provide a parallel 1 x female XT60 to 2 x female XT60 cable. It might work for you but it would have nice to have a few extra options in the bag.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is a solid, well thought out and great value product. It has a high capacity and inverter output and superb solar input.
There are many batteries like this on the market now but you could do much worse than the Anker Solix C1000. It’s a good overall package.
If this had DC 5521 ports and was as whisper quiet as the EcoFlow Delta 2 Max, it would be very hard to beat.