Best Portable Jump Starters of 2024

Portable jump starters can charge your electronics during a power outage, much like a portable home generator. But their main purpose is charging your car battery when it’s dead.

During our research, we found that the best portable jump starter is the Imazing Portable Car Jump Starter for its affordability and great features. Don’t miss our other top picks, though. They all have something special to offer.

This portable jump starter has the best amp rating and the widest range of engine compatibly out of any device on our list. It also has a whopping list of safety features to prevent you from hurting yourself or ruining your car’s battery. Here’s what Imazing lists as its safety features:

• Reverse polarity protection
• Overheat protection
• Short circuit protection
• Over voltage protection (17.5V ±0.5V）
• Reverse charging protection
• Input high/low voltage protection
• Relay adhesion failure alarm
• Reverse connection protection
• Number of starts protection
• High/low-temperature protection (60℃/140℉ to -20℃/-4℉）

These features address all the worries you might have when trying to jump your car battery. You’re not going to shock yourself or destroy your car’s engine.

Need other types of boosts? You can use this car battery jump starter as a power bank to charge your phone or other devices that use USB cords.

Beyond a large battery capacity and rating for most vehicles, the GB70 is full of features. It has a bright 400-lumen LED flashlight with seven light modes. You can adjust the light's brightness and set it to strobe and SOS mode. This car battery jump starter is also weather resistant with an IP65 rating and is rubberized to prevent it from scratching your vehicle.

Of course, we love safety, so the GB70’s spark-proof design and reverse polarity protection make us happy. Unfortunately, that’s the only safety features this jump starter offers.

The GB70 jumper also works as a power bank. The 12-volt, 15-amp outport can be used to charge 12VDC devices like inverters and tire inflators. This portable charger can also be used to charge your cell phone or other small electronics thanks to its USB port.

Like our top pick, the NEXPOW has eight different safety features. It also has an LED light with three modes, USB charging, and the highest battery capacity on our list.

It maxes out at 1,500 AMPs, though, and only works on vehicles with gas engines up to 6.5L and diesel engines up to 4L.

The LOKITHOR JA301’s stats match up to most of the other top picks on this list, but the display takes the prize. Instead of just showing the battery level, it also shows you if there is an error, if it’s charging, output, input, and if it’s ready to use.

This car battery jump starter features a 300-lumen LED that works as a flashlight, strobe, and SOS light. It also has an air compressor, so you’re never stuck on the side of the road with a low tire.

Other than the ability to air up your tires, the best feature of this portable jump starter is the adjustable light. It swivels around so you can point it at whatever, hands-free.

You can also power smaller household appliances thanks to the 12-volt charging capabilities (or use it as a phone battery charger).

Okay, so there are a few abbreviations and terms that can be confusing when buying a portable jump starter. Here’s what you need to know:

• mAh: This is short for milliampere hour. The higher the mAh, the bigger the charge the jump starter’s battery can hold. So, the bigger the number, the longer the battery can run before you need to charge the jump starter.
• AMP: An AMP is the strength of the electrical current that the jump starter puts out. The higher the number, the better in this case. More AMPs mean faster charging for your car’s battery.
• 12-volt charging: This type of charging port on a portable battery jump starter can be used to power small appliances like air compressors and fans.

We chose the Imazing Portable Car Jump Starter as our top pick because it packs a lot of punch into a tiny device that you’ll be able to store in even the smallest of vehicles. It’s also very well-rounded. It can be used on the widest selection of vehicles, comes with a handy LED light, and boasts an impressive amount of safety features.

To complete our portable jump starter review, we compared around a dozen popular brands side by side. We looked at their usefulness in real-world situations and how well they would perform.

For more information on how we review products and services, take a look at our methodology page.

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