Poll - would you buy a Portable charger with no USB Type A port?

#1
  • I’d buy a Powercore which only did USB PD
  • I’d only really want a hybrid USB PD and Type A

0 voters

So Anker generously sent me their Anker Powercore 20000 PD Essential for Xmas, and I already owned a 10000 PD and 10000 PD Slim.

I have owned a 26800 for > 3 years.

I keep care of my Powercore by:

  • storing at room temperature
  • use them each every few months

I only relatively recently got a 18W input tablet, having owned 5V input only before and began to notice a strange issue that my number of tablet recharges were less at 18W than 10W.

So I went back to school on electronics and found out why.

Electronics for portable chargers are tuned to run most efficiently at a particular voltage. When Anker only made 5V output, it was easy to tune for that, but along with Power Delivery you get 5V 9V 15V 20V

SourcePowerRule
SourcePowerRule.png801×696 89.5 KB

The electronics in a Power Delivery give different efficiencies at different voltages.

image

In this case when you use this Powercore at 45W, you get 90% efficiency vs at 18W you get 95% efficiency.

image

image
image.png1083×478 177 KB

image
image.png851×508 85.2 KB

Now if it is less efficient then the heat ages the cells faster, so here at 18 months see the drop…

image
image.png1076×471 168 KB

image
image.jpg985×627 103 KB

So that got me thinking…

If you bought a PD Portable charger with higher Wattage, you’d get the most energy output if it were tuned for higher Voltage, so it would necessarily be less efficient at lower Voltages.

So would you buy a Powercore which only supported higher voltages? Or, knowing it worked best at higher voltages? You’d get more value-for-money.

4 Likes
#2

That’s a tough one because I’m not exactly on the PD train yet. I’d like to say I’d like a portable charger with PD only but seeing as how I have so many devices that uses the older stuff, it’ll be hard to fully invest in PD. So for the time being, I’d have to have a portable charger with both.

1 Like
#3

I won’t pretend to understand all the above but I wouldn’t be put off @professor :+1:t2:
As you can get USBC cables to just about anything else, I don’t see it being a problem.

1 Like
#4

I chose the option for Hybrid with USB-A since I still have a lot of items which still use the USB-A cables, and don’t want to invest in getting more cables. (I have a huge pile of cables with me fyi)

have slowly started accumulating USB-A to C cables now with Life Q10, PowerConf, Flare 2s … :slight_smile: May be down the line, go for USB-C only PD, but for now good with Hybrid.

This is my cable stash from June 2019 and have added more to it

image
6B74FFF6-4F7D-49CA-ABAB-3B7EC5E2CFEA.jpeg828×540 500 KB

#5

I would absolutely get one without Type A. I have a few USB-C to micro USB cables, as well as C-C, so I can charge most things overI have a PD capable batter pack, but it has USB-A on it as well. But that isn’t a big deal - it works best over USB-C anyway.

But I don’t see a ton of value in the actual higher voltage parts of PD charging for devices on the move. Your battery is portable, after all - so efficiency of transfer matters more than speed of charging in my mind.

Unless you are using it to charge a laptop, I would optimize it for 5V and slower charging as that is generally gentler on the battery and more efficient in most cases as your data notes.

I wouldn’t go for the higher voltages by default unless ALL of my devices supported that range. And 5V is going to be the most common option for a long long time I think.

1 Like
#6

Right but there is inevitably going to be a 60W then 85W then 100PD and ironically they’d get progressively worse, you’d find say a 20000 18W the same output as a 26800 60W and you’d pay double the price just for the illusion of power.

I’m fully with you, if its a portable charger its by definition with you so it doesn’t need to be faster so why carry a less efficient, therefore heavier bigger version.

If they tuned it for say 15V it would still do 5V but less well, and if the device which needed 5V was small, efficiency matters less anyway.

#7

Lot of my current products need USB-A support, so I still need to live with it for few more years.
That was a nice analysis @professor :+1:

1 Like
#8

I’d be willing to buy a portable charger with just an USB C port but unfortunately I still have other electronics that use USB A (micro USB)
Hopefully more products can start using USB C

#9

Yeah I would. I don’t use USB-A anymore.

That being said, I don’t mind backwards compatibility as much as others do.

1 Like
#10

Interestingly, you @professor have not voted, which one do you prefer :wink:

#11

Well I am in conflict. what I ideally want are smarter people than me working at making this irrelevant.

Pending, In the immediate term it is making me see 18W as an input and 10W as an output, which means I swapped my EDC cable back to a A-C cable to force the most efficient use of the weight of carrying 10Ah.

#12

I am also conflicted on this, but voted for the hybrid. I prefer longevity over speed, but at the same time speed can be helpful in situations where its needed. It all depends how and where I will be using this pack.

#13

I have to go with the hybrid. I’ve got too many older devices that rely on USB type A to just throw it away. It’s also hybrid so im getting the best of both worlds :+1:

#14

Wow, that’s a surprisingly high amount for PD only. Anker is definitely missing out on a lot of potential sales.

#15

I would buy a PD only portable charger but also the hybrid as well :man_shrugging:

1 Like
#16

I moved last week to a new apartment. Consolidated a lot of boxes. Threw a lot of things away. Now, most of my cables are organized. And … I have 25+ micro-USB cables that I’m not using. Ugh. I wish that I could say that I have more USB-C products (5) than micro-USB products (8), but sadly that is still not the case.

Even so, I’d love to get a PD only charger. Most of my portable charging is for my iPhone (lightning), Pixel 2 (USB-C), and iPad Pro (USB-C), and they can all benefit from PD. Sometimes I charge my Liberty Air 2 on the go, but this is also USB-C. My travel devices that require USB-A would be my Apple Watch and on rare occasions, a wireless speaker, but both of these would be overnight charging, so a wall plug would be sufficient. I guess I don’t really need USB-A on a portable charger at all.

#17

Gotta go with the hybrid there are still wayy too many things that use usb-a

#18

Curious as to what things you use that need USB-A? Most things that I use could go either way, but I prefer USB-C as a universal port.

1 Like
#19

Indeed, whatever port on your device you just need a cable to suit :+1:t2:
As Anker don’t make them, I bought an Amazon USBC to Micro, I can run quite happily with a charger and PowerCore with USBC only.

#20

Only thing I use that needs micro is my bolder flashlight. As I never have a need to charge that with a battery pack, I never use the USB-A port on my battery packs.

I do however let my friends use the USB-a port if they need it.

1 Like