I’ve bought just about every type of power cord that Anker sells. BY FAR my favorite is the Powerline+ series. I’ve always been one to be extremely careful with things like power cords because you just never know what tiny movement we all make that will render them useless. Well, good luck trying to do anything to the Powerline+ cord. This thing withstands, bends, getting tangled, getting stepped on, stretches, knots, and just about anything else you can think of. Obviously, don’t go cutting it in half with scissors or a knife, but outside of that, you have a pretty indestructible cord. Now pair that with their 24-watt dual wall charger with SmartCharge technology and you simply can’t go wrong!
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This is interesting - I’ll try it again and let you know what happens. Maybe let it sit in the sun a while before plugging the phone in to get it going? Truthfully, I use a battery so never actually plug the phone into the panel anyway (except for the test for this review). That’s how I would recommend anyone do it; panel to battery to device. I will try it - I’m interested to see if I can affect the iPhone’s ingest rate. Really I need a meter, I just haven’t gotten one yet. I’ll probably edit that video to a more thorough technical review once I get one. I’m traveling this weekend and wanted to get my review in before the contest deadline 
I have found that the solar panel will charge that Powercore II 20000 pretty quickly. I left it out the other day for about 8 hours and the PowerCore II went from one light to all four (13,000-14,000 mAh maybe? A total guess…). This is enough to fully charge all my stuff (and then some), so I’m quite satisfied from a practical perspective.
Another thing I want to test is how much hiking and/or intermittent shade will affect the panel’s charge rate. If I hike all day with it attached to my pack, can I collect enough solar during the walk to power that same battery? Obviously, it depends on where I’m hiking, but so far all of my tests have been with the panel sitting still in optimal direct sunlight.
Before buying, I think people need to know that with any solar panel you aren’t going to just toss it out for a few minutes and get as much power as you want. You have to let it sit for a while, preferably with a battery. But once you do, you’ve got a reliable and abundant source of power. Like I said, Im really enjoying it. I can’t wait to use it on my music festival trips this summer/fall. 
Buy a meter. You can measure everything including how many mAh passed through. Using indirect methods like time or % all have some kind of flaw.
In general, Apple need a static situation, the panel has been opened, time to heat up and then connect the Apple product. In general, most other items non-Apple like Powercore and Android will happily take a varying input.
Certain solar panels (I think not the Anker one) will sense an Apple product, see that there is power it can output not being pulled so it resets the curcuit to trip the Apple into pulling more.
This more relates to the type of camping you are doing. Backpacking thru-hiking you are more weight sensitive and so tend to use smaller Powercore and they would tend to also benefit from nil-Apple devices plug directly into solar which is more efficient in certain situations.
Shade affects differently. If part of one of the panels is shaded then it moves from generating power to becoming a resistor. So a nearby branch across one panel can cause a greater negative affect than a cloud. A meter and trying different things is my recommendation to learn the solar panel foillibles before you go. And indeed, I’d recommend buying a meter with your panel and take it with as it can debug problems faster. Meters are tiny.
FYI there is a 21W solar panel of the type you reviewed as one of the prizes![quote=“AnkerOfficial, post:1, topic:53169”]
Top 2-5 Posts ($75 Value)Bolder LC40 LED Flashlight21W Dual USB Solar Charger
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If anyone ever questions the durability of this product, I will refer them to you. Nice work, sir.
Me too. I’m all soundcore boost in my car. I like it even more because I can just take the speaker with me without interrupting the tunes 
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Pretty cool review. I also use the 21W Anker solar panel to solely charge my portable charger which in turn charge my devices. Seems to work the best that way and if someone has sticky fingers I am only out <$100 vs $1000+
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BOOM! That is fantastic ryandhazen, nice one sharing the SoundCore car action 
Too true about always having it in the car too, just pick it up and take it with you making sure the tunes don’t stop 
…sweet to the beat!
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Fantastic effort and video Ryan, insightful and loving the locations of paddle boarding as well as a cheeky beer at the end of the day, liking your style!
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So I do not own the Anker 21W but I own equivalent technology (which includes the zipped pouch you mention in your video) and a meter and I’d say in clear strong sunshine with good alignment to the sun you’d get a minimum of 2A 5V 10W output, the Anker has been metered at 11W. Each port of the two ports can be upto 2A so you begin to discard solar energy if you use only one port in perfect situations. The Powercore II 20000 you refer to has 2x2A so it can ingest all the available solar energy if you get into perfect solar conditions. The Powercore 26800 would also (but not any other Powercore, those are the only two which can).
Not all sunshine is the same, and the eyes cannot detect the difference because more energy per photon comes from UV which our eyes cannot see. This is stronger at altitude and when the sun is nearer noon.
Each of the 3 panels are a set of serial cells, and the 3 panels then connect in parallel. So if you partially block 1 panel it renders that 1 panel as no output. So (once you get a meter) if you have the shadow from tree branches over the 3 panels, each is partially shaded and each goes to nil. This is because within each panel the series cells are either resistor (absorbing energy) or conducting (and releasing energy) so the partial shading of part of a panel causes the whole panel to become blocked by the parts of the panel not conducting. So really cloudy skies are better than partial shade. The electronics in the Anker 21W (and equivalents from others) will see a dropping voltage from the cells in shade, and compensate via stepping down the current and stepping up the volts to hold to a minimum of 4.2V to push electrons into common devices (like the Powercore) so it produces in effect a varying current constant voltage output through the varying sunshine.
If you simply leave the Anker 21W pointed in roughly the right direction then most of the time it is not perfectly aligned, so say it produces an average of 7W (max of 11W) then the Powercore II 20000 which is a (Guessing!) 20Ah x 4.2V = 82Wh ? So you’d expect an average (assuming 10% power loss in the conversions) 82/7/0.9= 13 hours to fully recharge. If you simply left the Anker 21W at the southerly direction and left it all day you’d get say 6 hours @ 7W so you’d roughly half recharge the Powercore II 20000 in a day. If though you revisited the Anker 21W and moved it little between morning, noon, afternoon, that would improve and then possibly more 9 hours @ 7W so 70% recharge. Your words above align with this calculation. I’m wondering if you at altitude with more UV?
IF you metered the fully energy lifecycle you could then measure all the mAh into the Powercore from the Anker 21W and meter all the mAh out of the Powercore into your other devices. If you did empty to full to empty then you could “count all the electrons” and then calculate the efficiency of the Powercore.
So you see this can take days, or weeks of effort to do a full test of the full energy lifecycle. Practically none of that that commitment to measurement.
What I do:
- I don’t touch Apple stuff whatsoever.
- I use a basic phone which is very tolerant of the variable energy output of solar.
- a smaller powercore (my fave is the Powercore 10000).
- The morning sun I use whilst cooking and packing etc is not as strong sunlight (less UV) the solar panel is not at peak output, say 7W but that perfectly balances the phone, so i can recharge the phone in the morning.
- If the Powercore is not fully charged, then I can just strap the solar panel in the general southerly direction and by end of the day be fully charged.
- Use the phone and/or Powercore in the evening.
- in a group the Powercore tends to end up empty by the morning. On one own tends to be nearly full by morning.
When on one own you “don’t have enough demand” for the 21W so a little bit of weight shaving is perfectly fine, so the 14W is a better option in summer. In winter as the sun is lower in sky, passing through more atmosphere which reduces the UV then you really need the 21W to keep the voltage up enough to make useful energy.
Why? Because it has smart throttle at 80%?
closed platform, finnicky. Example is Solar power input.
But the big elephant in the room is the price is well above the manufacturing cost, so you can get 90% of the features for 50% of the cost.
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What happens when you charge an iPhone with a solar charger?
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Depends on exactly those 2 ends.
Some solar panels when the solar power drops then goes up, will reset its output, to fix the problem with iPhoney’s have.
Some iPhoney have a bug (aka “feature”) where they will lock their input to the lowest they witness.
So certain combinations of solar + iPhoney do not get along, some get along.
You would need to either find a precise match review, or get a meter and learn your iPhoney and solar combination which works best.
In general, to remove iPhoney’s “features” use an intermediate Powercore, or just buy other.
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iPhoney? 
Wouldn’t high or low capacity Powercores also remove iPhone’s feature?
Correct from a solar perspective, but then you lose energy via the conversion into an intermediary battery, or you could just if your source is solar either via solar panel which is deliberately working around iPhoney’s “feature” or just not use iPhoney.
So your options are then 4:
- find a solar panel which resets its output when its energy input varies, to reset the output to work around iPhoney’s “feature”.
- find an iPhoney which does not have this “feature” of locking its input to the lowest witnessed.
- use an intermediary store like an Powercore.
- ditch iPhoney.
There are reviews out there on solar panels which are iPhoney enhanced. I will not refer to them as this is an Anker forum.
Ah, so Anker is not one of them.
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Great review neighbor, Calgary looks great through the ROAV
Review: Anker PowerPort Elite 2
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After some research, I decided this one would work for my travels and family trips. Even though this one doesn’t have 3.0 quick charge, its still a fast charge. It charged my old iPad gen 1 without charging issues with ease and took just over an hour from zero charge to get me a full charge and took about 40 minutes to charge from 20% to 88% on my LG G4.
As to its build quality, this one is solid and the matte white plastic gives it a simple and elegant look that will look good with your white mobile devices and other colors as well.
When the device is plugged in, there’s a blue light above the outlets that help light up the ports and isn’t to bright in a dark room. But I still would cover the light if you charging in a room you are sleeping in. It could disturb your sleep.
With the two ports you and a friend can charge together if you have the cables, or if you are alone you can charge a tablet and a phone at the same time.
I highly recommend this little charger. If you aren’t looking for the fastest charge (its still faster than factory) on the market or something with 3.0 Quick Charge this is a great charger for travel.
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