9+ Best Power Bank | Unrivaled Guide 2023

Do you tremble at the idea of ​​being left with an empty smartphone? Whenever you look for a socket to recharge your smartphone or tablet, do you find it punctually occupied by other people’s devices? There is no doubt, you need a Best Power Bank .

If you have never heard of them, power banks are portable batteries that allow you to recharge devices such as smartphones, tablets and in some cases even notebooks (if equipped with USB-C format ports) in any place and any circumstance. They can be of various sizes, capacities and colors and can include one or more USB ports for charging devices. How about if we try to discover, together, which are the most interesting ones of the moment? Do you want? Very good.

Below you will find a series of explanations that should help you find the best power bank for your needs and, perhaps more importantly, a list of Best Power Bank . that currently offer the best value for money. Regardless of the model of smartphone or tablet you have, I am sure you will be able to find a battery that suits you and put the fear of being left with your dead devices behind you!

Best Power Bank

Best Power Bank | Comparison Table 2023

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Best Power Bank | 2023 Products Overview

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Best Power Bank | 2023 Guide

How to choose a power bank

As just mentioned, best power banks can be distinguished by capacity, size, weight and number – as well as type – of integrated ports. To identify the one that best suits your needs you must, therefore, take a minimum of confidence with their technical characteristics and learn to distinguish them correctly. I assure you that it is much easier than you think, everything is explained below.

Capacity

The capacity of power banks is calculated in milliampere hours (mAh) , just like that of smartphone and tablet batteries. But what is a milliampere hour? I’ll explain it to you right away.

As easily understood from its name, the milliampere hour is the thousandth part of an ampere / hour, the unit of measurement that is used to indicate the number of amperes (which is the unit of measurement of the intensity of electric current) that it goes through a device every hour.

This basic concept is clear, to identify the power bank that best suits your needs you need to find out what is the capacity of the battery you intend to recharge, and therefore the battery of your smartphone or tablet: this is a value that you can easily find by searching on Google. But be careful, the number of mAh indicated in the power banks should not be directly related to that of the batteries of smartphones and tablets , as it is almost always expressed on the basis of a voltage of 3.7V, which is the voltage of the battery, and not on the voltage. of 5V, which instead is the voltage used for charging smartphones, tablets and other devices.

In a nutshell, if you find a 10,000 mAh power bank and your smartphone has a 3,000 mAh battery, you won’t be able to do three full recharges of the device, but less (just over two). From the mAh value of a power bank you must always remove a 20-30% to get the real capacity of the latter. To be even more precise, to find out the “true” amperage of a power bank you need to calculate 3.7 * [number of mAh] / 5 . In this you will get a mAh value “compatible” with that of your smartphone or tablet and therefore you will be able to better orient yourself in the purchase of the power bank.

In some cases, the capacity of power banks is expressed in watt-hours (Wh) . To obtain the Wh value compatible with that of smartphones and tablets, divide the value by 5 (ie 5V): [number Wh] / 5 .

Unfortunately, power bank manufacturers do not always indicate whether the capacity of their batteries is expressed on the basis of a voltage of 3.7V or on the basis of a voltage of 5V. To resolve this doubt, you must inform yourself by reading online reviews, user comments and conducting online searches on third-party sites.

Obviously, a greater capacity of the power banks also equates to an extension of the charging times of the latter, so if you buy a very large power bank be prepared to spend a lot of time to charge it!

Shape, size and weight

Power banks can have different form factors : there are lipstick-shaped ones, rectangular ones that are little more than a credit card thick, the more robust and capacious ones that we could define as “boxes”, and the list could go on to long. You just have to choose according to your preferences.

The speech is different in terms of weight and size . As easily understood, the largest and heaviest power banks are those that allow you to give a greater charge to your devices. This means that if you need a power bank to use on the go (or in any case in situations where you will be very long without the availability of electrical sockets), you have to put aside portability, lightness and you have to think only about the number of mAh. : you may need to make more full charges to smartphones and tablets, and this is only feasible with high amperage batteries.

If, on the other hand, you need a battery to always keep in your pocket to give your devices a “kick to life” in emergency situations, forget about the number of mAh and buy an extremely compact and thin power bank to keep in your pocket. pants without hassle.

Also take into consideration the construction materials and the resistance of the power bank to water, shocks and dust. If you often find yourself in “extreme” situations or which, in any case, can be dangerous for the health of electronic devices, buy a power bank coated in such a way as to withstand falls in water, splashes, falls and so on.

In extreme situations (or in banal campsites) solar-powered power banks can also be useful , which include solar panels thanks to which they can recharge without the aid of an electrical outlet. Very slowly, but they succeed!

Doors and power

As mentioned above, power banks can be equipped with a variable number of ports . Those with only one port allow you to charge only one device at a time, those with multiple ports allow you to charge multiple devices at a time, but there are also many other differences that must be taken into account.

First of all, it must be said that the ports can be input or output : the input ones allow you to charge the power bank itself. The output ones, on the other hand, are those to which the devices to be recharged (smartphone, tablet, etc.) must be connected.

Then you have to deal with the format of the doors . Most power banks offer USB A ports (therefore standard USB type) through which to recharge the most common models of smartphones and tablets. Then there are the microUSB ports , which are often used for charging the power banks themselves, and the USB Type-C ports , which are used to recharge some models of smartphones, laptops (e.g. MacBooks) and video game consoles. (eg. Nintendo Switch) of the latest generation.

It should be noted that laptops and game consoles can require a large amount of power , so they are only compatible with the largest power banks and only when using suitable cables. As for notebooks, for example, the actual recharging takes place only if the computer is turned off. If the computer is turned on, the power bank causes the computer battery to drain a little slower, but does not recharge it. That said, there’s no problem buying a USB-C to USB-A cable and charging a USB-C device with a power bank that only has USB-A ports.

A separate chapter deserve the Apple Lightning ports , which are not used to recharge iPhone and iPad (those can be recharged normally with any USB port in standard format) but, if present, allow you to recharge the power bank using the same cable used for iDevices (thus inserting the Lightning socket in the power bank and the USB socket on the other end of the cable in the charger connected to the electrical socket).

Earlier we mentioned the energy supplied by the power bank. Well, you should know that each port of a power bank can deliver a different amount of energy. This energy is measured in Amperes (A) and affects the charging times of the devices. For example, there are 1A ports that charge devices at a certain speed and 2.1A or 2.4A ports that charge devices more quickly, as they can deliver more energy to the devices.

However, for charging to actually be faster, the target device must also be compatible with the power level of the power bank . In other words: if you have a smartphone that supports charging up to 1A and you connect it to a 2.1A or 2.4A port, it will not charge faster because it will always assimilate energy at 1A (and this will also allow it not to get damaged, in as it will automatically limit the amount of energy to be absorbed and will not overcharge the battery). Conversely, if you have a smartphone that supports charging at 2.1A or 2.4A and connect it to a 1A port the charging will be slower than that provided by the phone’s standard charger.

Another important thing to know is that in power banks equipped with multiple ports, if two or more ports are used at the same time, the overall output power is divided between the latter. This means that if you buy a power bank capable of delivering a total power of 4A and connect several devices to it at the same time, the energy will be divided between the various ports (e.g. 2A on two doors or 1A on four doors).

As for overloads, don’t worry: now all power banks have a safety system that interrupts the supply of energy in the event of an overload or short circuit. Furthermore, the risk of overloads is very limited as the power banks are able to automatically “recognize” the devices connected to their ports and deliver an adequate amount of energy to recharge them without ever exceeding it.

Quick Charge support

Remaining on the subject of energy supplied, I would like to point out that if you have an Android smartphone equipped with Qualcomm QuickCharge technology and you want to recharge it at the maximum possible speed, you must purchase a power bank with support for this technology.

Don’t you know what I’m talking about? In this case you shouldn’t need a power bank with QuickCharge support. In any case, it is a proprietary technology of Qualcomm (a well-known manufacturer of smartphone processors) which, through a system of dedicated voltages and amperages managed by the processor, allows a very fast charging of the phone.

It should be noted that there are multiple generations of QuickCharge (eg QuickCharge 3.0 and QuickCharge 2.0 ), so try to buy a power bank that can take full advantage of the QuickCharge generation available on your smartphone. If you have doubts about the QuickCharge generation used by your smartphone, buy a power bank that supports the latest version of this technology: backwards compatibility with previous versions is always guaranteed.

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LED indicators and flashlight

A detail that not everyone thinks about but which can prove to be fundamental in the daily use of a power bank is the presence of an LED indicator to know the level of the remaining charge. Especially in larger power banks, knowing the remaining charge level can be important, so an LED indicator is just what you need.

Another feature that can have its usefulness is the flashlight , which many power banks integrate and allow to use by exploiting the residual charge present in the battery.