I have heard mixed reviews of the power jack inverters. I have had some experience with their grid tie inverters which I purchased just to see how they worked.
It was not long into testing that I noticed the capacitors starting to "leak"... which surprised me some. Obviously the ripple killed them quickly. I don't know how that equates to their normal inverters.
Chinese stuff ranges from the excellent to the poor, and price is not the only indicator. I bought a 6000w 18000watt surge inverter as can be seen here:
http://www.anotherpower.com/board/index.php/topic,780.msg7498.html#msg7498As explained, it is very hungry on idle without modification, but apart from that is a very sturdy device for off grid applications.
For the money, the power jack style does not seem like a kings ransom to find out, but gee.... I would look at the filter caps early on in it's service to see how they fare.
People seem to be unaware of just how damaging ripple is to caps. A few years from now there will be a lot of grid tie inverters being fixed or tossed because of just this.... and most other newer devices like LCD LED and plasma tv's. .........Starting to see a few now even here. In nearly every case, the caps start to fail, and take the pwm chips with them....... mostly chips I have never heard of before too....
I would not know what to recommend in this space, but it will have something to do with how your using it....permanent or spasmodic.
I trust the "heavy low frequency inverters" far more than the HF inverters...... plus you get galvanic isolation of the output from the input via a meaty transformer, and the circuitry seems easier to follow and the switching is done before the transformer.... gives a bit of "give" in wicked conditions.
The HF switching ones do the H bridge switching after the isolation, and seem a bit more prone to fizzle with different loads without good reason.... they are exposed directly to the load.
One rule to note: Try your best to keep the unit cool. Caps last much much much longer at cooler temps. They are the weak link, assuming the circuit is sound to start with.
.................oztules
Edit. PS: I have it on fairly good authority... that I would not be allowed to keep the bunnies.... she said so :'( :'(