Welcome to another installment of Editor’s Review from FREESKIER. Each week our editorial staff provides in-depth, honest reviews about the gear they’re testing on a weekly basis. Our goal? To point you towards the best brands and products on Earth so you can trust your equipment whole-heartedly and have as much fun in the mountains as possible. Read up on Goal Zero’s Yeti 400 Portable Power Station and Boulder 50W Solar Panel Kit, below, then visit us again tomorrow for more awesome gear coverage.
Yeti 400 Portable Power Station & Boulder 50W Solar Panel Kit, by Goal Zero
Ditch the fumes and hit the road with this sustainable, notably quiet, and ultra-portable power station from the gadget-makers at Goal Zero. This is the ideal system for the explorer that often spends multiple days off the grid, yet still requires significant power demands like keeping laptops, tablets, cameras and speakers charged for continued connectivity away from home.
What’s amazing is you can charge this beast in three different ways. Using solar rays from the sun, the Boulder 50-watt panel will charge the Yeti 400 power station in 16 to 32 hours, depending on the amount of light it receives; via a wall outlet there’s a five hour fill up time; and if you plug it in while you’re driving, it takes a total of 13 hours using the 12-volt adapter found in most automobiles.
Even more convenient is the Yeti 400 can revitalize the life of your laptop, cell phone, etc. five or more times on a full battery, so you can spend more time using your individual devices than reloading the battery of the power station itself. The Yeti 400 is also waterproof, rugged as hell, easily affixed to the bed of a truck or inside your #Vanlife “living room” and offers a selection of USB, 12-volt, and AC ports to plug devices into.
The sidekick to the Yeti 400 power station is the Boulder 50-watt solar panel. It’s the smallest rigid option that Goal Zero offers—the company also sells foldable solar panels, for easier stowage—and it’s built with tempered glass, an aluminum frame, and added protection on its corners to make sure it performs for years to come in a variety of environments. The solar panel also features a built-in kick stand to help achieve an optimal absorption angle to the sun. Trust this tech and join us in saying sayonara to dead appliances in the backcountry.
