Buy 20100pd or wait for better?

#1

I’ve been on a hunch about which portable charger to buy and with the 20100 PD on sale it seems lucrative. I’ve also heard people mention new ones coming which seem really nice

#2

if you are using it to primarily charge a phone or most other portable devices, I would opt to get one while it’s on sale. Any newer ones that would be coming out in the future will most likely be more designed for larger, power hungrier devices, as I believe the PowerCore PD usually goes up to 30W, but devices are theoretically capable of up to 100W of draw…but even most portable-ish laptops seem to be around 45-60W in my experience.

#3

There isn’t that much more Anker can do with the powerbank, and you can avoid many issues by using the powerbank proactively. Yes probably the next PD will output at a higher wattage but there isnt much benefit. A typical laptop with USB-C PD input is 45W but that 45W is intended to recharge its internal battery and run the laptop. It can hold a fairly constant charge at around 5W so if you plugged in the powerbank at the start of a long day’s use then even a non-PD like a 10W output would do a the job to hold the battery level up of the laptop.

Math:

  • example laptop has 39Wh battery which lasts 8-10 hours, so 39/8=4.9Wh per hour.
  • a 20100 PD is 3.7x20 = 74Wh, so if it is 29W out then at its full output it is 2.5 hour til drained and its outputting at 29/4.9 = 6 times faster than the laptop is needing power, so at 29W you’re already way powerful more than required
  • 74Wh would equate to roughly 2 full recharges of that example laptop, so that 8-10 hours would become more in region of 24-30 hours with the 20100. That should cover you for a really long time off-grid.
  • even a cheaper powerbank with say 10W output would also suffice being about 2 double the speed required.
  • Powerbanks by their nature are portable therefore with you always, so the only difference in speed is how long you plug in the USB cable.

Likely where we’ll see the biggest change is the chargers, there at least 3 coming in the next months. Access to wall socket by its nature is something you may have for brief times and you want then therefore the fastest speed and portable as compact as possible. Then the issue is say you only have an hour at wall socket, you’d want to recharge all things as fast as possible so your laptop and the powerbank and phone so you’d be wanting a 60W-100W 3+ socket Powercore. Those are the critical items we are waiting on.

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#4

Personally I would wait unless you really want one now, but that’s just me. And you might be waiting for a few to several months…

#5

Unless you have a few devices that use 22.5 watts, I would say wait for a sale on a better model, or just wait for something new. There are a few options from other brands for around the same price out there.

For me this model is just in general hard to recommend to anyone even at $79.99. It’s lacking a couple of key features like the 20v output PD rail.