Customer Reviews
Best value most power 
2008-06-14
For under $30, you can't beat this little unit for powering laptops, small DVD players, and children's games. They could have put the power outlets further apart. That's our only gripe. Great little unit. Well made.
Positively Power 
2008-05-30
I purchased the Xantrex 400 Watt Inverter. We also have the 700 Watt. I bought the 400 for $28, including shipping, on Amazon. Great deal. My husband gets 40-60% off at a distributor, and the $28 beat his best.
My husband wanted me to get a 700, and he would hardwire it to my car battery as he did his, but I didn't want to. I wanted portability. I needed an inverter so that when I go to our storage room, which acts as my stock facility (I sell on Amazon and eBay) I could plug it into any one of the several cig lighters I have throughout my large and long Expedition. Location of it plays a big part in its convenience for me. I just plug in my computer, recharge my cameras batteries, recharge my iPod and phone, and plug in a lamp if needed. I liked the fact that I could just plug it into any car, hardwired I could not do that. This unit is completely portable. I am an avid tent camper, and we also enjoy boating, so portability is a major plus. Nothing like camping in the great outdoors, but still being able to watch a movie while snuggled up in the tent. With this, I run an extension cord into my tent, and I have DVD and a lamp or fan if needed.
I live in south Florida. I am no stranger to hurricanes and their adverse effects. A portable inverter helps with power outages, and recharging all of life's modern conveniences making the sting of losing power for 3 weeks just that much easier. With this little beauty, I can directly clip my inverter onto my battery, as if hardwired, and it provides higher wattage or amperage, whichever you call it. When it is plugged into the cig lighter, it can only provide what that specific outlet was set up to deliver, which I think is 100 on almost every car model out there. Directly hooked on the battery, it gets close to 400. Why they call it a 400 and not a 380 or whatever the max wattage is is beyond me, but all the inverters are set up like that. Go figure. Must have been a man's grand design. Kidding, but you have to admit, guys just measure things differently. Double entendre intended.
At any rate, if you find it at a good price and you care about portability, this is a great unit. I have no issues with it. It is not noisy. I never even hear the fan!
I no longer have to purchase a new car charger for my cell phone when I have upgraded. With this, I just use the wall plug in my car. For that alone, it justifies the price. Two car chargers are more than the price of this unit.
My package included the unit and two sets of fairly long cables. One cable is for plugging into the cig lighter, the other is a nicely made cable that clamps directly onto your car's battery, the clamps are much smaller than jumper cables, but seem to be equally sufficient.
This unit is versatile, portable and an all around good purchase. Every car should have one.
Best wishes.
Not a bad charger 2008-05-27
I actually tried it on our recent trip. It functioned as it is designed for. Fan noise is noticeable but tolerable. It's good to have to feed your electronic toys on your road trip.
Xantrex Technologies XPower Plus 400-Watt Inverter #851-0400
Not pleased. 
2008-05-16
This product blew four different cigarette lighter fuses on three different vehicles and the battery clips didn't work either. It may have just been a faulty unit, but I wasn't willing to take a chance on a replacement. Amazon was great about issuing a full refund.
RV inverter user 2008-03-16
We've had this inverter for about a year now and have used it on several trips in our RV. We mainly use it to power our Dishnetwork 311 receiver and 12V 15" TV. It works great for this application plugged into a cigarette lighter outlet. We also use it for AC battery chargers for all of our AA and AAA rechargable batteries. We also use it to recharge our walki-talkies. The fan runs on and off while watching the Satellite Tv but the unit does not really get hot. Highly recommended.
Solid and reliable 2008-07-19
Good, solid charger. Sometimes makes some fan noise, if my laptop starts pulling hard. No real complaints.
Works great with Xbox 2008-07-18
This inverter worked great with an Xbox (v1, haven't tried it with a 360 yet). Just plug a power strip into it if the sockets are too close together :)
Great bang for the buck! 2008-07-09
This came in real handy on a road trip to Dallas, kept the laptop running without any problems watching several DVD's. The cooling fan can be heard if you have the music down but not enough to bother me. The fan cycles on and off depending on load and cooling needs.
Great to power laptop, speakers. Outlets are too close together. 2008-07-03
Purchased this for a trip from NJ out to Pittsburgh, then on to Chicago and back. We have 2 children we were going to purchase DVD players for, but I decided to use my IBM Lenovo Thinkpad from work to let them watch from the back seat of the car. Problem was that the battery would only last about 2 hours or so and the sound out of the laptop was non-existant with the road noise. Enter this beauty!
I was able to power both the laptop and a set of external speakers. Imagine the kids wanting to get into the car because watching movies in the car was a novelty. Not one single time did we hear "Are we there yet?". 6+ hours to Pitt, then 7+ hours onto Chi. 13+ hours back. I was even able to recharge my blackberry from the other outlet (albeit with an extension cord attached)
Only two issues. I have a Sirius radio and there was a lot of interference with the inverter turned on. The laptop and the speakers were ok, just could not stand the static this caused with the Sirius radio.
Second issue is that the outlets are placed too close together. If your plugs have an girth, don't expect to get them both in. I purchased a very short extension cord so I could gain access to more outlets.
Overall, VERY GOOD PRODUCT! Would purchase again, no buyers remorse here.
Does the job 2008-06-23
Have used the inverter on a couple 2-hour trips. Ran a Dell laptop and video game chargers off it the whole time with no problems. Only possible issue is a whine introduced into the car stereo (aux input) from a laptop running off the inverter. In other words, I was running the laptop off the inverter and plugged the laptop's headphone output into the car stereo's auxiliary input and there was a noticeable whine coming out of the speakers. It didn't affect the operation of the stereo, laptop or inverter, and the inverter still works fine. The only other note is that running the inverter with the car engine off causes the inverter fan to run at full speed, which is rather loud. The inverter fan does not normally come on when the car engine is running.
