We test a portable power station that has £100 knocked off its price

Portable power stations are so useful, for a variety of reasons. They provide silent, clean energy pretty much wherever you are, with built in batteries, powerful inverters, and the ability to recharge from solar.

Bluetti has been leading the pack in this area of the technology industry for years, and its products have evolved significantly in that time - as is very evident with its latest launch, the AC50B.

Its key attributes include its 700w inverter, powered by a 448Wh LiFePO4 battery, and it has two USB-C ports, a USB-A port, a cigarette lighter socket, and a single three-pin AC socket.

There's nothing revolutionary about the styling, it's Bluetti's classic cube shape, but it's quite lightweight, falling below the 7kg mark, and it has a decent-sized LCD display, which feeds you all the information you need about charging and discharging time and percentage.

Charging the unit can be done through a solar panel, with the input now on the front of the unit, and it can handle up to 200 watts of energy through that port. Or, for a faster charge, the AC50B can handle 580 watts through its AC port, which will top it up completely in just over an hour. Zero to 80% can be dispatched in around 45 minutes, so it's very quick.

It is, then, the perfect companion for a camping trip, which is exactly what I used it for recently. I left home with it stowed away in my motorhome with a 100% battery and used it every day for a variety of jobs. I charged my phone several times, ran a projector off it, powered my TV, and even used it to power my wife's pet lizard's heated vivarium.

The unit itself never broke a sweat, it coped with all the applications with ease. It's quite surprising how quickly the battery depletes if you're using the inverter - there's a phantom load even while it's not providing power - but otherwise, the display makes it easy to see how much juice you've got left.

Charging through solar is really easy and effective. I used one of Bluetti's excellent panels, and managed on one fairly sunny day to replenish most of its charge. If it had been a nicer week, I wouldn't have needed to top up from mains power at all.

But, when I did, it was a very simple affair, and Bluetti's "Smart Turbo Charging" makes it a quick and easy job.

I'd put a fair bit of faith in the AC50B because I usually take my trusty EcoFlow River 2 Max with me. It's a slightly smaller and lighter unit, but it has a slightly higher capacity with 512Wh.

The Bluetti does have a better inverter than the EcoFlow's 500w system, and more modern battery technology, but in both units the inverters can cope with a 1,000w surge.

There is, however, a large gulf in price. And this is where the Bluetti really shines. Standard pricing of the River 2 Max is £449, but the Bluetti costs £399. And it really is a better, more up-to-date unit.

At the moment, though, Bluetti has a sale on, so you can acquire an AC50B for just £299.

And, for less than £300, it's an absolute bargain.

Neither the EcoFlow or the Bluetti would be man enough to run a kettle or a hair dryer, but they'd happily keep a fridge going if they had a decent solar input, and pretty much any other camping gadget you could think of would be an easy job for it.

So for a relatively small investment, you've got an incredibly useful power station that could last you for years - Bluetti reckons it's good for more than 3,000 charging cycles.

I've tested a lot of Bluetti's kit, but for sheer value for money, this feels like one of the best devices they do.

It's no oil painting, it's a shame there's only one AC socket, I wish the USB-C ports gave out 100w instead of 65w, but in just about every other way it's a great bit of kit. Especially if you can get it for £299.