Xantrex has two faces, the first is the company that builds the 'trace' series inverters, and they're an excellent product, when they were designed they were far ahead of anything on the market, and in some ways they still are. Then there is the parent company of what used to be trace, 'Xantrex'. They have bought up a number of companies and are now marketing all these products under the 'Xantrex' brand, which makes it kind of hard to put a label of 'good' or 'bad' on it.

As a rule, you get what you pay for, $70 / 1000 = 7 cents per watt, a full blown trace 4000 will set you back about $4000 which is $1 / watt. That alone should be an indication of the quality of the product.

The inverter you've got is probably OK for incidental use, and you may get lucky and it will last you a lifetime. But I wouldn't expect anything at that price level. Hell, I couldn't even buy the parts, in quantity for that amount, let alone ship it and give you a warranty and a pretty box...

I think mine is called Xpower also, but your statement "I have to buy the cables to hook it up yet" makes me think it's not the same thing at all. Maybe just an invertor only.

My little unit came with the wall wart transformer to charge the built in battery from the house, a ciggeratte lighter plug to charge from the car, booster cables to jump start cars and manual says also connect those to external battery to get longer inverter run times, so I can actually have any size battery bank for the 300 watt inverter with those.

I've used it to jump start cars in the yard that won't even light the dome lights their so dead. (I have over 30 cars, vans, trucks)
 Aired up many tires with the built in cordless air compressor.
Used the built in 300 watt inverter to run those twist in CLF bulbs and 4' CLF lights, no buzzing. Fans run pretty good as I recall too. Used it for other things too but forgot what all, so far no problems.

If the Xpower 1000 works as well as this thing then I think it was well worth $70 for sure. Heck if it's a 1000watt continous I might even want one myself :)

Tonight I was in an OLD ROCK house, no power/gas ect.. building a fire in the wood burner trying to get frost off the walls (no joke) and it was really nice to have inverters along for power :)
 The little Xantrex all in one was powering a lamp with a CLF bulb that lit 2 large rooms very well. The Aims 5K was in the back of the mini van connected to 3 deepcycles and I ran an extension cord in the house to power the wood burners blower off that.
 Didn't try the Xantrex for the blower, should have but didn't wnat to run it down, was nice to have the portable unit, better than a flashlight if I wanted to go to other rooms :)
I just rented the house, and was just there first time tonight for a few hours.
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nothing to lose

Far better than the typical 'China' inverters.

That is only about $50 US.  Two years ago most people would have been very happy with a decent 400w China inverter for $50.

Make your own cables if you have the ability. Cheaper and they fit how you need them.