Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was watching the coverage of the aftermath of hurricane Sandy when the reporter showed a line of people waiting to plug in their personal communication devices in a power strip that the mobile reporting van had generously given them access to, and it occured to me that a simple 12 volt power port (cigarette lighter socket) adapter might be handy in the event of a power failure lasting for more than a day or two. Realizing that everyone in my household has different charging adapters, I thought that maybe I should look for a small inverter where we could all recharge our devices from the 120 volt output of such a device. Now I realize that you can drop a lot of money in a hurry when you start getting into higher output true sinewave inverters and I wasn't really looking to bust my budget, so when I came across this one for 26 bucks I ordered one just for emergencies. I also own a ES5000 12 volt jumper pack which has a power port built in, so I plugged in the BESTEK inverter and my Intertek "KILL A WATT" power monitor and tried out a variety of different devices. Unloaded, the output was 112 volts. Loaded, it rose to 116 volts- both acceptable. The frequency held rock solid at 59 Hz, again acceptable. I powered everything from a small battery charger (Dremal tool) to my laptop, to a radio/ CD player, to a small 50 watt table lamp. Everything worked as advertised. The fan does run continuously and it does make a fan noise but that doesn't affect what I'm going to use it for. You might want to consider buying a power socket that has alligator clips attached so you can power it from a stand alone battery if necessary. Remember, this is only a 300 watt inverter so check out the amperage draw of what you are going to power up first (volts X amps = watts) i.e. a 300 watt bulb @ 115 volts draws 2.61 amps. So limit your device draw to about 2.5 amps and you will do just fine.