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this week we’ve got a huge lineup of many portable solar panels to test out ranging from the smallest 5 watt panels all the way up to 60 watts and these panels are from some of the most popular brands in the space including Goal Zero Sun Jack BioLite all powers Flex solar big blue and nitecore we’re going to be testing out all of these panels to see how close they come to the watt outputs stated on their packages and discussing the pros and cons and unique features of each of these panels and I also put together a spreadsheet with all the testing data in the video including the stated Watts the tested Watts cost per watt watts per ounce and more to help make things a little easier for you to decide which panel is right for you and that will be linked to down in the description below I also wanted to do a quick shout out to the winner of our previous giveaway of the ASP and p17 flashlight ASM ACR 8391 thanks to everyone else who participated and if your name wasn’t chosen you’ve got another chance to win in this week’s mini solar panel giveaway and to enter comment down below and let us know which panel from the video is your favorite and I’ll be randomly selecting winner with the common picker app and will post them on the Community page and respond to their comment next Friday full details will be in the description below we’re going to kick things off with the charging test and this test was done between 11 30 a.m and 12 30 and it’s the perfect sunny summer day with no clouds and output testings are typically pretty straightforward on panels with a single USB output but on some of the panels with multiple USB outputs their watts are shared across the different ports so in order to test for Combined Watts we’ve got three different Power stations with a variety of USBC and DC inputs which we’re going to be using simultaneously in some cases and to make the comparison a bit more fair we’re going to break up the panels into a few different groups based on size and for the first group we’ll be looking at these micro size panels in the five to six watt range then smaller panels in the 10 to 15 watt range the mid-size panels range from 20 to 30 watts and finally we’ll end with the larger 40 to 60 watt panels the three micro size panels here are the flex solar 6 watt panel the BioLite solar panel 5 plus and The Goal Zero Nomad 5. and generally speaking you’re going to pay a lot more for these mini size panels compared to the total Watts that they’re going to be able to produce but they are going to be the best in terms of portability because they’re so small the flex solar panel only produced a Max output of 4 Watts out of the six that it claims however it was the most affordable panel by a long shot and the cost per watt in terms of dollars was only 3.75 and it also produces the most amount of watts per ounce compared to the other panels and it is the most lightweight panel in the group as well the BioLite panel produced 5 watts and this was the only panel in the whole test that actually was able to produce what it claims which is a very impressive fee it does however come in at a steep cost of 20 dollars per watt but it does include a built-in battery which is something that you’re only going to be able to find on biolite’s panels The Nomad also produces 4 Watts just like Flex solar’s panel and while it’s somewhat more affordable compared to buy lights panel it still comes in at around 12 dollars per watt which is the second most expensive behind the BioLite panels the panels in the 10 to 15 watt range are the flex solar 10 The Goal Zero Nomad 10 the BioLite solar panel 10 plus and the sun Jack 15 watt panel and in this group we do start to see the cost per watt come down somewhat but yeah are still paying a decent premium on each watt for the size of the panel Sun Jack’s panel did come in first in this group at both the highest total watt output at 12 Watts which is to be expected since it’s the only 15 watt panel here but it also performed the best in terms of claimed watts versus tested Watts at 80 and the cost per watt came in at about 6.67 cents per watt Flex solar’s performance was the next most impressive coming in at 7 watts and this panel had the lowest cost per watt tested of the group coming in at 5.71 cents and this was also the most affordable panel at about forty dollars the Noma 10 did come in at the bottom of the group with 6 Watts which was a bit disappointing producing only about 60 percent of what it claims finally the BioLite solar panel 10 plus came in at around 7 Watts which was about average but again we’re dealing with a relatively high cost per watt of around 21.43 for the 20 to 30 watt group the largest group in terms of the competing panels that we’re testing we’ve got the sun Jack 25 watt the nitecore fsp30 the big blue 28 watt panel The Goal Zero Nomad time money and the flexible or 20 watt panel and in this group we really start to see an improvement in performance and reduction in cost for the most part sun Jack’s 25 watt panel produces 16 Watts so it was slightly less efficient than the 15 watt panel and it’s also slightly less affordable from a cost per watt perspective but it did produce the second closest to its claim Watts as a percentage in this group night course panel produced 18 watts of its claim 30 which is about 60 but one area where it really excelled is actually in tested watts per ounce and it was the most efficient not only in this group but across the board coming in at 0.83 watts per ounce big Blues 28 watt panel was also very efficient from the watts per ounce perspective coming in at 0.74 and even though it only produced 17 Watts it was also pretty efficient from a dollar per watt perspective coming in at 2.86 The Nomad 20 was the most disappointing panel in the group only producing 11 Watts which was just a little over half of what stated bringing the dollar cost per watt to around 13.64 cents and it’s also the heaviest of these panels and it’s only producing about 0.27 watts per ounce which makes it the worst in terms of what you get for the weight that you have to carry of all the panels here finally we have Flex solar’s 20 watt panel which was the most affordable panel in this group and this one produced 14 watts and this was one of the most efficient from the group in terms of a cost per watt tested and it also produced the closest to what it claimed to be able to produce at about 70 percent finally in the last group with the biggest panels we had the sun Jack 60 watt panel the all powers sp026 60 watt panel and the smaller Flex solar 40 watt panel and this group gave us the most consistent impressive and affordable performance across the board Sun Jack 60 watt was able to produce a maximum of 46 Watts during my testing which was about 77 percent of stated and it’s by far the most affordable from a cost per watt perspective at 3.70 per tested watt compared to the other Sun Jack panels all Power 60 watt panel was able to produce 50 Watts which was the highest of all the panels tested and it do do the best in the larger panel group in terms of claim versus tested Watts at 83 percent and was also the most affordable panel overall in terms of the cost per tested watt which was only two dollars finally the flex solar 40 watt panel produced 30 Watts which was 75 percent of what was claimed and it did do really well from a watt per ounce perspective at 0.69 and it’s also the most affordable panel in the group at about eighty dollars now I’ll take a few minutes to discuss the pros and cons of each of these Brands panels and we’re going to start off with sun Jack solar panels which were some of the first mini size solar panels that I’ve ever tested and for full disclosure these were shipped out to the channel for review and these panels were recently upgraded from the versions I had tested previously in terms of build quality I would have to say that these are superior to all the rest of the panels here and they have full etfe lamination across the panel so they’re really strong and durable with that being said you do pay a premium for the build quality and they were on the expensive side in terms of the watts per dollar but if you plan on using the solar panels a lot and you want something that performs well that you can rely on these are definitely a good way to go they were all relatively good in terms of tested watts per ounce and overall I think these would make an excellent choice for extended backpacking trips or anybody who plans to use their gear frequently and need something reliable another thing I like about these panels is this mesh pocket on the back which gives you a nice place to store your cables which not a lot of the smaller panels give you and you can also keep your smaller devices cool in this pocket while they’re charging and the ports themselves are IP67 rated after doing some product research on Amazon Flex solar was a brand that just kept jumping out at me and nearly all the reviews were saying how great these panels were and they seemed to be very reasonably priced compared to many of the other panels on the market I did pay for these out of my own pocket but I thought it was important to see what Amazon’s best had to offer for the sake of performing a good test and overall I was very impressed by how these panels performed across the board in nearly every group not only were they the most affordable option but they were the best in terms of the price per tested Watt and they did relatively well in terms of delivering the Watts that they advertised with the exception of the six watt panel which does seem to be rather flimsy but that’s to be expected for the price the build quality on the other panels was quite good and they all have etfe construction just like sun Jacks panels but I’m not a huge fan of the fact that there’s no storage pouch and the output is pretty exposed and this could be more easy to damage if you’re looking for small and cost effective panels these would be a good way to go especially if you’re just going to be using them more casually and less frequently and you’re not planning to be as rough on them or maybe you want to be able to have the ability to charge something small in a grid down situation all powers is another company that I’ve had the opportunity to work with on multiple occasions and they’ve sent me multiple power stations solar panels and I’ve got some more stuff on my desk from them that you’ll be seeing in some upcoming videos and in my experience they are one of the most budget-friendly and high value brands that I’ve come across in the portable power space and the sp026 60 watt definitely delivers on this front it was the best panel in terms of the cost per watt at two dollars per watt which was significantly better than any of the brands here that being said it’s not the best in terms of portability as it is the heaviest panel in the group and the way it folds into six squares does make it a little bit more difficult to position towards the Sun the panel construction is also on the weaker end with a fabric shell and pet panels which are not nearly as durable compared to the etfe panels so it’s long-term durability would come into question especially if you intend to use it frequently if you need something for a small Power Station this would probably be the best option of the group to go with and it comes with a nice variety of DC and USB outputs so it is compatible with a wide range of devices bio light is another company that I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing a handful of products and these were also shipped out to the channel for review for free the build quality on everything I’ve tested from BioLite has been top-notch and as a company I’ve noticed that they do make an effort to go above and beyond in their product designs these panels include etfe lamination a built-in Sundial to help you angle the panels more efficiently built-in kickstands which makes setting up the panels a breeze and even built in 3200 milliamp hour batteries which you can use to charge your devices later on and this is a very convenient feature and does not impact the tested watts per ounce as much as you might expect these panels are on the expensive end but the cost of the battery is definitely something that you have to factor in when you compare them to Goal Zero and these panels were the most expensive of all the panels tested with a cost per tested bot at over 20 each the panels both did reasonably well in terms of tested versus claim watts and the 5 watt panel was the only panel out of all the panels that could actually perform the stated Watts which is very respectable if you want a built-in battery there isn’t much else on the market and you’ll have to decide for yourself if the higher cost of these panels are worth it for you for the extra features that you get many of you have been subscribed to the channel have probably heard of Nikkor and I’ve had the chance to review dozens of their flashlights but many of you probably don’t know that they also branched out into solar panels power Banks and even power stations over the last few years The fsp30 Falls somewhere in the middle when it comes to the cost per watt and you do get a nice variety of outputs to charge multiple devices this is another panel with a fabric shell and pet panels so it’s not going to be the most durable but one thing that really impressed me about this panel was the fact that you get the most watts per ounce compared to any of the other panels here so if weight and efficiency is a big concern this is definitely a good option to keep in mind big blue was another panel that was very highly reviewed on Amazon and tons of people have purchased it and I saw that it did pretty well on some other online reviews as well so I was really curious to see how it stacked up to the competition and overall I was a little bit disappointed that the output wasn’t higher on this panel only coming in at about 61 percent of what was advertised it also has a very similar build quality to the nitecore panel with a fabric shell but this one does have ETF elimination so it’s going to be a bit more durable and it is reasonably affordable for a mid-size panel in terms of the cost per tested watt at 4.71 however I would probably recommend either the flexel or 20 watt or the 40 watt panel in terms of build quality and they both come in at a more affordable cost per tested watt another thing that it does have going in its favor is a decent tested Wattpad per out score at 0.74 which makes it the second best of all the panels tested finally we have Goal Zero I picked up the Noma 10 and 20 at Rei’s outlet store and saved a significant amount off retail by buying them used I did have to pay full price for The Nomad 5 and the salesperson at REI was actively trying to talk me out of purchasing it but I wanted to include it due to its popularity and at the moment Goal Zero BioLite and ecoflow are the only brands of solar panels that REI carries overall I was pretty disappointed with Goal Zero across the board because you do pay quite a bit for performance that was relatively average the cost per watt tested was a bit lower than bottle lights but they lack a lot of the features that might justify paying a higher price on the other side the build quality is pretty good and the panels do feel very solid and they also have built-in kickstands which is nice from a convenience perspective and the output ports are flexible which is pretty nice as well unfortunately these panels also had some of the lowest watts per ounce which makes them some of the least desirable from a backpacking perspective if you do go to Rei’s Outlet store you might be able to find these panels at a significantly reduced rate which would make them more worthy of consideration but unless you can find a good deal I would definitely recommend going with a different brand finally I want to share my personal winners with you in every category if you’re looking for a micro size panel flexol or 6y panel is awesome for the price you’re not going to find anything cheaper and if you just want to start your journey into portable solar and want to be able to at least charge your phone if you don’t have any power this would be the bare minimum place to start at about 15 in the 10 to 15 watt panel range I would recommend going with the sun Jack and this one goes for right around eighty dollars it is going to give you the most in terms of watt output and it’s still relatively lightweight as far as portable solar panels go and the build quality here is Top Notch as always from sunjack and I would pretty much recommend them across the board if build quality and durability is a top priority for the 20 to 30 watt panel Flex solar’s 21 panel is an incredibly good deal coming in at about 45 dollars and the performance is fantastic for the price again flexoiler did really well across the board and any of their models would be good options for those of you on a more tight budget who still want something that’s decent quality for the 40 to 60 watt panels it was a tough call but the all powers sb026 would probably be the option that I’d go with because the overall output was the highest and it was the best from a cost per watt perspective and this panel is extremely reasonably priced at around a hundred dollars thanks so much for watching the video and if you enjoyed it be sure to give it a thumbs up and let me know what your thoughts on these panels are down in the comments below and if you have any ideas for gear comparisons like this one let me know what your ideas are and if you want to pick up any of these items and help support the channel or if you want to check out my spreadsheet you can find a link to that down in the description below …