Overall, the PowerCore III 10K Wireless Battery/Charger is a fantastic portable, powerful, travel-friendly, and daily-use battery pack. It’s now my go-to in my travel bag, and I could easily see using this at work and take it home with me (if going into offices was still a thing).
For now, we’re using it as our primary charger in the great room of our house due to its versatility. It’s really nice to be able to unplug and move the charger to the living room or kitchen if you need to charge while reading a recipe, for instance. It feels about the size + weight of an iPhone with a big case on. We also haven’t had issues with charging through a pretty thick case (with a magnet on the lower third of it). Compared to some other wireless chargers, this one sits super flat and is nearly impossible to not place correctly.
I’m excited to really put this to the test when I start traveling again. The kickstand has been useful even just as a holder for my phone at my desk, but one of the obvious use-cases is on a plane where it becomes a welcomed addition for watching movies. While not something to rely on often, using the supplied USB-C cord as the last resort for powering my MacBook Air can be quite handy if you’re in a pinch and need a bit more time (it will essentially allow you to work without draining the MacBook battery, or charge very slowly).
A downside that some other reviewers have mentioned, and that I assume all 1-3 star reviews on Amazon will say is that it doesn’t come with a wall charger and requires a USB-C charger which is not quite as prevalent as other types. For the newer MacBooks and iPad users, though, this won’t be an issue…it might actually be preferred knowing it brings down the cost. If you’re going to be traveling with it, there’s no need to be carrying around multiple so you can use the same one as your laptop/iPad.
I’d also only give 6/10 points for intuitiveness, which I think might make this battery/charger harder to recommend to some non-technical folks. There’s one button with multiple uses and not an obvious way to understand what the different lights mean. To turn on the wireless charging in battery mode, you have to click once to see a blue light (it’s not automatic upon detection of a phone), and if you’re charging AirPods or other headphones/watches that use a lower-level charge you’ll need to click it twice to see a green light. The phone stand is also not super intuitive as it looks more like some kind of hook than a stand.
As for value, $49.99 feels a bit high for the amount of storage (10,000mAh), especially when compared to the current price tag of $19.99 for a non-wireless charging option (so $30 premium for slower wireless charging + rarely used phone stand). Note that the wireless components in this one are only adding 1oz + 0.55in of height to the charger…pretty slick that they fit all of that in without giving up much!
In summary, I’d recommend this charger if you’re someone that has wireless charging devices, are somewhat technical, and own another USB-C device already (and have that wall charger). It becomes a lot easier if you’re someone in the market for both a wireless charging option at home + a portable battery. A bit harder to recommend as a battery to someone like my parents, though, which might limit the opportunity for holiday gifting something like this.
Something I didn’t mention was that it comes with a travel pouch as many Anker products do, but I never find myself using them…are they just becoming wasteful at this point? Let me know in the comments if the travel pouch is something you use or not. In this case, it might actually be helpful to put both your phone + charger in the pouch to keep them wirelessly connected while traveling in your bag. There might be some overheating issues, so I’d be curious if someone from Anker could weigh in on that here.
Hope you found the review helpful…sorry it’s a bit delayed. It seems like there was a delay in getting these shipped out.
this. I have worked over the last year to convert all of my tech from my phone to my work laptop over to USB-C charging devices. 20ah charger with qi would change how I could define “mobile”