Which power bank should I buy and PC Mag power bank reviews

Hey everyone.
Was reading the techie bit in this today and noticed this,

I was set on buying one of these but at that charging input speed I’m not so sure.
Now I do tend to charge my PowerCore over night as my use of it is generally planned, but 8-9 hours to fully charge using the USBC non PD input is shear madness!

No didn’t read.

Which model is that? If the inference is a 10W input larger portable charger is slow to recharge, then yes. My much loved 10Ah 10W input took 8 hours vs the 10Ah PD 18W input is <4 hours.

But there is a difference in size and cost.

I accept the implicit point of small print but Anker has usually done a good job to state input, output and recharge times.

Because cells die from none-use, and die from use but just faster, it makes most sense to carry the smallest portable charger and use it regularly, you get most value in the long term.

The 10Ah range is now a narrow range of cost 10W vs 18W, it’s now close to “why not” in 10Ah to be 18W PD, even if you don’t need it for output, just to get input recharge time down. The 20Ah range it is still a broader cost difference, a 7hr recharge is a lot lower cost than 3hr recharge.

Remember a cell can ingest at higher Wattage when mostly discharged.

So these higher Wattage inputs matter more for larger portable chargers to bring that significant <85% time down. To do that requires the input Wattage to be higher and the Voltage to be adjusted more finely over a broader range, which costs a $ more in electronics.

Right now the sweetspot of performance and cost seems around the 18W 10Ah, and if you need 20Ah it’s cheaper to buy two 10Ah which recharge in parallel to be <4 hour than it is to buy 20Ah and recharge it in same time.

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Thats the Wireless Hybrid Powerbank.
Why wouldnt they make that a faster PD input?
Its changed my view on the product.

i don’t click on clickbait sites, so you have the advantage over me which product.

If you’re referring to Anker Wireless portable charger, it not being 18PD input? Agreed, that is the version 1 product, version 2 with 18W input would be the one to buy, it’s such an obvious easy add it would be likely along soon.

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No click-bait site, that was Ankers info.
Yes, the wireless hybrid PowerBank.

I don’t know why they wouldn’t add 18w input from the off. It’s not like 18w is new to Anker or an untested technology.
They have basically made an old spec PowerBank with a slow wireless charger built in?
Rather than something to compete with the others on the market that has a faster wireless pad and faster recharge time at a very similar price, Amazon is full of them!

We critiqued it significantly on launch.

Indeed, agreed.

I predicted it could easily exist beforehand and so having done the calculations on the thermals found this product bafflingly bad.

I do think this 10Ah wireless powerbank will be popular, when you factor the cost of a pad with a 5 year old charging technology, it wins on cost.

The issue they’ll have is a 18W input and output wired with a lesser wireless is trivial to produce, you’d expect it early, meaning all those who paid money for this version won’t be pleased.

I don’t think increasing the wireless Watts significantly is viable, but increase wired to 18W in+out is trivially easy.

I am interested in the engineering challenges of increasing the wireless Watts, it would involve much more of leading technology, I’d see a heat pump, a large copper plate, metal edge and bottom and ceramic top, with a very efficient chipset. The challenges of the wireless inefficiency sandwiched between the cells of the powerbank and the cells of the phone is a good problem to solve.

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That must have slipped me by, can’t say I saw that post.

100% agree that 18win and out is easy. They make compact wireless charger products so don’t see why this couldn’t have been 10w - they are already out there.
In fact Samsung’s 10000mah version is 15w wireless and re charges in under 4hrs.
I’ll have a read through the post you added above and see everyone else views.

Wireless charging is highly viable now, the cost has come down to about $3 it should be in everything.

It does have its thermal challenges but they exist now in such corner cases I think so long as we have wired as a fallback we’re fine.

Math:

  • most devices now are thermally constrained - their limit of recharging is determined by temperature and battery ageing.
  • high end flagship phones have given themselves headroom via heatpumps, they are copper tupes with a thermally transmitting liquid which evaporates near heat sources, and condense further out. This is a lot higher cost than $3.
  • Wired portable chargers are around 94% efficient from their cells to the socket, the socket-cable-socket is losing about 0.5%, and the phone which is recharging is about 80% efficiency . These add up to 75% efficiency overall.
  • So wired at 18W, you lose 1W in the powerbank, <1W in the cable and 3.6W in the phone.
  • Wireless, the cable 0.5% loss becomes nearer to 15% wireless loss. This is due to the fact wireless is inherently less efficient, laws of our universe, photons scatter in all directions, some of them end up in the receiver, some end up causing eddy currents in nearby metal, some just disappear and absorbed in the next surface (wall, etc). So that <1W in the cable becomes 2.7W lost, most as heat in the proximity.

So then focus on that 2.7W lost as heat and convert it into a temperature.

  • Say you used wireless for an hour, 2.7W x 1hr = 2.7Wh.
  • 2.7Wh is 3600Joules, or 860 gram calories
  • so a typical phone is going to have it’s temperature raised about 2C if evenly spread through the phone, but in reality it becomes focused on the metal near the transmitter, an area weighing just a few grams so it can raise temperature locally by 20C and relies on metal to transmit it to the whole phone for where convection and radiation to outside world.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t do wireless. You’d not want to purely rely on wireless to do the fastest recharging as that heat is being asked to be built up quickly, giving less time for convection/radiation (phone feels hotter).

No, a top-up for a few minutes is fine, as the heat is building for a few minutes. Pick up / put down is a perfect use for wireless. Doing a slow recharge overnight is also fine as the phone can simply thermally throttle down the Wattage in response to temperature, plus the phone’s other components (screen, cpu, GPU) are not generating much heat overnight. Between the top-up during the day and a slow full charge overnight, wireless is today comfortably not ageing phones.

Where I think the engineering challenges are fascinating is when you sandwich the portable charger cells between the wireless and the phone, as you’re putting all the losses (30%) in one compact area. It’s like asking a slice of cheese to not melt between two burgers.

Where wireless is dumb is in a fairly narrow, and likely rare situation, expecting to pay a high-end phone and put on a pad and use it all the same time, and expect it to fast recharge. That expensive CPU GPU just is being throttled during the period and your flagship isn’t being flagship in those moments.

Hence why wired still has a role, in the fastest recharging from empty.

I don’t think that would be an accurate result, as most people’s phone battery’s aren’t operating at 100% capacity.

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Count recharges then divide that to form a ratio, makes a relative and more valid conclusion.

If you took one phone, today, it has whatever capacity it has (your point) and counted how many recharges you got wired, vs how many recharges you got wireless. That ratio would be true and not be a function of battery size.

Relative not absolute.

“Relative” - “I got 20% more recharges wired vs wireless”
“Absolute” - “I got 20% more of a phone charge from wired vs wireless”.

Your point would be valid for an absolute, it would be a function of phone, it’s age, etc.

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Hello guys.
So that recharge time is pretty slow compared to the others @Insider listed.
This isn’t a disaster for me more an annoyance. I would need to plan recharging the power bank rather than a 3-4hr top up.

So far the power port + duo looks like the charger I’ll buy as it’s cheap and 30 w usbc and 12 w usb which seems pretty ok?

As for power bank it’s a toss between slim 10000 pd, or wait for the hybrid wireless.
But also the essential 20000 pd is cheaper than the 10000 pd.
What’s a boy to do :rofl:

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If you’re not carrying it (your use case) then the 20000 PD would be best overall value, about 3.4x full phone recharges wired, a little less than 3 phone recharges wireless.

If you like convenience of wireless, just buy the cheapest pad for it, about £12-£13 and plonk it on the pad in the locker if you just need to keep it topped-up (85% to full type) and wired connection for more of a full recharge (nearly empty upwards). You’d plug in a C-C to your phone, and A-Micro for pad (supplied cable) and use whichever suits the context.

A 30W+12W is perfectly fine choice, some weeks the 18W+12W or the 18W+18W is lowest cost, if they are all similar cost then the 30W+12W would have the most useful life. In UK right now the 18W+12W is £15 so if I didn’t already own 3 of those that would be my recommendation. They physically look very similar.

The 10000PD and 20000PD only need 18W so 30W is headroom for other future things (small laptop, etc).

Prices do vary significantly week by week, so if 20000 PD seems good price this week… go for that.

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I’m swinging towards the 20000 pd.
Before I click buy, should I be getting caught up with power IQ, IQ2 and IQ 3? I’ve done a brief search but thought I’d be cheeky and ask you guys as you’re so knowledgable :grimacing:
The power port + duo just shows PD on the usbc and some others says IQ 3 as with the power port + Atom iii.
Is that something to consider when buying a charger?

So fastest charging only matters in contexts where you don’t have a portable charger, where your phone is nearly empty and you have too short a time next to wall socket with charger. A portable charger by definition is with you all the time. The battery life of your phone is (reviews) about 9 hours so its 4000mAh (2/3rds rule) needs 2.5W to keep it at its current level of charge, so 10W is fine.

IQ = 10W
IQ2 = Inclusive of Qualcomm Quickcharge to 18W
IQ3 = Inclusive of QC3 and goes up to whatever is the Wattage of the port (up to 100W). IQ3 is similar to PD.

Your phone supports 25W. So any PD or IQ3 up to 30W is as fast as you can possibly consume, but IQ2 to 18W would be plenty to recharge phone and even IQ would work. The Wattage matters more on your wall charger than your portable charger.

The minimum dual-socket wall charger you’d ideally want to buy is:

  • a port at least 18W USB-PD / IQ3 to recharge the 20000 PD in 7 hours.
  • and a port at least 30W USB-PD / IQ3 to recharge your Samsung quickly.
  • so combined needs to be least 48W.

Anything above this, you’re either buying for headroom or it’s a small incremental cost in your country. I’m very sceptical of buying headroom, a small $ extra is worth it but not a lot of $$ as futures are uncertain.

This one you mean?

It’s not discounted right now, if you wait a couple of weeks it will probably discount a little.

If you meant this one

Then it is not the ideal match as 30W+12W, you’d have to plug in whichever is nearly fully charged into the 12W port for it to not be much slower than the 30W+18W one. All devices with batteries take a lot less Watt in after 85% full.

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I was meaning power port speed+ but if you’re saying the 49.5 watt is the more suitable option thats the one ill get.

So its the 20000 mah and the power port 49.5w.
Ill get on that tonight. Ill buy them both together, im sure if i wait for a few £ off the power port ill miss the £10 off the power core.

I really appreciate your help guys, all of you, but especially you @professor for going the extra mile.
Small in the grand scheme of things but thats 2 extra purchases Anker has gained from this forum, awesome.

You’re in the UK?

The £25 for the 49.5W will almost certainly be around £20-£22 within next couple of weeks if you can wait.

The 20000 PD £30 is not really £10 off, it’s pretty much a regular discount, that price will return. A regular Anker discount is 18%, it then fluctuates down to around 30% off commonly if you can wait a few weeks.

Both products combined for £56 is likely to cost around £10 less if you’re patient, so in the grand scheme of things it’s up to you.

Cables would be the next decision, they only really matter if you seek longer cables, the ones you have already probably fine.

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I have fully charged iPhone 11 Pro once and another 50% wirelessly using the Powercore Essential 20000 PD with Anker PowerPort Wireless 5 Pad…

Powercore is now showing 3 LED… Meaning it has gone down from 100% to 75%

Meaning… I can get upto 5 (and possibly 6) full wireless recharge using this arrangement. I think I can live with kind of setup without a wireless powerbank.

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Thats interesting, thanks @Shenoy
Perhaps my PowerCore wasn’t fully charged when i started :thinking:
Ill try again soon.
Have a great week.

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I like your testing.

I am sceptical as to the accuracy of the lights on the Powercore. Running the Powercore down til it turns off would be my suggestion.

I know that takes a long time and effort.

I can’t do it myself yet. Don’t own the parts.

This 20Ah + pad is a good arrangement, particularly if you own more Powercore than you need and to fit in places where wall sockets not best placed. Cost effective. I might do that myself.

Sanity check on the math (to see if in right ball park).

  • iphone 11 Pro. Cell size 11.67Wh ( correct? )
  • 20000 PD 72Wh (from memory, it’s dark here)
  • Assuming 65% efficiency (reviewers average)
  • 1.5x recharges, so 11.67 x 1.5 / 0.65 / 72 = 37%.
  • so I get you’re down to 63% not 75%.
  • if my 63% were true (lots of extrapolations so assume not true) then if 37% = 1.5 then 100% = 4.

But even if my math turned out correct to an empty 20Ah, I agree with the conclusion that’s pretty good. I have a corner of home where someone is sitting who is using a wireless chargeable phone, but no wall socket, and I have at least one Powercore spare at any time I might place there. Good idea!

Question, as I don’t have this arrangement yet.

How does the trickle charge or not affect this? Does the Powercore 20Ah auto turn on when phone placed on pad, or do you have to press power button? Did you need to enable Powercore trickle-charge mode to keep it working?

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Purchase made @professor
When doing the maths on power bank, power core and a pad I changed direction, a little. Instead of spending the money on the pad I went for a higher rated power core instead. Thinking of your comment above for maybe use with a laptop or something else in the future.

So finally, essential 20000pd, power port+ Atom iii and a power line+ usbc to usbc lead.
Should be delivered Tuesday.

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