'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
BigBlue CP500 portable power station review: Compact, powerful and versatile, too
I liked the BigBlue CP500 portable power station as soon as I took it out of the box. It has a handy retractable lifting handle on the top, and the sides are shaped so you can easily carry it with two hands, too.
The BigBlue Cellpowa (CP) 500 is reasonably light at 7.8kg, but is sturdy and built well, and has a host of other useful features too.
BigBlue CP500 portable power station
pros and cons
- LED display remains lit
- LED SOS or fixed light
- compact optional solar panels
- Nothing so far
The CP500 has a LiFepo4 battery which provides 537Wh of power which can be recharged up to 2000 times giving a battery life of 5.5 years if discharged and recharged every single day. BigBlue says that the power station will still retain 80% of its original capacity after all of these charges.
The CP500 has four ways of charging: solar power, AC current, your car battery, or by using USB type-C cables rated up to 60W. The power station can power up to 500W with maximum of 100W rated cables.
BigBlue also sells compact solar panels that work with the CP100 power station. Most of the solar panels I have tried for power stations are large and cumbersome and take up a huge amount of room in the car when travelling.
The 100W ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) folding solar panels will deliver 24V/4.16A and can be positioned using kickstands to get the best angle from the sun.
Panels coated in ETFE film will transmit up to 95% of light to the charger. It was gloomy when I took the image of my setup so I could not squeeze any charge from the day.
BigBlue CP500 with its solar panels.
The portable solar panels are rated IP65 which means they are dust-proof and splash-proof so can be used in the rain. They also have a useful cut out handle in the top of the panel for portability.
During the time I was testing this power station it only rained once – so I took the panels outside to test if this was true. I placed the CP500 into a plastic bag and connected it to the solar panels.
Although the power input went down to zero charge whilst it was raining, as soon as the sun came out again, the panels started to deliver a charge of about 10W again. When I cleared the rain off the panels using a silicone squeegee the panel performance improved significantly.
The BigBlue CP500 looks streamlined and stylish. On the back of the unit there is a light, powered by a switch underneath the light.
The light cycles through high and low luminosity and will flash SOS if required. The front has all of the ports and display indicators.
There is a cigarette lighter port rated at 12V/10A, two DC 5521 output ports running at 60W maximum and a button underneath to turn them on.
On the right hand side of the unit there are two AC 120V ports rated at 500W with a peak of 100W. Along the bottom of the unit are two 18W USB type-A ports and two PD USB 3.0 type-C ports rated at 60W.
These support simultaneous fast charge for up to four devices with no power shuffling and power reduction between ports. There is also a power button for the main unit.
I used the BigBlue CP500 as my charger for my tablet, two phones and a battery pack and noticed that the output charge stayed constant throughout the time the devices charged.
It did not seem to adjust its output until the battery pack was almost fully charged, when output dropped slightly as the remaining charge trickled into the battery pack. the power output drop was not so noticeable when the mobile phone neared its full charge.
Once switched on the LED shows charging and discharge rate in Watts, ports in use, and approximate time to empty the battery at current output Wattage.
You can recharge the unit up to 80% within two hours if you charge it using 60W Type-C and DC input simultaneously.
I ran the battery down to 1% and connected it to the fully charged Bluetti AC200P power station that I reviewed last year. I found that It actually took about closer to three hours to recharge using the manufacturers supplied cables.
The CP500 power station is protected against over-charge, over-current, overheating, and short circuiting via its battery management system.
The BigBlue CP500 and sub $200 portable solar panels are certainly worth considering if you need power – and an efficient way to charge the unit when you are out and about for an extended period of time.