Head-to-head test
Anker SOLIX C300 vs DJI Power 500
These cost within a dollar of each other. One hands you 224 more watt-hours, 1,000 more rated charge cycles, and a lifetime energy cost under half the price — the other is 7 pounds lighter.
Written by Wenny ZhengUpdated
Portable Power Tester, Station Arena Test Desk
Anker
SOLIX C300
1,664Power Score · Device Hub
$299.99 list · direct from Anker
DJI
Power 500
2,341Power Score · Appliance Class
$299.00 list · direct from DJI
Spec deltas
The DJI Power 500 costs about a dollar less than the Anker SOLIX C300 and outclasses it almost everywhere that matters: 512Wh against 288Wh, a 1,000W continuous ceiling against 300W, and 4,000 rated cycles against 3,000. At a price gap that small, this isn't a premium-versus-budget decision. It's the same roughly $299 buying a bigger, tougher battery.
Run both through six real usage scenarios and the story gets more honest about what these units actually are: small. Five of the six overrun both of them — a weekend of camping, an 8-hour blackout, a full remote workday, and a day of van life all ask for more total energy than either one carries. Only an 8-hour CPAP night fits inside a realistic range for both, and even there the C300 comes up short: it needs 131% of what it can usably deliver, while the Power 500 finishes the night at 74% used.
The C300 answers back on the scale, not the scenario table. At 9.1 lbs against the Power 500's 16.1 lbs, it's the one you lift with one hand while the other wants two — 7 pounds lighter and genuinely compact for its capacityA2. That's a real edge if you're buying a small unit specifically to carry, not to run a house off. It doesn't close the gap anywhere else.
What the Numbers Reveal
Each conclusion stated first — the numbers behind it on one line, the full analysis below.
cost / lifetime kWh
This isn't a premium-price split doing the work. It's the same roughly $299 buying a battery that costs less than half as much to run over its life.
C300 costs $299.99, Power 500 costs $299.00 — essentially the same pricelifetime cost per kWh: $0.35 (C300) vs $0.15 (Power 500)rated cycles: 3,000 (C300) vs 4,000 (Power 500)
Why it mattersAnyone comparing these on sticker price alone is reading the wrong number — $0.35 versus $0.15 per lifetime kWh is the one that actually separates them.
continuous output
The two units fail Tailgate Party for opposite reasons: the C300 fails before the party starts, on wattage, while the Power 500 powers everything and only runs short of the full 670Wh near the end, on energy.
Tailgate Party's peak draw is a 400W blenderC300 is rated for 300W continuous outputPower 500 is rated for 1,000W continuous outputthe full event needs 670Wh
Why it mattersIf your setup includes anything with a motor — a blender, a pump, a compressor — check continuous wattage first, because a bigger battery with a small inverter still can't turn it on.
Independent testing suggests the Power 500's inverter has headroom the spec sheet doesn't claimB3, so its flat 1.0x ratio reads more like untested-on-paper than a hard ceiling.
C300 surge rating: 600W on a 300W continuous base — a 2.0x ratioPower 500 surge rating: 1,000W on a 1,000W continuous base — a 1.0x ratioindependent testing found the Power 500 ran a heavy load and briefly absorbed a surge past its rated outputB3
Why it mattersIf you're starting a fridge compressor or a power tool near either unit's continuous limit, trust the C300's stated 600W surge on the spec sheet — but don't assume the Power 500 trips the instant it crosses 1,000WB3.
weight
At 9.1 lbs against 16.1 lbs, the C300 is the one-hand carry and the Power 500 is the two-hand one. That's a 7-pound difference you feel on every trip, not just the one where the numbers say you win.
C300 weighs 9.1 lbsPower 500 weighs 16.1 lbsfive of six tested scenarios overrun both units regardless of which one you buy
Why it mattersA buyer deciding this on 'which one wins more scenarios' is asking the wrong question — for short trips, the real question is which one you want to carry.
The specific dimensions that decide these two units — everything else is a tie.
Your Life, Your Pick
Selected because: Five of six real-world loads overrun both units; the one with a clear winner (CPAP) and the one with two different failure modes (Tailgate) are the most decision-relevant facts on the page.
Five of six scenarios come back 'neither,' and that's the most useful data point here: both units are sized for quick trips, not sustained off-grid living. Weekend Camping needs 2,100Wh, an 8-hour blackout needs 1,645Wh, a remote workday needs 910Wh, and a full day of van life needs 4,685Wh — every one of those clears what either battery can usably deliver, some of them by a wide margin. Buying the bigger of the two doesn't fix it; the Power 500 falls short on all four as well.
The two scenarios worth reading closely fail in opposite ways. CPAP Overnight is the only one either unit wins outright: the Power 500 covers the 320Wh night at 74% used, while the C300 needs 131% of what it can usably supply and comes up short before morning. Tailgate Party is the sharper lesson. The C300 can't even start the event's 400W blender on its 300W rating, a hard ceiling that has nothing to do with charge level, while the Power 500 powers the blender fine and instead runs out of the party's 670Wh total near the end. Same 'neither' verdict, two completely different reasons.
Lifetime Value
Selected because: Near-identical purchase price makes the lifetime cost-per-kWh gap the real financial argument, not the sticker price.
cost / lifetime kWh
$299.99 against $299.00 is close enough to call a tie at checkout, but the lifetime numbers aren't close: $0.35 per kWh delivered over the C300's life against $0.15 for the Power 500. The Power 500 gets there with 224 more watt-hours and 1,000 more rated cycles for the same money. Both work out to about $60 a year over their 5-year warranties, so the entry cost is genuinely a wash. The running cost isn't.
Used daily, the cycle math gives the C300 about 8.2 years before it's through its rated cycles and the Power 500 about 11. Used on weekends, that stretches to 28.8 years for the C300 and 38.5 for the Power 500 — both well past any realistic ownership window at that pace, so cycle life alone won't decide this for a casual user. The cost-per-kWh gap is the number that survives every usage pattern.
What the Specs Don't Tell You
Selected because: The three firing cards split cleanly — surge ratio and UPS speed favor the C300, cycle life favors the Power 500 — and volunteer the honest tradeoffs on both sides.
rated cycles
Two of the three firing cards go to the C300. Its 600W surge rating on a 300W continuous base is a real 2.0x ratio, against the Power 500's flat 1.0x — its surge number just matches its continuous one. That's a genuine edge if you're starting a fridge compressor or a power tool near either unit's rating. Its 10ms UPS switchover beats the Power 500's 20ms too, though both land in the safe tier for routers, desktop PCs, and CPAP machines; the difference matters more for sensitive server gear than a typical household setup.
The third card goes to the Power 500: 4,000 rated cycles against the C300's 3,000, worth about 2.8 more years at daily use or 9.7 more at weekend use before either battery settles to its ~80% capacity floor. None of these three cards is close to decisive on its own. They're the honest tradeoffs, not the headline.
Brand Trust
Selected because: Cross-brand pair between an established consumer giant and a two-year-old specialized entrant; genuinely different risk profiles worth surfacing before either warranty gets tested.
Anker is the established name here: seven or eight SOLIX stations across two lines, an X1 home battery system, and the brand recognition of Anker's entire consumer electronics catalog behind it. DJI's power stations are about two years old as a category, four models deep, built on the same battery R&D that backs its drones. That's a genuinely different kind of trust — proven longevity and support history against a newer, more specialized operation with a strong parent reputation but a short power-station track record.
DJI reads premium in how it's built and priced, not budget — a mid-to-premium position, not a value play, even where its unit happens to be the better financial deal in this specific matchup. Anker's own support has a real asterisk: historically excellent no-hassle replacements, but recent coverage describes more generic, AI-driven support responses and more complicated return logistics. Worth knowing before you lean on either brand's warranty rather than just the spec sheet.
Portability & Form Factor
Selected because: With scenario outcomes mostly a wash, weight is the tangible difference that actually separates daily-use experience.
weight
9.1 lbs against 16.1 lbs is the difference between a unit you swing into a backpack one-handed and one you set down and don't move again until you're leaving. The C300's fastest USB-C port also tops out higher — 140W against the Power 500's 100W — enough to fast-charge a demanding laptop directly, without routing power through the AC inverter.
None of this shows up in the scenario table, because the table measures energy, not the physical experience of owning the thing. If you're buying a small power station specifically because it's small — car camping, tailgates, a backpack — the C300's weight is the more relevant number on this page than any capacity gap. If you want the bigger battery and don't mind carrying it, the extra 7 pounds is a cost paid once per trip, not a recurring one.
Strengths & trade-offs
Anker SOLIX C300
Strengths
- +Lighter by 7 lb
Trade-offs
- –Weaker inverter (-700W) limits appliance compatibility.
- –Shorter-lived battery — rated for 3,000 charge cycles vs the Power 500's 4,000, so it wears out sooner.
DJI Power 500
Strengths
- +Costs $1 less
- +Larger battery capacity
- +Higher AC output
- +Faster solar charging
- +Rated for 4,000 charge cycles — much longer battery lifespan
Trade-offs
- –No major technical downsides compared to rival.
Will It Power Your Gear?
Scenario math and per-appliance runtimes, modeled from the spec record.
Scenario verdicts
We ran the math on six real-world scenarios. Here's which unit survives your actual life.
SCN-01 · 2 nights · needs 2,100Wh
Weekend Camping
Two nights off-grid with essential comfort
Neither unit
Two nights with lights, a fan, and a CPAP running needs 2,100Wh. That's more than either unit's usable capacity — this isn't a close miss, it's a capacity-class problem. Both units simply run out; a bigger battery or a solar assist is the fix, not a different pick between these two.
Battery budget usedlower = more headroom
LOAD Phone Charger 15W×6h · LED Lights 40W×8h · Box Fan 75W×14h · CPAP Machine 40W×16h
SCN-02 · 8 hours · needs 1,645Wh
8-Hour Blackout
Keep the essentials running through a night without power
Neither unit
Keeping a fridge, router, and lights alive through an 8-hour outage needs 1,645Wh. Both units run out well before the night is over, the C300 first and the Power 500 not far behind it. Neither is sized for a whole-night blackout on its own.
Battery budget usedlower = more headroom
LOAD Fridge 150W×8h · Router + Modem 20W×8h · LED Lights (4 bulbs) 40W×6h · Phone Charger 15W×3h
SCN-03 · 8 hours · needs 320Wh
CPAP Overnight
Sleep therapy without interruption — the #1 medical use case
Power 500
The only scenario in this matchup with a real winner. An 8-hour CPAP night needs 320Wh: the Power 500 covers it at 74% used, with real margin left. The C300 needs 131% of what it can usably deliver and comes up short before morning — a straightforward capacity shortfall, not a power-ceiling issue.
Battery budget usedlower = more headroom
LOAD CPAP Machine 40W×8h
SCN-04 · 8 hours · needs 910Wh
Remote Workday
Full work day off-grid without power anxiety
Neither unit
A laptop, monitor, and router running 8 hours needs 910Wh. Both units run dry well before the workday's over. This one comes down to energy, not wattage: the biggest single draw is a 60W laptop, trivial for either unit's output rating. There's just not enough capacity on board for a full day.
Battery budget usedlower = more headroom
LOAD Laptop 60W×8h · External Monitor 30W×8h · Router + Modem 20W×8h · Phone Charger 15W×2h
SCN-05 · 4 hours · needs 670Wh
Tailgate Party
Game day power for the crew
Neither unit
The two units fail this one for opposite reasons. The C300 can't even start the party's 400W blender — that's above its 300W continuous rating, a hard ceiling that has nothing to do with remaining charge. The Power 500 powers the blender fine, but the full event needs 670Wh, and its usable capacity runs dry roughly two-thirds of the way through. Same 'neither' result, completely different mechanism.
Battery budget usedlower = more headroom
LOAD Blender 400W×0.5h · LED TV (55") 80W×4h · Bluetooth Speaker 15W×4h · Phone Charger (×3) 45W×2h
SCN-06 · 24 hours · needs 4,685Wh
Van Life Daily
A full day of mobile living — the ultimate endurance test
Neither unit
A mobile fridge running 24 hours, plus a laptop, lights, and a fan, needs 4,685Wh a day. That's a different order of magnitude from either unit's capacity — this scenario needs multiple full recharges of either battery just to get through one day. Van life at this scale needs a bigger onboard battery, solar income during the day, or both.
Battery budget usedlower = more headroom
LOAD Mini-Fridge 150W×24h · Laptop 60W×4h · Phone Charger 15W×3h · LED Lights 40W×5h · Fan 75W×8h
The Load Test
RUNTIME = (Wh × 0.85) ÷ LOAD
None of the six scenarios above exactly yours? Build it. Toggle what you'd plug in; both units are tested against the combined draw.
Essentials
Comfort & Convenience
High-Draw Appliances
Test duration
8h
Continuous draw
205W
Projected runtime
For this load: Power 500 runs 2.1h vs 1.2h.
$299 list · direct from DJI
Modeled from the spec record — same math as the tables below. Methodology
Runtime by appliance
Real-world runtime estimates for common appliances, modeled at 85% inverter efficiency.¹
Essentials
The basics you need runningscale 0–29hComfort & Convenience
Makes off-grid life actually enjoyablescale 0–5.8hHigh-Draw Appliances
These reveal the real limitsscale 0–0.4h¹ Runtime = (capacity × 0.85) ÷ appliance watts. Within each group, all bars share one time scale (the group's longest runtime), so lengths are comparable across appliances; identical runtimes collapse into a single blue/orange bar. Actual runtime varies with battery age, temperature, and simultaneous loads — see methodology.
Conclusion
July 28, 2026
Verdict: the Power 500
At $299.00 against the C300's $299.99, the Power 500 delivers 512Wh instead of 288Wh, a 1,000W continuous ceiling instead of 300W, 4,000 rated cycles instead of 3,000, and a lifetime energy cost of $0.15 per kWh against $0.35. That's essentially the same money buying a bigger, tougher, cheaper-to-run battery. The C300 answers with real strengths of its own: it's 7 pounds lighter, carries a 2.0x surge-to-continuous ratio against the Power 500's flat 1.0x on paper, and switches to battery in 10ms against 20ms. None of that closes a gap this wide on capacity, output ceiling, and lifetime cost. Buy the Power 500 by default, and buy the C300 only if weight is genuinely the deciding factor for you.
Editor-assigned confidence, based on cited owner research and spec analysis.
List prices as of July 28, 2026. The links below open Anker's and DJI's current prices.
$299.00 list · direct from DJI
or check the SOLIX C300 price$299.99 list
Written by Wenny Zheng, Portable Power Tester · Station Arena Test Desk · Updated July 28, 2026
Measured Data
Benchmark scores and the full spec record, side by side.
Benchmark scores
Not rated for both units (minimum threshold unmet): Solar Generator.
Full specifications
ᵈ Derived: price ÷ rated capacity. See the data behind our comparisons →
Comparison ToolAdd more power stations, side by sideOpen Tool →How these numbers are produced
Numeric verification
Every figure on this page traces to our spec database or arithmetic on it — no estimated numbers.
Owner claims
Statements about owner experience are cited to published reviews — see Sources & Research Notes below.
Runtime model
Runtime = (rated capacity × 0.85 inverter efficiency) ÷ device wattage. Solar recharge estimates assume panels deliver 70% of rated output. Cold weather, battery age, and stacked loads reduce real-world results.
Power Score
Computed from 14 published spec dimensions, weighted per use-case bench. Higher is better; a unit must meet a bench's minimum threshold to be rated.
See the full weight table and data sourcing on our methodology page →Class ranking (the star rating)
Each unit's star score is a category ranking, not customer reviews — no buyer opinions feed it. We score every station on size-independent quality (value, output, portability, endurance, ports, warranty, and more), then percentile-rank it against the other units in its capacity class, so a class-leading compact unit and a class-leading whole-home unit can both earn 5★. Here, SOLIX C300 rates 4.4/5 (67th percentile of 22 Personal-class units), and Power 500 rates 4.4/5 (67th percentile of 19 Compact-class units).
How the class ranking is computed →Test Notes & Caveats
Hidden gotchas and advantages we spotted that you won't find on the product page.
Surge Headroom: Built-In Margin vs a Flat Number
The C300's inverter is rated for 600W against a 300W continuous load, double its own baseline. The Power 500's surge rating just restates its 1,000W continuous number, with no stated margin above it. A higher surge-to-continuous ratio is what lets a unit survive the split-second spike of a compressor or motor kicking on, even when the appliance's running wattage looks well within range.
UPS Speed: Both Safe, One Faster
The C300 switches to battery in 10ms, the Power 500 in 20ms — both land in the tier that's safe for routers, desktop PCs, and CPAP machines during a power blip. The gap starts to matter more for sensitive equipment like NAS arrays, where every extra millisecond of interruption counts.
Cycle Life: 3,000 vs 4,000, in Real Years
At daily use, the C300's 3,000 rated cycles work out to about 8.2 years before it settles to roughly 80% of its original capacity, still usable, just diminished. The Power 500's 4,000 cycles stretch that to about 11 years. At weekend use, both figures roughly triple, and the gap matters less the less often either one gets cycled.
Full record above — the Test Desk pick is the Power 500.
Check Power 500 price →or check the SOLIX C300 priceOwnership Analysis
What happens after you buy — true cost of ownership, brand trust, and growth potential.
Lifetime value
Service lifeyears at one full cycle per day
Lifetime energy delivered
Cost per delivered kWh
│ warranty ends · Reaching the cycle rating means ~80% capacity remains — degraded, not dead.
Analyst note
The Power 500 wins on both sticker price and long-term value. At $0.15/kWh over its lifetime, it's meaningfully cheaper to own. Clear value winner.
Delivers each lifetime kWh for $0.20 less — check the Power 500 price →
Brand trust
Anker
Ecosystem
7-8 SOLIX portable power stations across C-series (compact) and F-series (flagship), plus the X1 home energy system
Support
US-based support. Historically known for incredible no-hassle replacements, but recent reports describe AI-driven support agents giving generic responses and complex return logistics for heavy units (hazmat shipping). The Anker brand reputation is still strong, but SOLIX-specific support quality is trending down.
Community
Moderate — active Reddit (r/Anker, r/AnkerSOLIXCommunity) and growing. Benefits from Anker's massive consumer electronics brand awareness.
App experience
Rated 4.5/5 iOS (~1,100 ratings) · 4.3/5 Android
Unique strength
Parent brand trust from Anker's consumer electronics dominance. InfiniPower technology for long cycle life. Strong $/Wh value in the mid-size and larger units — the S2000, F2600 and C1000 are among the better buys per watt-hour in the catalog.
Worth knowing
Support quality appears to be declining from its historically excellent level. Firmware updates have removed features without warning. Expansion ecosystem is smaller than EcoFlow's.
DJI
Ecosystem
New entrant (2024) — 4 power station models: Power 500, Power 1000 V2, Power 1000 Mini, Power 2000
Support
Leveraging DJI's established global support and repair center network from the drone business. Generally positive reputation inherited from drone operations, but limited power-station-specific track record.
Community
No dedicated power station community yet. Discussions happen within r/dji (~250K members, mostly drone users). Very small power-specific presence on Facebook and forums.
App experience
Rated 3.5/5 iOS and Android (DJI Home app ratings reflect entire DJI ecosystem including drones/cameras, not power-station-specific). Users report the on-device screen is more reliable than the app.
Unique strength
Runs quiet — 23-30dB published across the line, at the quiet end of the category. Fastest wall-charging speeds (~56 min for V2). 700+ battery patents from drone R&D. SDC ports for ultra-fast DJI drone charging. Premium industrial design and build quality. LFP batteries rated for 4,000+ cycles.
Worth knowing
DJI's power stations are a new category for the company — about two years of track record, versus rivals with a decade or more. There's no built-in solar charge controller, so solar input runs through a separate proprietary adapter, and the SDC ports are locked to DJI's own drone ecosystem rather than acting as a universal fast-charge standard. None of that is a knock on this unit's build quality, just newer ground for the brand and less plug-and-play value if you're not already inside the DJI ecosystem.
Analyst note
Anker is the safer bet on brand history and support depth. DJI is the newer, more specialized name riding in on drone-grade engineering. Neither is a budget play: DJI's pricing sits mid-to-premium, not value, even though its unit turns out to be the better financial deal in this specific matchup.
Growth path
SOLIX C300
FIXED CAPACITYFixed at 288Wh, with no expansion — so size it for your needs up front rather than planning to add capacity later.
Accepts up to 100W of solar. Limited to a single portable panel.
Adequate ports for most setups, but heavy users may want a power strip.
Power 500
FIXED CAPACITYFixed at 512Wh, with no expansion — so size it for your needs up front rather than planning to add capacity later.
Accepts up to 300W of solar. Limited to a single portable panel.
Adequate ports for most setups, but heavy users may want a power strip.
Realistic full solar rechargeat 70% of rated panel output — see methodology
Analyst note
Neither expands, and that's no knock on either — each is a complete unit at a fixed size. Buy the capacity that covers your needs now (the Power 500 gives you the larger ceiling); you can't add to either later.
What Owners Report
Patterns from published owner reports and long-term reviews — every claim cited to its source below.
Anker SOLIX C300
Reviewer coverage on the C300 is consistently positiveA1A2A3. The two things people call out unprompted are the size — reviewers describe it as impressively light and compact for its capacity, aimed at keeping phones and gadgets charged on hikes and camping tripsA2 — and the UPS switchover, which multiple sources flag as genuinely unusual to find in this size and price classA3. Coverage skews toward buyers who want reliability and smart features in a compact footprint rather than raw capacityA4.
“288Wh capacity with 300W output (600W with SurgePad) and dual 140W USB-C ports for fast device charging.”
Sources
ankersolix.com · trustedreviews.com · im.com.au · solarwaypoint.com · backuppowerhub.com · powerstationlab.com
DJI Power 500
The Power 500's coverage centers on real-world output: reviewers ran it under a heavy load and found it briefly handled a surge past its rated output without issue, and rated it more efficient in testing than DJI's own larger Power 1000B3. It's also described as easy to move, with a weight reviewers call manageable for the capacityB2. The one recurring knock is what's in the box: it ships with just a wall charger, no solar adapter or car-charging cable includedB4 — budget for those as separate purchases.
“A 512Wh LFP battery with up to 1,000W output; the automotive-grade LFP cells are rated up to 3,000-4,000 cycles for roughly a 10-year lifespan.”
Sources
dji.com · thesolarlab.com · techradar.com · views-sounds.com · t3.com
Sources & Research Notes
Every owner claim in this report is traceable to a published source. The bracketed references above resolve here.
Recurring owner themes
- Compact, light design; dual 140W USB-C fast charging; and a standout 10ms UPS rare at this size are the highlights. [SOLIX C300 · 3 entries]
- Light, efficient LFP unit with strong real-world output and drone-pilot appeal; the caveat is minimal included accessories. [Power 500 · 3 entries]
- A1
“288Wh capacity with 300W output (600W with SurgePad) and dual 140W USB-C ports for fast device charging.”
ankersolix.com / trustedreviews.com — SOLIX C300 review · 2026 · [positive]
- A2
“Anker claims the C300 is 30% smaller than competing power stations; reviewers call it impressively light and compact for the capacity, aimed at keeping phones and gadgets charged on hikes and camping trips.”
im.com.au / solarwaypoint.com — SOLIX C300 review · 2026 · [positive]
- A3
“Its 10ms UPS switchover is legitimately unique in this size and price class.”
backuppowerhub.com / powerstationlab.com — SOLIX C300 review · 2026 · [positive]
- A4
“Targets users who value reliability, smart features, and compact design.”
backuppowerhub.com — SOLIX C300 review · 2026 · [positive]
- B2
“Weighs only about 7.3 kg, making it easy to transport.”
dji.com / techradar.com — Power 500 review · 2026 · [positive]
- B3
“In testing it ran a 905W load and briefly handled a 1,500W surge above its 1,000W rating; reviewers found it outperformed the larger DJI Power 1000 in efficiency testing.”
thesolarlab.com / views-sounds.com — Power 500 review · 2026 · [positive]
- B4
“Reviews are positive overall, though one noted it ships with only a wall plug — no solar adapters or car-charging cables included.”
t3.com / techradar.com — Power 500 review · 2026 · [mixed]
Research compiled July 28, 2026.
Who Should Buy Which
Buy the SOLIX C300 if you…
- →The C300 is for the buyer who feels every pound: car camping, tailgates, a bug-out bag, a trip where you're the one hauling the case from the trunk. At 9.1 lbs it's a one-hand carry, and its 140W USB-C ports fast-charge a laptop or tablet directly, no inverter required.
- →It's also the safer pick if you know you're starting one specific motor-driven appliance right at the edge of a 300W ceiling — a small compressor, a pump — since its 2.0x surge-to-continuous ratio is the one with stated margin on the spec sheet.
Buy the Power 500 if you…
- →The Power 500 is for the buyer who wants the bigger battery and doesn't mind the extra 7 pounds: a real workstation for hours at a time, a 1,000W ceiling that covers far more appliances outright, and a lifetime energy cost under half the C300's for effectively the same $299.
- →It's also the pick for CPAP Overnight specifically, the one scenario in this matchup either unit actually wins. The Power 500 wins it, finishing the night at 74% used instead of running short.
If neither fits
If you're picturing a weekend of camping, a multi-hour blackout, or a van's fridge running all day, close this tab. These two cap out at 288Wh and 512Wh, and every one of those jobs needs at least 910Wh, some well into the thousands. Look at a meaningfully bigger capacity class instead; this matchup just isn't built for sustained, multi-appliance duty.
The Bottom Line
Within a dollar of the same price, the Power 500 gives you 224 more watt-hours, a 1,000W ceiling against 300W, 1,000 more rated cycles, and a lifetime energy cost under half the C300's. That's not a close call. It's the same $299 buying a bigger, longer-lived battery almost everywhere it matters.
The C300 earns its keep on the scale, not the scenario table: 7 pounds lighter, with real surge headroom and a faster UPS switch for the buyer who's carrying this more than they're running a house off it. Buy the Power 500 by default. Buy the C300 if you already know weight is the number you care about most.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers drawn from the spec record and cited owner research.
Can the Anker SOLIX C300 or DJI Power 500 handle a full weekend of camping?
No. A two-night trip with lights, a fan, and a CPAP machine needs about 2,100Wh, and neither unit's usable capacity gets close — the C300 is rated at 288Wh and the Power 500 at 512Wh. Plan on recharging daily, or size up to a larger capacity class.
Which one is cheaper to own long-term?
The Power 500, clearly. At an almost identical purchase price ($299.00 against $299.99), it costs $0.15 per lifetime kWh against the C300's $0.35 — under half as much energy cost over the battery's life, on top of 1,000 more rated charge cycles.
Can the DJI Power 500 run a CPAP machine all night?
Yes, comfortably. An 8-hour CPAP night needs about 320Wh, and the Power 500 covers it using about 74% of its usable capacity, with room left over. The C300 can't quite finish the same night: the math needs 131% of what it can usably deliver, so it comes up short before morning.
Is the DJI Power 500's surge rating actually weaker than the Anker C300's?
On the spec sheet, yes, in one narrow sense. The C300's surge rating is 600W against a 300W continuous rating, a 2.0x ratio, while the Power 500's surge rating of 1,000W just matches its 1,000W continuous rating, or 1.0x, with no stated headroom above normal output. But independent testing found the Power 500 handled a real-world load and briefly absorbed a surge above its rated output without tripping, so treat the flat ratio as untested-on-paper rather than a hard ceiling.
Which one should I buy if I just want to keep my phone and a fan running on a camping trip?
Either works fine for a load that light — a phone charger and a box fan together draw well under 100W, nowhere near either unit's ceiling. At that point, decide on weight: the C300 is 9.1 lbs against the Power 500's 16.1 lbs, a real difference if you're the one carrying it to the site.
Where to buy
Anker SOLIX C300
$299.99
$299.99 list · direct from Anker
DJI Power 500Pick
$299.00
$299.00 list · direct from DJI
Prices may vary by retailer and are subject to change.