Just so you know, Anker’s 140W AC adapter only has 5-11V⎓5A, not 3.3-21V⎓5A like the PowerCore 24K. I thought Anker would have used the same controller in both power sources. However, the AC adapter does have EPR variable voltage (aka AVS) from 15-28V⎓5A. UGREEN’s Nexode 140W AC adapter does have 3.3-21V⎓5A. I do not yet know if it has EPR 15-28V⎓5A as ChargerLAB has yet to do a video featuring it. Also, the Anker only turns on its power-factor correction circuit when set to a mode other than the 5V mode, whereas the UGREEN’s power-factor correction circuit may be on all the time. That was the case with UGREEN’s previous 100W AC adapter but AllThingsOnePlace (a YouTube user who tests AC adapters) has not yet reviewed the 140W unit.
Anker 737 140W Battery Bank!
The reason your laptop works on 5V is because, well, it’s a Chromebook. Those are very low-power computers. I believe you can only get 7.5W out of a legacy USB-A port with a USB-A to USB-C cable unless the device supports a proprietary protocol. Some full-size laptops will refuse to accept any power at all from a source lower than 45W. If the computer is particularly powerful, charging while operating may be disabled unless the source is at least 65W, and even so, the computer may also take power from its own battery when under load. The higher you go from 65W, the better the battery can charge and the less likely the computer will need to take power from the battery. For example, someone in an earlier post says they have a Razer Blade 15 Advanced. Razer computers only work with either 45W, 65W or 100W (nothing in between) meaning if the source was 64W, the computer would only work with 45W, and if the source was 99W, the computer would only work with 65W.
You are half true.
Watts vs Volts.
If the charging electronics include a buck-boost DC-DC converter then they will work off any voltage. That has nothing to do with the power requirements. Simply a decision of the engineer.
Yes, in general Chromebook are lower power but power and voltage are entirely different.
Voltage determines if something works, then current determines how well it works.
FYI my Chromebook is an Intel Core i3. I was surprised it had a buck converter from 5V. Last evening I happened to be by a 5V 3A 15W socket , the Chromebook spent most of it’s time nearly-charged.
They can only go up to 5 amps on any of the protocols so far. So the only way to increase the watts is to increase the voltage if you want to go past 20 watts.
Chromebooks barely use more power than a tablet and that is the way they are designed. To be hyper efficient. Any windows pc running windows 10 would struggle to go below 40 watts while running and doing anything more than idle.
@BijouMan is completely right about PD protocols. And It would be literally impossible to run any windows machine on 5v, 5amps without discharging the computers internal battery.
I have been working on and planning a review video for the anker 757 lately. Since I bought it myself I am going to show the goods and the bads of it.
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Keep in mind that only has 3.3-16V⎓3.25A despite having 20V⎓5A. This means that while laptops will operate at their maximum USB PD power, QC5 phones will not charge at QC5 speeds and Samsung phones and tablets will only give themselves 25W to work with. I wish Anker would list the variable voltage mode on its website and power sources. It did for a while, then it stopped. Before I bought my PowerCore 24K I wrote to Anker asking if it had variable voltage, and the support team said it had 3.3-21V⎓5A. I did not want to buy a power bank in 2022 that either did not have this or only had it at 3A.
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Chromebooks covers a huge spectrum of consumption, from high-end Core i5 down to some pretty meagre Mediatek offerings, screens from 10 inch to 15 inch. Mine is a Core i3 with 13 inch screen.
The critical thing in the design is the voltage of the cells. Lower end are commonly around 8V, higher end around 19V. If you are not to be boosting the voltage that would mean the minimum input voltage is a little higher, i.e. 9V to 20V.
I was surprised mine did include a boost converter to work off 5V.
You can use the battery size in Wh and battery life to estimate what Watts you need to keep it charged. So mine is a 45.5Wh is 5.92Ah hence is a 7.7V cell. Probably why it is tolerant of 5V input. Most of my Powercore are 9V so would be a good efficient pairing. My traveling Powercore is the 20000 PD which is 9V 2.2A.
The battery life obviously depends what I am doing with it, but is typically in the 5 hours to 10 hours range, i.e. consumes 4.5W to 9W (45.5Wh / 10 hours = 4.5W). I’ve independently used a meter to measure consumption and it was around 4W. Hence at say 9V would be around 0.5A - 1W.
A more power-hungry context, larger screen, faster CPU, larger storage, more intensive apps, etc, would all form different conclusions.
You can guess what you need by doing the above calculations for yourself. e.g. you had 45Wh and got 3 hours of use = 15W to keep it charged.
I’ve looked up the top-end MBP, is 100Wh cell, and benchmarks indicate 15 hours on it’s synthetic test (only web browsing) so would be 6W.
So I struggle to see the point of paying extra for a lower capacity 140W 86Wh < 90% efficient when you’re only needing in regions of 4W -6W.
I fully accept matching use cases will exist, just should be a small fraction of overall market demand.
Personally when getting a work related laptop I ordered it with a second or extended battery for travel. Works out lighter to carry, which basically under corporate schemes made me get a Lenovo Windows laptop.
Also for Chromebooks read across as Linux. They use Linux under the hood, I unlock them and run a full desktop Linux on mine and reboot to ChromeOS if I’m wanting just a basic media consumption type experience as the power management of ChromeOS is better tuned than a generic Linux.
As an aside I did look up the MBP 2022 16" teardown, I could not one but a close model teardown of the 2021 model shows a “4-cell @99.6 Wh battery (11.45 V, 8693 mAh)” meaning it would be happiest at the 12V-15V range and as mentioned around 6W would make around 0.5A it’s expecting draw to keep charged. Nowhere near 28V / 140W
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At full load the new 16” MacBook Pro can consume well over 100W despite its efficient architecture. You ideally don’t want the computer to have to start taking power from its own battery!
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So would that mean at such load it empties its 100Wh battery in less than an hour?
I was looking for benchmark… this one
says 34W. So a 100Wh cell would be 3 hours?
Yes I can imagine you’d drain the cells then want to keep the MBP going at full wack while recharging the empty internal cell but one would ask why you didn’t just connect the Powercore at the start instead? You waste energy using a battery to recharge a battery, it’s far more efficient (more total hours usage) to keep the laptop’s battery charged, not draw from it all, to drain a Powercore, then when the Powercore is empty to drain the laptop’s battery.
Yes. Apple says its new machines do not budget power use when on battery.
Ahh you’re correct this
Show 135W at maximum if I’m reading correctly.
u/suclearnub, if you are seeing this, I have plugged in a Lenovo ThinkPad T470s and that computer seems to work fine with the PowerCore 24K, though I have not tried it in sleep mode. Also, the screen flashes once after unplugging for some reason (I don’t know if this happens with the “slim-tip” AC adapter). As of the T480, Lenovo moved to exclusively using USB PD for this line.
(Mod edit: removed external links -TW)
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u/NeoVexan, if you are reading, Anker did not add variable voltage to its power banks until the latest PowerCore 24K. With the previous models, your Samsung Galaxy S20+ will only give itself 15W to work with instead of the full 25W. The 45W input is only present on the S20 Ultra, not the S20+ which only has 25W input.
(Mod edit: removed external links -TW)
S.H. on Amazon, if you are reading, I believe Dell computers only work with either 45W, 65W, 90W or Dell proprietary 130W. Also, the ASUS ROG Flow X13 and Z13 only give themselves 65W to work with if the power source is not an ASUS-branded source. Other ROG models do not have this “charger DRM” and will work with the full 100W from any such source.
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guys does it hold power after 2-3 months?
It should do, “bog standard” cells within, slowly discharge typically 1% a month.
Just remember the oxidisation of the anode is faster if you keep it charged, and the electrolyte stops working if you keep it discharged, so if the intention is to store it for 2-3 months is to store it at 50%-70% charged, and then fully recharge just before use.
Similarly, the wearing processes are faster for the electrolye in cold and anode in heat, so it will age faster if kept outside of a “room temperature” constant temperature situation. Good places are bottom draw in a bedroom. Bad place would be in car, garage, windowsill, desk, etc.
So it’s not so much a “it” question of the product, but more a “me” question of how you behave keeping it.
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Professor is right, storage is key. Mine hasn’t lost more than a 1% or two over the couple months in between my work travels.
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