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

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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Anker’s product names and their changes means I only trust to ordered products by Amazon link.

There are multiple Atom III. I have no confidence in what you ordered. Not your fault.

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I have not used this to charge any other device, so will exhaust all of battery life to wirelessly charge my iphone and post the results here.

Not sure if this applies to the wireless charging :thinking:

Does the Powercore 20Ah auto turn on when phone placed on pad, or do you have to press power button?

I have to press power button on powerbank every single time i place phone on the Pad.

How does the trickle charge or not affect this?
Did you need to enable Powercore trickle-charge mode to keep it working?

I have not tried it, but will give it a try after I exhaust the battery completely and try fresh

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So… keep Powercore in trickle mode?

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This looks kind of approx, I charged my iPhone again for 2 full charges and another 20% with lights already blinking on PowerCore 20000 PD, and finally dying at 24% on my iPhone.

so this setup kind of charges iphone for 3 full charges and another 60~75%

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Evening @professor
Sorry for late reply work has been demanding.
This is the charger i finally ordered, i hope it should be fine.

Sorry but not the perfect choice, but it’s not too bad, see below.

What you bought was 15+45. The 15 won’t charge the Powercore as fast as possible as that’s 18, the 45 is more power than you can currently use.

Your Powercore will when nearer to empty want 18W, 9V 2A. As it gets near full the 2A will drop. It will get that from your new charger 45W port but not from it’s 9V 1.66A 15W port, your phone when nearer to empty wants 30W, as both get nearly full they take less and less as they approach full.

For you the perfect fit of fastest charger at least cost was

As you ordered it, you may want to swap the items around, if the phone is above 80% charge put it in the 15W port as phone is by then slowing it’s recharge, or if the Powercore is nearly full then give it the slower port.

It’s only if both phone and Powercore are nearly empty would the minimum 18+30 have been faster.

The advantage of what you ordered would be if you had a laptop which was happy with 45W, so you’d likely find what you ordered gets used for more years as the day 45W is too little for your future gadgets is going to be later than if you got the 18+30 model.

Hopefully that makes sense.

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Hello @professor
I have had the power bank and charger for a couple of weeks and they are simply outstanding.
The power bank seems to go on forever I get a good 4 charges out of it for my phone which more than covers my varied work patterns.
The charger fills the power bank overnight, haven’t timed it. And anything else I plug in gets charged quicker than any normal chargers I have.

So thanks again for yours and everyone else’s input.

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Cool.

4 feels a little too much, we were thinking about 3.4 chargers, but yes nearly 4 is reasonable.

Correct, that charger refills that powerbank in about 7 hours.

So yes its working about what we had discussed.

The 20Ah Powercore is noticeably heavier than 10Ah but you said it was in a bag and locker so that doesn’t matter, and you wanted 2 phone chargers and so this easily over-delivers. 20Ah is only a few $ more than 10Ah currently, so a good fit for your needs.

Glad you’re happy.

Ankerholic -
someone who bought Anker and it just worked so well kept buying it

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Hello
Thinking about it the battery could be anything around 30-40% charged the first time it gets connected so that might make it just under 4.

I think I am becoming an Ankerholic :grinning:

After we did the calculation using the standard 2/3rds rule (67%), we since found for this particular 20Ah powerbank, a figured nearer 75% is probably safe. So 4 recharges may not be wrong, but we got in right ballpark.

So for your 4000mAh Galaxy s20 (can’t find the voltage or Wh so assuming common 3.7V) = 14.8Wh

72Wh / 14.8Wh * 0.75 = 3.6.

Oh, I got the same answer again. So should be 3.6, not 4, but if you start not quite empty… yes 4 is believable.

If 75% efficiency seems awful, it’s not Anker’s fault, most of it is lost within the Samsung phone as heat as it recharges itself. Anker is about 96% efficient (excellent) and cable losses 0.4% (excellent), the rest is inefficiency in the phone, most of which is the heat of chemical energy storage in the cells in the phone.

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You say that, the phone gets incredibly hot.
I had a chat with colleague and his Samsung phone does too which is sort of reassuring.
Thanks.

Phone will get less hot if you change the cable you use.

You’re using the USB-C (the oval shaped) port on the 20Ah to the Samsung?

Try a A-C cable (rectangular large one end, oval the other end) between the 20Ah and the phone. You’ll own one of them already probably. Find the shortest cable which looks good quality.

That forces a lower Voltage. It’s a fraction more efficient. The phone will recharge slower, but probably still recharge fast enough.

Give it a try.

The primary advantage of that 20Ah is a cost-effective 18W input so it recharges overnight instead of 20 hours which is what lower W input would have happened. But you don’t have to use 18W out, you can use 10W out.

If you are still happy with the phone recharge performance at 10W, and if your phone feels noticeably cooler, then this trick will mean your phone’s battery life is better in 2 years from now. It is not a significant difference, about 10% after 2 years, but say an hour more Screen-on-Time on your S20, 2 years from now, if you try to avoid a hot phone recharging.

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Yes correct, I do use a USBC to USBC lead.
I’ll try a normal usb as I’ve noticed it hardly gets warm when wireless charging on the 10 w stand charger.
Thanks for the advice.

A-C cable is more vulnerable to a bad cable, you need a good quality cable, in general a shorter one is harder to be bad. But if you got a good “normal USB” short cable then give it a try…

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