A story of the "BEAST" the Anker Powerstrip with 12 plug ins

Will state that I got this as part of the testing club to provide my honest opinion of the device. With that said, we will get to the review and probably the 5th review of the same power strip.

As my title states, it is a beast of a power strip and is my name for this device as well. The beast provides 12 plugs and has up to 1850 watts to add different devices . It surge energy is up to 4000j. Measurement for the power strip is over a foot long and about 5 inches wide. As you can see the box that it came in show how big it is.

The “beast” has 6 plug down the middle with 6 spaced out on the outer edges of the power bar. The six on the outside are mainly for your power bricks that some devices use. The Power strip offers a fire resistant exterior casing as well as ground and surge protection.

The device itself fees smooth to the touch and does not feel as plastic as some other power strips seem to be. I also like the power strip as well for a few reason. The first is that it is six feet long cord. So there is no need to have to sit the device in a certain way to make it fit. Again just plenty of room to handle plug in. Another reason is that the cord is pretty thick but flexible at the same time. The cord has a similar feel that it does not feel like other cords and I am assuming that is fire resistant as well. Since the plug is fairly flat, I really like the 45 degree off set. It makes it easier to plug it in and not have to worry if it will interfere with another cord.


I think functionally it works like it should in that it provides plenty of outlet for use. It provides a reasonable solution to a frequently used area of the house. My previous set up looked like the following.



As you can see I had to set up my power strips beside the tv on the floor and behind the tv. Since a lot of the cords will hang down, I had to use a tie cord to keep the power strip from turning over on the TV power strip to prevent it from being pulled by the weight of the cords.

This set up was not ideal at the time as both could have continued to collect dust and have caused some potential for heating up the power strip.

With this beast of a power strip here, I was able to plug in all of my cords and noticed a few things. (here is a pick of the power strip with most of the cords in it after I plugged in my LED lights into it).

The first notable thing that I am finding is that I like how wide it is , I have found that I do not need the zip tie anymore. The wider base has made the power strip more stable. The second thing that I have tried to do is to wait on my review in order to check out how much of any heat transfer that my devices transfer to the power strip. I have to say through various days I tried to test it ( ie when kids are have tv on, dvr, soundbar, xbox 1 and etc) Every time, I did not feel any warmth from the power strip.

On a side note, the big box that it comes in, I was able to use the box to store several of my cords. :wink:

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The build quality is certainly great. It has a nice weight to it and if I just knock on it using my finger and nails, the noise is closer to metal than plastic which makes it feel premium in my opinion.

And yea after a couple days of use even when charging laptops using 2 45W chargers, and iPhone 7 using the tiny 5W charger along with other devices plugged in, the powerstrip was still nice and cool. This is great considering our apartment has carpet (absolutely hate it btw) and this thing is sitting on carpet all day.

Great review @Duane_Lester! Definitely see you put it to good use!

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I agree on the carpet part as well. I know like all of us that we have this tucked away where it is unseen. It is nice knowing that even with a bunch of cords that it should stay pretty cool. ( I had just recently got rid some carpet for hardwood).

I may be wrong but with 1850 watts, I think it will take some big devices to even come close to that.

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Very cool review @Duane_Lester

Good to hear different things about the beast, that may not have been considered prior.

TS1

Thanks for the review.

Does anyone know what is meant by Joules in this situation?

I know what is a Joule, it is a unit of energy, but there is no mention of time. Joules per unit of time? Anything can absorb energy, but it is the time over which has to absorb and dissipate matters more.

The image is a physics gibberish.

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Another happy user!
Great review and photos @Duane_Lester

I meant to add something I had found on the 4000 joules but forgot to add it. The joules is for the surge protection.

A surge protector joule rating indicates how much energy it can absorb before it fails. The higher the number of joules, the greater the surge protection provided. Keys to determining the amount of protection needed include the type and value of the equipment to be protected. A 2000 joules is good for power tools and anything above 2000 is good for protecting home theater, pc, and game systems.

That’s meaningless unless it has a time dimension.

Joules in so many milliseconds?

4000 joules absorbed over the age of the universe Vs in a nanosecond.

So for example, say you wanted to absorb a 20% increase in power while consuming 1KW and do it in one AC cycle, so 1/50th second. That would be this 1000W*0.2/50s = 4Ws = 4J (definition of a Joule is a Watts second).

So Joules without a time dimension is physics gibberish.

So what is the time dimension?

I tried looking it up, no standard. Meaning one surge protector which acts faster is better but because it acted faster it absorbed less energy so a lower Joules.You’d want it to act quickly, so again Joules is meaningless, and you’d want it to act appropriate to the demand so without a Watts axis it’s also meaningless.

Is there a standard they are adhering to I can look up? I can’t find one (yet), but there has to be one to allow to make meaningful comparisons.

Anything written on the packaging or manual?

The package does not and is just your generic Anker blue and white packaging. The instructions does not really either. It just give a few tips.

tip 1. The surge protection feature can protect your computers, smartphones, and other electrical equipment against voltage fluctuations, surges, and spikes. If the two surge protection lights are off, it indicates the surge protection is not functioning normally.

tip 2. In the event of a power overload, the on/off switch will cut off the power automatically.

Will say that I went to the Amazon posting to see if they have additional information (which I have used mostly in previous testing club products as a benchmark to compare my outcomes against or to test their bullet point items)
I found it stated "Dual Surge Protection: PowerExtend is equipped with not one but two 4000-joule surge protectors, " This is different than the specifications where it just states the surge energy is 4000j.

Isn’t the joules expiry a cumulative thing?
So in this case if it gets hit with 4000 joules its game over.
Get hit with 2 lots of 2000 joules its game over?
I recalling this from info i “thought” was correct many years ago.

A Joule is a unit of energy, not a unit of power. Power is energy per time.

A surge is of power, not energy. So a surge is an increase of the rate of change, of the energy per time.

A spike is energy over time, so more related to power than energy.

What you want is a rapid change of power to cause power off. So you’re ideally wanting the 2nd differentiation with respect to time of energy. Not energy.

I’m only mentioning what a typical 16 year old is taught in school.

If there’s no standard for this then all claims are meaningless and so it boils down to how good is the insurance.

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thanks for the review gonna watch out for sales and pick one up

Beast indeed! Good job on the review

This is a really good review!