Pod Point Solo 3S vs Andersen Quartz: £304 for a turnkey install

The £304 question — and what it actually buys

The Pod Point Solo 3S costs £999, installed. The Andersen Quartz costs £695 for the unit alone — install not included. That £304 gap is the entire argument. It sounds like a premium for the Pod Point. In practice, it might be a discount. Or it might be a surcharge for convenience you don't need.

• Pod Point Solo 3S — £999 gets the charger and a standard install by Pod Point's assigned contractor. One phone call, one price, five-year warranty.
• Andersen Quartz — £695 for a better-specified unit you install through your own electrician. Seven-year warranty, IP65, eleven finishes, smart tariff integration.

What Pod Point's £999 includes — and what it takes away

The Solo 3S is sold as a package. You ring Pod Point, they book a date, their contractor turns up. No quoting, no shopping around, no chasing NICEIC certificates. For a renter or a first-time EV owner who finds the phrase "consumer unit" faintly threatening, this has obvious appeal.

The trade-off is that you cannot separate the hardware from the labour. There is no unit-only price. You cannot take the Solo 3S to a sparky you trust and ask them to fit it. Pod Point assigns the installer — you find out who that is roughly a week before the appointment. The charger itself is a competent 7.4kW unit with scheduled charging, solar compatibility, and adaptive load management. It does the job. It does not do more than the job.

Compare that to the Quartz: install quotes typically run £435–£800, so total outlay lands somewhere between £1,130 and £1,495. On the face of it, the Pod Point looks cheaper. But that range depends heavily on your property. A straightforward single-phase install with a short cable run from the consumer unit sits at the low end. Anything complicated — and plenty of installs are — pushes higher regardless of which charger is on the wall. The difference is that with the Quartz, you pick the installer and negotiate the price. With the Solo 3S, you accept Pod Point's terms.

Where the Andersen Quartz earns its keep

Strip away the install question and compare the two boxes on the wall. The Quartz is the better piece of hardware by most measures that matter over a decade of ownership.

Its 7-year warranty is two years longer than the Solo 3S's five. Its IP65 rating handles direct water jets — the Solo 3S's IP54 does not, which matters on an exposed gable or a drive without a porch. Its 286 × 172 × 110 mm footprint is notably smaller. It offers eleven standard finishes, with Accoya and carbon inserts available for buyers who care about that sort of thing. An optional 8.5-metre cable — £99 extra — solves the reach problem that a 5-metre tethered cable cannot.

More importantly, the Quartz integrates with Intelligent Octopus Go at 7p/kWh and OVO Charge Anytime at 14p/kWh. The Solo 3S has no supplier API. It schedules, but it does not optimise. On a fixed off-peak window like Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh between 00:30 and 05:30, manual scheduling is fine — set it once and forget it. On Intelligent Go, where the supplier can slot charging into half-hourly windows across the night, the Quartz participates and the Solo 3S cannot. Over a year of overnight charging, that flexibility compounds.

One caveat: the Quartz is not confirmed on the current OZEV-approved list. The Solo 3S is. If you are an eligible renter or flat owner, the £500 OZEV grant applies to the Pod Point and may not apply to the Andersen. That changes the arithmetic considerably — £999 becomes £499 installed, which undercuts almost everything in the market. Check the approved list before committing.

If neither quite fits

Buyers who want smart tariff integration *and* a bundled install will find neither charger delivers both. The Ohme Home Pro at £535 is the strongest option for tariff automation — it handles Octopus Agile half-hourly pricing, which even the Quartz cannot — though you arrange the install yourself. Readers weighing the Solo 3S against the field more broadly will find the Tesla Wall Connector vs Pod Point Solo 3S comparison useful — the Tesla at £478 is far cheaper hardware if you are comfortable sourcing your own electrician.

The verdict

Buy the Pod Point Solo 3S if:

• You want a single fixed price with no install coordination
• You qualify for the £500 OZEV grant — bringing the total to £499 installed
• You are on a simple fixed off-peak tariff and manual scheduling is enough

Buy the Andersen Quartz if:

• You have a trusted electrician or are happy to get quotes
• You want a 7-year warranty, IP65 weatherproofing, and a smaller, better-finished unit
• You use Intelligent Octopus Go or OVO Charge Anytime and want the charger to talk to your supplier

For most homeowners arranging their own install, the Quartz is the stronger charger — better protected, longer warranted, smarter on tariffs, and more considered in its design. The Solo 3S exists for the buyer who values *not having to think about any of that*. That is a legitimate preference. It is also a £304 one.