@brettprofitt If you note the comparison price, the Amazon option that includes a 65W brick (not even quite as fast as this battery bank could utilize) substantially increases the price.
This is not simply a high capacity battery, but a high wattage unit that has the ability to charge and discharge quickly, and safely. If you consider the differences between basic $10 USB batteries in the 10,000 mAh range, which typically just do ~12W output, and compare them to the more expensive (but only sometimes more capable ones), which may support USB power delivery, or Qualcomm QC for 24 or 30W, then this is the the latter. Only this one is scaled up enough to provide sufficient wattage to both power, and charge my work laptop at the same time for a good long while.
Most folks won’t need or use batteries to this degree, so its value is very specifically for the “power user”, if you’ll pardon the pun … And they might have or want a different brick to take advantage.
@arosiriak In fact I did notice that it compares the price to an Amazon version that includes additional hardware, which is why I commented. Since it raises the price significantly to include an arguably power user feature, are you agreeing that the Amazon price isn’t a reasonable - or is at least a misleading - comparison to make when framing this as a bargain?
That said, “include a charger that charges at full speed” is not a power user perk. That should be a pretty basic feature of a product.
@brettprofitt Yes, the price comparisons are always a bit of a marketing spin. That one does not serve it very well.
In this instance, I would look at this as a decent value, but not some incredible deal (Sorry, Meh). The main thing would be that this is just another option or variant, to skip the “value add” charging brick. And this is precisely how I would prefer to buy it, since I have a few nice GaN bricks of varying wattage, so I wouldn’t want to pay for whatever random thing that they included.
However, as you say, it isn’t exactly compelling, but it serves a portion of the market, particularly among those who would be most interested in buying just a battery, and not the extra potential e-waste.
“It can charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max up to 4 times, an iPad mini 5 up to 3 times, or a MacBook Air 2020 1.2 times”. Those numbers don’t seem right to me - an iphone 11 pro max has a 3969 mAh battery, so it should be able to charge over 6 times.
@katbyter I bought a couple of 20,100mAh anker chargers from meh in 2020 at $24 apiece. They are great and i’d love to buy more but these seem way too expensive.
@katbyter These are high power USBC - basically you can run your laptop off them at full (or close to depending of the model) throttle if it includes USBC charging. This is not a common need - most people buy batteries like this for small devices, phones, maybe and tablet, but not a high power draw laptop.
I feel like this would be a pretty killer accessory for the Steam Deck. Its built-in battery is 40Wh at 7.7V so around 5,200 mAh. In theory if my math is right, this battery pack should be able to nearly 6x your play-time on the Steam Deck.
@The_Tim You did some really unnecessary, backwards math there. You need to know the energy content (power over time, watt-hours) and you already know the Deck is 40 W h. This Powercore is 25.6 A h (which is electric charge, and isn’t useful by itself without also knowing the voltage, which is generally 3.6-3.8 V for Lithium secondary cells) so assuming it’s 3.7 V, that gives you ~95 W h. (Or if you assume it’s 3.8 V nominally, that gets you to around 97 W h which is intentionally chosen to be just short of the TSA limit of 100 W h.)
Power transmission isn’t 100% efficient (which is why everything warms up, you’re losing some energy as heat) so it’s typically recommended (by some of the manufacturers of these battery banks in particular) to assume 85% efficiency. That means that in this case, the Powercore has about double the energy of the Deck’s own battery.
But in reality if you want to know how much playtime you can get you need to know the actual power draw; for the Deck it’s up to 45 W max, which would cover running the system and recharging its own battery. If not recharging, it’ll consume less power, so if it’s pulling say an average of 20 W from the Powercore, it’ll give you about 4 hours, plus another 2 to fully drain the Deck itself. Ultimately, this Powercore should triple (not 6x) your playtime on the Deck.
Also, if you didn’t already know this, you should set the TDP on the Deck to no more than 10-11 W (out of its 15 W max) at least when running on battery; there are diminishing performance returns beyond that. And of course that’s just the power limit for the APU, not the total system draw (which will add up to several more watts.)
@The_Tim good to hear everyone saying it’s good for the steam deck since mine just came in and I saw this deal today and was like “okay guess I have to buy it based on the specs” before checking if it was going to work. Thanks everyone!
@Atomizer LOL I apologize for my late-night conversion confusion, professor. Sounds like my point that it’s a good battery for the Steam Deck was correct at least.
@tweezak Powering your house requires the thiotimoline azide voltage inverter that’s sold separately, and your house must have a functional warp core or Mr Fusion system to route the power through.
Otherwise, that photo just shows the bank getting recharged.
As discussed above, it’s definitely a more niche product, which mostly targets those who care that the output wattage can reach high enough to be useful for several devices at full capacity, or that it can charge at 100W and be ready to go in record time (with an appropriate charging brick).
I have several smaller batteries that I use for several purposes around the house, or to power a few things on trips, or even to help power mobile photography equipment. But this one is pretty cool. In for one (only because the wife only approved one)
Not bad if it works right and the batteries aren’t too old. It’s got a trickle charge mode that might make it handy for powering projects too. Here’s the user manual.
I’ve got a mountain of power banks… recently bought the last Anker offering (26800mAh) for $27 with coupon. I’ve got 3 EcoFlow Deltas so I can manage any high wattage charging I need. I’m going to pass… but it is tempting.
I bought one of these (at full Best Buy price) last year when my MacBook battery started acting up. It powers the MacBook for hours if I need it, and was cheaper than replacing the battery (it’s an older MacBook that I’m phasing out anyway). Don’t really need 2 of these, though, so will pass. But that’s a great price for this!
In case anyone is wondering since it’s not specifically mentioned: TSA allows a maximum battery size of 100 watts (27000 mah) meaning this one should be fine for air travel. Carry-on only though.
@jester747@PooltoyWolf Would like to know this for sure too. It can provide the same voltage as the Nintendo charger, but articles say the Switch is non-standard and doesn’t usually ´play nice’ with 3rd party chargers. It should support the handheld for sure.
@jester747@pmarin I would like to assume that since Anker has made products for the Switch in the past, that this product should be safe. I have commented on this forum in the past about the caveats of using non-Nintendo chargers with the Switch, though some people don’t seem worried.
@Barc777 Based on the comments here, it looks like the charger isn’t included. It’s not clear here or on Amazon, but it seems that it charges via one of the USB-C ports. Also from the Amazon page, it appears that you can use any 5W charger to charge it, but it will take much longer than using the 65W charger (not included). I’d like to know if only the Anker 65W charger gives the faster charge times, or if I can buy any 65W charger for it.
@Barc777@RubinCompServ Any USB-C power delivery (USB-PD) brick will charge at the higher speeds, since it is the standard that governs the specs listed. You could also opt for a full 100W brick if you wanted to max out the charge times, which is substantially faster than most USB battery banks (20V * 5A = 100W). However, you could still reasonably get by with less wattage for charging, and still benefit from this battery’s high output capability.
So, use whatever brick you want, so long as it support USB power delivery, like the input specs listed:
5V/3A, 9V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3A, 20V/5A
Can’t I just buy this and a $25 65W USB-C charger from amazon and be set? Or do I need the “special” 65W charger that raises the price to $199 on Amazon?
@RubinCompServ Just responded above - You don’t need a “special” charger, but part of the benefit of this battery is high input and output wattage, so 65W or higher (from any reputable brand that uses the USB power delivery specs) should do fine
Don’t waste you’re money on this it’s super over priced you can. Up a 30,000 mAh USB C power bank onAmazon for $45 less get it shipped for free and get it in a day or two.
Hell you could buy a 50,000MaH USB C power bank and still not pay $92
@preed4962 A week would be quick on many occasions although they are somewhat better than they used to be with that (of course they have never made any promises about that). And now that they are not using Piney Butthead as their shipper it usually does arrive faster once it is shipped so there is that. Far fewer boxes hang out in some obscure city partying or touring the country on their way to getting to you.
I bought this since power outages are not uncommon in the building I live in and, sigh, it came non-working. If anyone has any idea what I am doing wrong I’d appreciate hearing about it (vs this being non-functional and I’m not an idiot after all LOL, hopefully I’m just an idiot - did find an online manual which I already looked at, link included below and on the thread for this; yes I will contact support).
When you push the button it is supposed to show a light. When you push it twice or hold it for 2 seconds it is supposed to show a green light (for trickle charging instead of full power charging which you are supposed to use on phones, etc. or so says the online manual I found online. Mine doesn’t. When you plug it in to charge it it is supposed to show light dots to show how much it is charged. Mine doesn’t. Thinking the battery was totally dead and that is why no lights showing I left it plugged in (using the power plug for my computer which should be more than enough) for a while and still nothing. I tried charging my phone from it. My phone did not indicate that it was being charged (this was after I left it plugged in for a while).
FYI Here is the better manual online that what comes in the box as the one in the box has a shortage of pictures and words (most of the space is taken up by the same lack of information in about 10 languages): https://manuals.plus/anker/powercore-iii-elite-manual#user_manual
So you might want to check yours out when it comes in the mail in case there is a problem.
Specs
Product: Anker - PowerCore III Elite 25,600mAh 87-Watt USB-C PD Portable Charger
Model: A1291H11
Condition: New
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$129.99 at Best Buy
$199.99 (with 65w plug) at Amazon
Warranty
Limited 18-month Anker Warranty
Estimated Delivery
Standard: Monday, Mar 11.
Enhanced: Friday, Mar 8 - Monday, Mar 11.
I HAVE THE POWER!!!
@yakkoTDI Me Too & It’s On The Wall Recepticle!!
@yakkoTDI Will this power the work lights for your trunk?
Grocery-Store Sushi
Now that’s a power bank!
Weighs 1.3 pounds, FYI
@CatsAreGods That’s more than a pound of coffee!
@CatsAreGods @mcanavino, Yeah, it’s more than Anything that’s 1 Lb…!!
@1DisabledWarVet @CatsAreGods @mcanavino even more than 1.4 lbs of feathers
@1DisabledWarVet @CatsAreGods @mcanavino @SunnyTang What about a pound of gold?
@CatsAreGods @mcanavino Especially since “pounds” of coffee are down to 12 or 13 ounces.
@CatsAreGods @mcanavino @rpstrong I was going to say, a pound of anything weighs more than a “pound” of coffee.
@blaineg Touch nothing but the lamp!
No QI on this?
But can this recharge my charge card?
@phendrick Yes…$10,000 (full charge) Visa, Mastercard & Discover 8 hrs. via USB-A 2 hrs. via USB-C Not compatable with American Express
18, 15, 45, what?
@hchavers thats only when you’re charging 4 devices at once. Just the right USB-C charges at 87W if used alone.
@hchavers Hike!
@hchavers What? Watts!!!
This doesn’t come with a charger to charge it?
@brettprofitt If you note the comparison price, the Amazon option that includes a 65W brick (not even quite as fast as this battery bank could utilize) substantially increases the price.
This is not simply a high capacity battery, but a high wattage unit that has the ability to charge and discharge quickly, and safely. If you consider the differences between basic $10 USB batteries in the 10,000 mAh range, which typically just do ~12W output, and compare them to the more expensive (but only sometimes more capable ones), which may support USB power delivery, or Qualcomm QC for 24 or 30W, then this is the the latter. Only this one is scaled up enough to provide sufficient wattage to both power, and charge my work laptop at the same time for a good long while.
Most folks won’t need or use batteries to this degree, so its value is very specifically for the “power user”, if you’ll pardon the pun
… And they might have or want a different brick to take advantage.
Hope that helps - happy hunting.
@arosiriak In fact I did notice that it compares the price to an Amazon version that includes additional hardware, which is why I commented. Since it raises the price significantly to include an arguably power user feature, are you agreeing that the Amazon price isn’t a reasonable - or is at least a misleading - comparison to make when framing this as a bargain?
That said, “include a charger that charges at full speed” is not a power user perk. That should be a pretty basic feature of a product.
@brettprofitt Yes, the price comparisons are always a bit of a marketing spin. That one does not serve it very well.
In this instance, I would look at this as a decent value, but not some incredible deal (Sorry, Meh). The main thing would be that this is just another option or variant, to skip the “value add” charging brick. And this is precisely how I would prefer to buy it, since I have a few nice GaN bricks of varying wattage, so I wouldn’t want to pay for whatever random thing that they included.
However, as you say, it isn’t exactly compelling, but it serves a portion of the market, particularly among those who would be most interested in buying just a battery, and not the extra potential e-waste.
@brettprofitt This might be the charger in Amazon’s bundle. $34.
https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Anker-Compact-Adapter-PowerPort/dp/B08F28BH7C
“It can charge an iPhone 11 Pro Max up to 4 times, an iPad mini 5 up to 3 times, or a MacBook Air 2020 1.2 times”. Those numbers don’t seem right to me - an iphone 11 pro max has a 3969 mAh battery, so it should be able to charge over 6 times.
$80 for a power bank? Normally $130-200? What??
/giphy Too rich for my blood
@katbyter You can take that to the bank!
@katbyter I bought a couple of 20,100mAh anker chargers from meh in 2020 at $24 apiece. They are great and i’d love to buy more but these seem way too expensive.
@katbyter These are high power USBC - basically you can run your laptop off them at full (or close to depending of the model) throttle if it includes USBC charging. This is not a common need - most people buy batteries like this for small devices, phones, maybe and tablet, but not a high power draw laptop.
I feel like this would be a pretty killer accessory for the Steam Deck. Its built-in battery is 40Wh at 7.7V so around 5,200 mAh. In theory if my math is right, this battery pack should be able to nearly 6x your play-time on the Steam Deck.
@The_Tim You did some really unnecessary, backwards math there. You need to know the energy content (power over time, watt-hours) and you already know the Deck is 40 W h. This Powercore is 25.6 A h (which is electric charge, and isn’t useful by itself without also knowing the voltage, which is generally 3.6-3.8 V for Lithium secondary cells) so assuming it’s 3.7 V, that gives you ~95 W h. (Or if you assume it’s 3.8 V nominally, that gets you to around 97 W h which is intentionally chosen to be just short of the TSA limit of 100 W h.)
Power transmission isn’t 100% efficient (which is why everything warms up, you’re losing some energy as heat) so it’s typically recommended (by some of the manufacturers of these battery banks in particular) to assume 85% efficiency. That means that in this case, the Powercore has about double the energy of the Deck’s own battery.
But in reality if you want to know how much playtime you can get you need to know the actual power draw; for the Deck it’s up to 45 W max, which would cover running the system and recharging its own battery. If not recharging, it’ll consume less power, so if it’s pulling say an average of 20 W from the Powercore, it’ll give you about 4 hours, plus another 2 to fully drain the Deck itself. Ultimately, this Powercore should triple (not 6x) your playtime on the Deck.
Also, if you didn’t already know this, you should set the TDP on the Deck to no more than 10-11 W (out of its 15 W max) at least when running on battery; there are diminishing performance returns beyond that. And of course that’s just the power limit for the APU, not the total system draw (which will add up to several more watts.)
@The_Tim I have this for my steam deck - it works perfect - I paid 110 refurb on Amazon so this is a good deal
@The_Tim good to hear everyone saying it’s good for the steam deck since mine just came in and I saw this deal today and was like “okay guess I have to buy it based on the specs” before checking if it was going to work. Thanks everyone!
@Atomizer LOL I apologize for my late-night conversion confusion, professor. Sounds like my point that it’s a good battery for the Steam Deck was correct at least.
@Atomizer @The_Tim Will this work for my SteamDeck?
@blaineg You’re goddamn right it will!
@The_Tim @TheNewGuyHere Now you can get a new one WITH the charger for $110, by using the coupon at Amazon. https://a.co/d/ebLB8xF
The second picture shows it can power your house!! I’m in for five for power outages!
@tweezak Powering your house requires the thiotimoline azide voltage inverter that’s sold separately, and your house must have a functional warp core or Mr Fusion system to route the power through.
Otherwise, that photo just shows the bank getting recharged.
@tweezak You have five houses?
@tweezak @werehatrack Using a hamster wheel and a turbo-encabulator will do it for half the cost.
@rpstrong No…just very unreliable power.
As discussed above, it’s definitely a more niche product, which mostly targets those who care that the output wattage can reach high enough to be useful for several devices at full capacity, or that it can charge at 100W and be ready to go in record time (with an appropriate charging brick).
I have several smaller batteries that I use for several purposes around the house, or to power a few things on trips, or even to help power mobile photography equipment. But this one is pretty cool. In for one (only because the wife only approved one)
0.0000000087 GIGAWATTS???
Not bad if it works right and the batteries aren’t too old. It’s got a trickle charge mode that might make it handy for powering projects too. Here’s the user manual.
@uwacn that’s the wrong manual; the one you’ve linked to is for an older 3 port unit rated at 60 Watt, this has 2 USB-C ports and is 87 Watt.
This is tempting, but I’ve got enough power banks and I don’t really go anywhere. A thunderbolt dock would be much more appealing.
@thebigtverberg Didn’t they use a thunderbolt clock on Back to the Future?
If it was half this price I guess I would buy one. This seems expensive & I really don’t need one this big. Maybe I’m in the minority here though
.
I’ve got a mountain of power banks… recently bought the last Anker offering (26800mAh) for $27 with coupon. I’ve got 3 EcoFlow Deltas so I can manage any high wattage charging I need. I’m going to pass… but it is tempting.
I bought one of these (at full Best Buy price) last year when my MacBook battery started acting up. It powers the MacBook for hours if I need it, and was cheaper than replacing the battery (it’s an older MacBook that I’m phasing out anyway). Don’t really need 2 of these, though, so will pass. But that’s a great price for this!
In case anyone is wondering since it’s not specifically mentioned: TSA allows a maximum battery size of 100 watts (27000 mah) meaning this one should be fine for air travel. Carry-on only though.
@jester747 Came here to ask exactly this!
@jester747 @PooltoyWolf Would like to know this for sure too. It can provide the same voltage as the Nintendo charger, but articles say the Switch is non-standard and doesn’t usually ´play nice’ with 3rd party chargers. It should support the handheld for sure.
@jester747 @pmarin I would like to assume that since Anker has made products for the Switch in the past, that this product should be safe. I have commented on this forum in the past about the caveats of using non-Nintendo chargers with the Switch, though some people don’t seem worried.
Will it power my Nintendo Switch dock? I bought the Anker big battery a few years ago, but it wasn’t enough.
Can I use this to charge all my other power banks?
@HavveK
yup
Is the charger included?
@Barc777 Based on the comments here, it looks like the charger isn’t included. It’s not clear here or on Amazon, but it seems that it charges via one of the USB-C ports. Also from the Amazon page, it appears that you can use any 5W charger to charge it, but it will take much longer than using the 65W charger (not included). I’d like to know if only the Anker 65W charger gives the faster charge times, or if I can buy any 65W charger for it.
@Barc777 @RubinCompServ Any USB-C power delivery (USB-PD) brick will charge at the higher speeds, since it is the standard that governs the specs listed. You could also opt for a full 100W brick if you wanted to max out the charge times, which is substantially faster than most USB battery banks (20V * 5A = 100W). However, you could still reasonably get by with less wattage for charging, and still benefit from this battery’s high output capability.
So, use whatever brick you want, so long as it support USB power delivery, like the input specs listed:
5V/3A, 9V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3A, 20V/5A
@arosiriak @Barc777 Now I understand. Thanks! So I’ll just put this here…
https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Charging-Compact-Adapter-MacBook/dp/B09K6YP5BK
Can’t I just buy this and a $25 65W USB-C charger from amazon and be set? Or do I need the “special” 65W charger that raises the price to $199 on Amazon?
@RubinCompServ Just responded above - You don’t need a “special” charger, but part of the benefit of this battery is high input and output wattage, so 65W or higher (from any reputable brand that uses the USB power delivery specs) should do fine
That’s a lot of kilo-millis.
I have so many of these. But this one has two USB-C ports. But I have so many, including the last one from meh, which has a wireless charger on it.
But this one has two USB-C ports.
I’ve pondered long enough.
/buy
@blaineg It worked! Your order number is: fresh-feathered-louse
/image fresh feathered louse
@mediocrebot
/giphy fresh feathered louse
Same price I paid for my snüg max solar generator on meh last year. Which has been great. This? Naw
Don’t waste you’re money on this it’s super over priced you can. Up a 30,000 mAh USB C power bank onAmazon for $45 less get it shipped for free and get it in a day or two.
Hell you could buy a 50,000MaH USB C power bank and still not pay $92
/buy
@Vertabrae It worked! Your order number is: statuesque-papery-seal
/image statuesque papery seal
I’m going to throw all my dinky, no good, baby portable chargers out the window when this thing arrives. Thor has spoken.
/giphy slow-antique-saber
@forebrain Great use of a barcode scanner!
This deal has me all charged up!
I haven’t ordered from here in a while, it’s normal for them to take a week just to ship?
@preed4962 A week would be quick on many occasions although they are somewhat better than they used to be with that (of course they have never made any promises about that). And now that they are not using Piney Butthead as their shipper it usually does arrive faster once it is shipped so there is that. Far fewer boxes hang out in some obscure city partying or touring the country on their way to getting to you.
@Kidsandliz Thank you!
still not shipped. Glad I’m a VMP member, lol.
I bought this since power outages are not uncommon in the building I live in and, sigh, it came non-working. If anyone has any idea what I am doing wrong I’d appreciate hearing about it (vs this being non-functional and I’m not an idiot after all LOL, hopefully I’m just an idiot - did find an online manual which I already looked at, link included below and on the thread for this; yes I will contact support).
When you push the button it is supposed to show a light. When you push it twice or hold it for 2 seconds it is supposed to show a green light (for trickle charging instead of full power charging which you are supposed to use on phones, etc. or so says the online manual I found online. Mine doesn’t. When you plug it in to charge it it is supposed to show light dots to show how much it is charged. Mine doesn’t. Thinking the battery was totally dead and that is why no lights showing I left it plugged in (using the power plug for my computer which should be more than enough) for a while and still nothing. I tried charging my phone from it. My phone did not indicate that it was being charged (this was after I left it plugged in for a while).
FYI Here is the better manual online that what comes in the box as the one in the box has a shortage of pictures and words (most of the space is taken up by the same lack of information in about 10 languages):
https://manuals.plus/anker/powercore-iii-elite-manual#user_manual
So you might want to check yours out when it comes in the mail in case there is a problem.