DJI’s New Portable Power Units Are Fantastic For Field Photo work
News | By Stephan Jukic | April 19, 2024
If you ever wanted to work deep in the field and be absolutely sure of enough device power, DJI has introduced just the thing.
The company better known for its powerful drones has created and announced the DJI Power Series, a duo of fast-charging power cells for recharging drone batteries, cameras or nearly any portable, compact electronic device.
The two units are separate models with different capacities and prices.
The more robust of the two, the DJI Power 1000, offers a 1,024Wh capacity for delivering 59 digital camera charges at a go when fully loaded. It can also charge a smartphone up to 57 times, a drone battery a dozen times and so forth.
With the DJI Power 1000, you get a region-specific output of 2000 to 2400W and connectivity for device charging via dual 140W USB-C ports.
If this unit is way more than you need for your fieldwork, then there’s the cheaper but still very robust alternative option, DJI’s Power 500 unit.
With this latter cell, you get 512Wh of capacity and a maximum output of 1000W via dual two-way USB-C ports. It can deliver roughly half as many device charges as its bigger brother.
In the case of both devices, what DJI does promise is a ton of additional device use without having to spend a fortune on extra batteries.
Even the smaller of the two units gives you enough juice for hours of using your camera, phone, droid or other device while far from civilization.
Both units are also fast-charging power cells, meaning that they can recharge connected devices with exceptional speed.
This applies especially to batteries with DJI Power SDC super-fast charging functionality (such as those found in the company’s drones).
In the case of these, used in drones like the Mavic 3, Inspire 3 and Air 3, charging a battery from just 10% to 95% can happen in less than 30 minutes.
For other devices, average recharge times may vary but DJI claims a fast charge for most uses.
The company also adds that the DJI Power units themselves recharge very quickly, claiming that they can be fully charged in just 70 minutes from grid power and charged to 50% in roughly 50 minutes.
They also offer solar-powered charging and are quiet during operation, at roughly 23dB. This is equal to the sound of a person whispering by the way.
Both the DJI Power 1000 and the DJI Power 500 come with dual, standard, region-specific outlets, two USB-A ports and SDC ports in addition to their USB-C ports.
As for their longevity, like all battery units, the DJI Power series wear down over time. However, DJI states that they can maintain more than 70% of their original capacity even after 4000 charge cycles.
This is partly due to the 10-year LFP cell technology they use, though DJI only offers a 5-year warranty. Either way, cumulatively, this amounts to a whole ton of field charging use.
Another handy thing about the DJI Power units is that they don’t even depend on grid power for their own recharge cycles. They can also work with DJI’s own Power Solar Panel Adapter Module and Power Car Power Outlet devices for charging from solar arrays or vehicles respectively.
One more interesting feature of these two units is their Uninterruptible Power Supply mode.
This lets a person use the charging units in their home so that if a power outage happens, they’ll power up other connected devices in just 0.02 seconds. According to DJI, this ensures continuous device operation.
As for pricing and availability, you can already order the DJI Power 1000 unit for a special order price of $699, temporarily down from its normal price of $999.
On the other hand, the DJI Power 500 will be available sometime soon, though DJI hasn’t given a release date.
Quite frankly, it’s hard to think of a more broadly useful pair of devices from this company, especially for anyone who does lots of field photography or needs device connectivity while away from the grid.
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Stephan Jukic is a technology and photography journalist and experimental photographer who spends his time living in both Canada and Mexico. He loves cross-cultural street photo exploration and creating fine art photo compositions.
