I like the design and concept. Unfortunately, I don’t have any devices that uses wireless charging…yet. As others have mentioned, USB C output would be a nice addition. But overall, I think this is a great start for a wireless portable charger. And the price is not so bad neither.
[New Release] PowerCore 10000 Wireless | Anker’s First Portable Charger with Wireless Charging is Now Available!
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There is definitely appeal to wireless charging and I would like to have it. But it is one of those features that jacks up the price of a device and I am a cheapskate.
Well, it’s nice to see that they’ve released a wireless power bank, but no USB-C is disappointing.
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This is a PORTABLE charger. As in designed for travel. So when I’m on the train/bus/airplane, I can charge my phone with this. When I’m in a hotel room, I can charge my phone with this. In the car, in the classroom, at work, at a friend’s house, at the mall, in a restaurant, etc.
If you’re gonna use this at home, and you’re gonna charge this with another wireless charger, that means you already have a wireless charger. Why not just use that to charge your phone? Why charge another device just to charge your phone?
I don’t know enough about the technology, but if adding wireless input adds any cost or thickness to this, then I’d call that a total waste. If it’s just a software code, then I guess you can add it as it doesn’t hurt to have it.
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It should be adding around $3-$5 to cost and I think I showed it was a tiny bit thicker.
When we discussed this last month, we formed a consensus the wireless feature on a portable charger was sufficiently nice-to-have we had little tolerance for downsides. You just said the same now.
Due to the thermal challenges of wireless near batteries, we knew it would have to be a meek wireless Wattage, so 5W is not a surprise. But when it’s not wirelessly charging, it doesn’t have that problem and so can be fast wired. So the puzzle is why so weak wired input+output.
There is no valid reason why, when it’s not wirelessly charging, for it to be less than Anker’s current 10000mAh powercore of at least 18W in, 18W out with a 4 hour recharge. So for someone who has a nice-to-have of wireless, as Josh states, it’s a pretty crap portable charger otherwise, it’s basically around 3-4 year technology with a $3 Qi loop added. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good product for a specific type of use case.
Portable charger, by definition, is with you continuously, it’s not like a wired-to-wall Qi charger which you visit at static places. So it doesn’t need to be a high Wattage Qi charger as it has more time with you, and can be slower. So it solves its own problem of it can’t be a high Wattage, but doesn’t need to be. So why such a product is technically viable.
I agree with your logic, you’d not have this product be wirelessly recharged.
I can see it selling well, for the same reason the Fusion 5000 sold well, it’s simplifies and convenience and is less cost than the separate parts, it’s less cost than a 10000mAh Powercore + Qi base + cable, once it gets to it’s normal discounted price of $29-ish.
If you remove the Qi $3 loop added, it seems most similar to this
Oh look,it’s $25, add $3 you get to $28 so I reckon we’ll see a $28.99 or $29.99 price in a month-ish. The non-Qi similar performance Powercore is 5.9 x 2.7 x 0.6 inches, this added Qi loop is 5.4 x 2.6 x 0.5 inches, so it’s not bigger, actually smaller, although Anker has a habit of errors on Amazon so I’d expect it to be a tiny fraction bigger for same-performance products, a little thicker for the Qi loop moulded into the case.
If they’d added the Qi loop to the Powercore 10000 PD Slim, rather than adding to the Powercore 10000 Slim, many of our concerns would fall away.
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A few better features and this would have been an amazing product. Still pretty good but they fell short
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I think you’re missing the point, @onstar. We know that portable chargers are designed for travel. However, over half of the places you just mentioned wouldn’t require recharging the power bank!
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My point is that as a Portable Charger, this is designed for people who move about, not for “someone who doesn’t travel.” And really, if you’re just gonna stay home, why not use the home wireless charger? You wouldn’t need this at all. Anyway, this is really such a minor issue. I think we discussed it for much too long.
The bigger issue really is the lack of USB-C PD. I mean, c’mon. USB-C should be the default. If there’s room, then add USB-A for backward compatibility.
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THIS!
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I guess I didn’t clarify my point very well. By “doesn’t travel,” I meant being somewhere other than home when the power bank would usually need recharged (typically at night).
You can call me crazy or brush it off as a minor issue, but I firmly believe that Qi input is the next logical step in the evolution of power banks with wireless charging.
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I think the biggest market is not for those who own a wireless wired charger but those about to buy a wireless recharging phone. They’ll do the maths of buying either
- a wireless charger for home + a wireless charger for office / desk + a Powercore to handle when a long time from neither. Or
- this one product. So it will win in a no-brainer lower cost obvious conclusion.
All the people who already own wireless charger(s) in all the places they frequent will be thinking opposite.
- it’s not good a Wireless charger, my home one and desk one both >5W
- it’s not good portable charger, not C in and out and slower.
- why bother.
So it’s probably exactly like @onstar is saying for those not of the first category, will buy it to round out existing investments to carry this when they are doing other than the common home / office commute, so it would get used where overnight is a hotel. So a travel portable charger. Hence no need for wireless recharging as you’d not travel with both a wired wireless charger and a mediocre powercore with mediocre wireless.
So I see this product being very successful as it simplifies and lowers cost for a type of user and usage, but the one after this one will be even better, when they put a Qi loop on a Powercore 10000 PD.
Some more obvious product variations could be made to do with waterproofing. Take a scenario of a beech or pool.
Your phone’s IP67 is punctured by a cable, it pushes water inside the phone so you’d want your IP67 phone to be streaming music to a speaker and you’d prefer to keep it going wirelessly recharged so it’s more immune to water ingress. So you put it on this charger. It’s not IP67. Because it has sockets. So then you find an imagined alternative product where it has no ports, like the phone with no ports, and it has to be recharged wirelessly. Then you’d have a home 15W (or higher) wireless charger, recharging the wireless Powercore which then recharges phone.
So you can see in this thought experiment more product variations for different use cases.
So we’re all right for different use cases, two or three products which combine Powercore + Qi.
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So there are two imagined products which are technically viable to make.
Wireless buds wirelessly recharged using non-proprietary Qi charging. You need a minimum diameter, so products like the Soundcore Life P2 can have a loop around the outside. You can then place them directly on a Qi pad and recharge when not in use.
If you take the Powercore 20000 PD essential, as it has a bigger surface area, it can thermal dissipate more than 5W, so it can be made to exist with 7.5W for $3-5 higher cost.
Both products would get into a compelling purchase decision.
Turn it into a negative, suppose Anker doesn’t make such products, and someone else does as you get a Qi pad for $3 more, and if you had the wireless buds or phone, you’d not buy Anker.
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ehhhh… pass
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I see that many people have widely different use case scenarios.
For me personally, I absolutely cannot imagine buying a portable charger that didn’t have USB-C PD out (minimum 18W, preferably 65W). Also, the wireless charging needs to be 10W (preferably support up to 18W). These two are absolute deal breakers, and I’m adding them to my “no micro-usb” policy.
MICRO-USB = NO BUY
NO USB-C PD = NO BUY
WIRELESS <10W = NO BUY
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That is the trickiest part. Heat of wireless relative inefficiency and heat hating cells.
Metal is a good heat dissipator. But it is also heavier.
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A brand new product that seems dated !
Underwhelming tbh
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sigh, Anker really disapoints with this one. I have owned a wireless charging powerbank going in over 2 years now, its from a company that sent it to me to test and compare to Anker…at the time Anker dominated them and they were not known and still arnt really known. But this wireless powerbank had usb-pd input/output, had micro usb input/output and a USB-A port along with the wireless charging pad. If this company could do this way back then, why cant Anker get it together and release something similar. I mean it is almost 3 years later afterall.
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Fair points.
So how did they accomplish it? Make it thinner or more metal so heavier?
18 months warranty does place upper limits of combining heat making with heat hating items next to each other.
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