Over the past year, we’ve reviewed several OUPES products and have been genuinely impressed with what they offer. In fact, OUPES has even emerged as one of our go-to brands when we’re recommending budget-friendly power stations. But now, OUPES has decided to do something a little different.
The Exodus 1200 isn’t just another rebranded or expanded version of their previous models, which is what OUPES usually does when they launch a new product. Instead, it’s a completely different style of power station and something new they’ve decided to add to their lineup. So, does it hold up, or did they take one step forward and two steps back?
To find out, we put the Exodus 1200 through its paces, and while it wasn’t all bad, there were a lot of things about this unit that had us scratching our heads. So, let’s find out if the Exodus 1200 is a hit, or if it’s a rare “Oops” from OUPES.
Before we get into our testing and all of the things we didn’t like about this unit, let’s cover the basics by diving into the advertised specs:
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With their launch sale and our own discount code, it’s available for as low as $331. At first glance, that $331 price point is pretty tempting, even if the unit does seem underpowered in a few categories. But, as we have learned the hard way when testing power stations, price alone doesn’t make a unit a good buy.
At the end of the day, you don’t want to spend your hard-earned money on something that doesn’t perform well, even if it seems like a steal. So, let’s take a slightly different approach to our usual review style by diving into the areas where the Exodus 1200 falls short, then we’ll look at our test results.
Normally, we like to start out on a positive note by looking at what we liked about a product before highlighting what we didn’t like, but the Exodus 1200 just had too many issues to ignore, starting with the sloth-like charge speeds.
It’s 2025, by now the industry standard for even a small power station is around a 1,000W AC input. For a unit with a battery this size, that would allow users to give it a full charge in about an hour. But, the Exodus 1200 maxes out at 600W—meaning it takes significantly longer to charge than competitors, even in ideal conditions.
For comparison, the OUPES Mega 1 – a unit that’s practically a twin to the Exodus 1200 in most other respects – features a significantly higher 1,400W AC input. That’s more than double what we’re getting here with the Exodus 1200.
And, even on the solar side, the Exodus 1200’s 240W max solar input is pretty unimpressive, especially considering the Mega 1 offers a 800W solar input.
Another weird choice? The Exodus 1200 uses MC3 solar inputs, which is a bit of a blast from the past. Unless you’re using Jackery solar panels (which are basically like the Apple Lightning cables of the solar world in that they’re unique to the brand), you’re going to need an adapter to use any standard solar panel.
Most solar panels today use standard MC4 connectors, and even previous power stations released by OUPES have stuck to that standard solar input. Why the sudden switch? We have no idea. But if you don’t already have MC3-compatible solar panels, be ready to hunt down an adapter, or replace your panels.
It’s just a weird choice that we really don’t understand. If we didn’t have a few Jackery solar panels laying around, we wouldn’t have even been able to test the Exodus 1200’s solar input!
It’s a budget-friendly unit, but even for a power station at this price point, we expected a few more port options. Again, compare it to the Mega 1 and other power stations in this price range and you’ll find the Exodus 1200 is missing a couple of AC outlets and USB ports.
It just feels like a bit of a downgrade when other budget-friendly models are offering more flexibility.
Come on, OUPES. By now, a built-in light should be seen as a standard on a small power station like this. Even if it’s just a basic LED, having a light is incredibly useful during blackouts or when you’re camping. It’s a small feature, but one we always look for in these smaller power stations that were clearly designed for portability.
Despite its modest battery capacity and output power, the Exodus 1200 is physically about the same size as more powerful units. If you’re looking for something ultra-portable, this one doesn’t quite fit the bill.
Don’t get us wrong, at 23 lbs, it’s still highly portable, but it just seems pretty bulky for something with less than a 1,000Wh battery. Again, not a dealbreaker, but it’s worth mentioning.
Now that we’ve covered all of the things that we found off-putting about this unit, let’s see how it actually stood up to some real-world testing. Not only did we put it through its paces by running some really intense tests, we put it through plenty of daily tasks over the course of the three weeks we had our hands on it. Here’s what we found:
Power stations are never 100% efficient, but you want them to get as close to that as possible. To test the efficiency, we hooked the Exodus 1200 up to a 1,198W load, which is pretty close to the limits of its 1,200W inverter.
Given the size of the battery, it should have been able to last 49.5 minutes on a full charge if it was anywhere close to 100% efficient. Instead, it lasted 38.5 minutes running this demanding load on a fully charged battery. This translates to a 77% efficiency rating, which is actually pretty decent for a power station of this size.
Since that was a pretty intense test, we decided to charge it up and run a second test, but this time, we scaled back the load by about 100W. During this second test, the Exodus 1200 lasted 39 minutes, which means it hit a slightly higher 78% efficiency. That’s actually a bit better than some of the small power stations we’ve tested from the big-name brands, so no complaints there.
One thing we did notice is that the unit seems to shut off when it has about 6% to 7% remaining battery power. Now, power stations do tend to do this, as it allows the internal cooling fans to keep running after the unit’s inverter has shut off, but usually this occurs at around 2% or 3% battery power. Not a big issue, but something to remember if you’re trying to squeeze every bit of power out of the thing.
You may have noticed in the specs section that OUPES claims this unit has a 1,500W “Boost Mode”. We wanted to test that out, but there’s no button for it, and no setting in the app to activate it. Instead, when you exceed 1,200W, the unit automatically lowers the voltage to keep running.
To test it out, we used it to run a 1,500W heat gun. When we did so, it only delivered about 1,300W, which it was able to run for about 5 minutes. So, while it does technically work, you don’t exactly get to pull the full 1,500W boost that OUPES advertises.
As for surging, it handles quick spikes okay, but don’t expect it to absorb huge loads beyond its rated capacity. We found if we went above the output rating, it would shut off pretty quickly.
We’ve already mentioned how absurdly slow this thing charges, but it’s worth repeating. When we tested the AC charging, we used the app to select the “Fast Charging” mode, which is still just an unimpressive 600W input. However, when we measured it, we couldn’t hit an AC input over 400W. Basically, it just didn’t work as advertised.
Now, if a 400W AC input is the best you’re going to get when you plug this thing in, you’re going to be spending a lot of time waiting for it to charge. It took us over four hours to charge the battery in “Fast Charging” mode, which is a complete joke for a power station with such a small battery. It’s actually the worst charge speed we’ve ever seen over the hundreds of power stations that we’ve tested.
These charge speeds were so bad that we even contacted OUPES to make sure we didn’t receive a dud. They just plain admitted it was a problem and that they’re going to stop advertising the charge speeds and “Fast Charging” mode. They can’t fix it with any sort of firmware update, so it’s just going to be an issue with the unit if you buy one.
We also tested the solar input. While the MC3 input is annoying, it works. It’s not a high solar input or anything, but you can definitely charge the unit with solar panels, so it passed that test.
As for pass-through charging, meaning whether or not you have the ability to pull power from the unit while its internal battery is charging, it works for both the AC and solar inputs, so thumbs up there.
We’d probably just sum up the sound this thing generates as medium. It’s not loud, but it’s not quiet either. You’re going to hear it when it’s running at full tilt. Remember, it’s just over $300, so no real complaints there.
Finally, we wanted to see how much power this unit would consume just while it’s sitting there with its inverter running. Think of idle power consumption in a power station like idling in a car. The car isn’t going anywhere, but just keeping the engine running is going to burn some gas. So, the question is, how much power is being drained just by having the inverter switched on?
When we left it out for 24 hours with about 78% battery power and nothing plugged into it, we returned to find it was down to 36% battery power. This means it consumed around 16.5W per hour just being on. For comparison, something like the Pecron E100 uses about 18W per hour idling, while some of the bigger units that fellow budget-friendly brand offers, like the Pecron E3600, use about 13W idling.
Now, the Exodus 1200’s idle consumption isn’t terrible, but it is somewhat high compared to some of the unit’s competitors. Again, not a dealbreaker, but something you should definitely keep in mind if you’re budgeting your remaining battery power, which you may want to do given how long it takes to charge this thing.
We wouldn’t go as far as calling the Exodus 1200 a bad power station, but it also isn’t very good. We get the impression that OUPES tried to do something completely new when they designed this thing, but they didn’t quite stick the landing.
While the efficiency is solid and the new app interface is a nice touch, the ridiculously slow charging speeds, the outdated MC3 solar inputs, limited output ports, and lack of a built-in light make it feel like a backwards step compared to the OUPES Mega Series they released earlier this year.
It’s actually one of the first reviews we have ever done where we haven’t bothered including a separate “What We Like” section because we didn’t really see the point—nothing about it was overly impressive.
If you’re in the market for a small, budget-friendly unit for light use, it might be okay – especially at $331. However, if you can bag one on sale, the OUPES Mega 1 offers significantly better specs and functionality, especially when you consider it has a much faster AC charging speed and higher solar input. Again, if you can find a Mega 1 on sale, which isn’t difficult, it’s a significantly better deal.
So, would we recommend the Exodus 1200? Not really. At least, not when there are better OUPES models and competing brands offering more for the same price. We’ve linked the Mega 1 and a discount code you can use below if you want to check the current price.
OUPES: https://shrsl.com/4sq7m
Use Code: THESOLARLAB for 5% Off Your Order
Current Deals: https://signaturesolar.com
$50 Off Discount Code Automatically Applied at Checkout
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