60W+ USB-C Portable Chargers?

#1

Currently owned a macbook pro 15

Anything in pipeline for portable chargers with usb-c PD 60W or more?

I’ve recently gotten a portable charger from other brand and i’m pretty much impressed with the 60W output that i no longer needed to bring my macbook 87W charger.

its a pretty good solution for places where you wanted to keep your laptops last for whole day without having to search for power sockets.

but so far all anker portable chargers only outputting max 45W (or 30??), rather disappointing as it can’t actually keep up with the demand for more power hungry laptops.

would love to see if there’s a two usb-c port 60w charger

#2

Anker already has the 60W MacBook Pro Charger though this is a single port charger

They did have thePowerPort Atom 4 which had 100W output, but per Anker these are under re-design and planned to be released this or next year.

#3

sorry just wanted to clarify, by portable what i mean is battery-powered chargers e.g PowerCore,
still waiting for the atom pd4 though … patiently ^^

#4

I don’t see your logic here.

If it is a portable charger, it is with you the whole time, so it can be connected the whole time. As such its Wattage output is not that critical, it just needs to be roughly balanced with your power needs. If you were to carry it with you, unplugged, and then bemoan its slowness, then that is obtuse. I mean you’re going to paying real $ for that wish to keep two things you have with you not connected for the most time.

For portable charger, the recharging of it is much more critical, as that can be time limited, e.g. time near a wall socket.

So I suggest you focus on the recharge time of portable chargers, not their wattage output.

Recharge times is the harder engineering problem as that’s where heat is more an issue. That is also another reason to avoid high wattage output portable chargers, they just lose more energy in recharging your device. Cost and weight stacks up.

Summary:

  • devices (tablets, laptops) benefit from higher Wattage chargers, so make best use of the limited time near wall charger. Higher wattage chargers = good.
  • portable chargers, are with you so they don’t need to be high wattage output, they just need to keep up, and you proactively plug in to your device to keep them at / near fully charged.
  • portable chargers input is more criticial because if you drained it, recharging it in limited time is critical.
  • a dual port charger to recharge device and portable charger at their maximum speed, is then the next challenge.
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#5

I do get his point though. Larger laptops might need at least 60W to avoid losing power under heavy use.

In an attempt to answer your question, Anker’s available PowerCores currently max out at 30W PD. There was one announced with 45W a couple years ago, but we have not been updated on it since…

At Anker’s current slow rate of launching innovative products, I imagine you’ll have to wait until sometime next year before a PowerCore with at least 60W PD output is available, which will most likely be 26,800 mAh and possibly use GaN. There’s always a possibility that @AnkerOfficial or @AnkerTechnical know something we don’t, but they might not be allowed to share any information. It’s at least worth a shot though.

Unfortunately, I have not seen anything that would suggest a model capable of at least 60W PD output is on its way. That is unless PowerCore+ Pro will be. Sorry I couldn’t bring better news.

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#6

yeah, due to slow portable chargers unable to sustain the power drain of the 15 incher i found myself in a situation where the battery drains slowly.
and when its empty, it takes some time for the mac to boot up (at 5% charge)… and after it re-boots i only have about 30 mins or less before the battery drains back to 0%
its a frustrating cycle of waiting -> working -> waiting -> working.

having a battery that can continuously sustain longer working hours is crucial especially when i’m on the move

understand that this kind of use case may fall under a very small subset customers, but hey … my wallet is ready if there’s anything coming in

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#7

But again, logic fail.

Supposed a 60W output portable charger did exist, it would simply drain itself faster, so in the scenario you described of a laptop was not being kept charged by a portable charger, all that would happen is the portable charger is drained earlier, then your fully charged laptop begins draining earlier. If everything was the same efficiency then the moment of laptop drained is the same.

So it remains the case it’s still total energy consumed of the laptop is the same, but with a faster output portable charger you just changed the shape of the curve. But as stepping up the Wattage will be necessarily less efficient, you made your situation worse. If you were to benchmark a 60W portable charger with a laptop and the time it took for laptop and portable charger to be drained, it would be earlier than a 30W or 45W portable charger. Not very smart when you think about it…

So the only actually important thing is not the output wattage of the portable charger, but it’s input recharge wattage.

There are situations where a higher wattage output portable charger makes some sense is when you’re near a wall socket but too distant to plug in, then you’re swapping the portable charger between your laptop and the wall charger, bit again it’s the recharge wattage is still the most important. It also matters if the output Wattage of a portable charger is too low it simply is it ignored by the laptop.

The most important technology are the existence of multiple port chargers and the recharge time of laptops and portable chargers. When factoring efficiency it’s just a machismo thing of more wattage output portable charger.

#8

Hey Prof, I pulled this off of apple support:

They recommend the 61W charger for all “Pro” models, the power draw may need this to perform all computer needs and still charge up. Lower sizes may not do anything other than maintain the charge level (if you are at 20% you wont ever move up). I can see the appeal for a battery pack that mirrors the vendor supplied charger over one that is lower.

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#9

60W and higher wattage portable chargers do exist and i currently own one, you can look up its called omnicharge (sorry mods if it violates forum rules about mentioning competitors)

as much as you want to get your point across.
i do not have problem carrying two or three, inefficient batteries with me.
while i’m aware about the power inefficiencies from using larger output battery cells, such as why professional photographers uses panasonic eneloop pros compare to normal eneloops
to maintain charge especially in my line of work where non-availability of access to laptops could mean loss of business revenue, outweigh any kind of concerns that may come from the product e.g shorter charge cycles, higher heat

#10

There’s no rule about mentioning competitors :joy:

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#11

But a lower wattage charger could involve the laptop drying, especially if you don’t plug it in at 100% and are doing intensive work.

Also, as you’ve experienced, some laptops don’t accept a charge as low as 30W, and require 45W or 60W.

#12

Chargers need to be powerful. They have to both recharge the device’s internal battery and operate at peak load the rest of device. So you want the fastest charger the device supports.

Portable charger? Not so sure as ultimately it’s a fixed total energy and how fast you transfer is academic, so long as it works. So say a laptop will only take 45W minimum, then the portable charger has to be 45W. Here it’s more you need to support the minimum wattage the device needs to stretch device total run time.

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