This blog will act as a practical guide to your choice of a perfect power bank, helping you to get a clear understanding of everything about power banks.
In the very first place, what is a power bank?
A portable power bank works as an external battery pack or a mobile backup power charger, which is especially ideal for frequent travelers, bus commuters or people who are often on the move. It helps reload the power before your smartphone or any other USB device's battery goes dead.
How to use a power bank properly?
The most common way to charge a power bank itself is to charge it with an adapter via the power bank's input port and an electrical outlet. Experts advise keeping your power bank always, at the very least, over 20% battery capacity charged. Yet it depends on the real capacity of your power bank. Sometimes, for a large capacity power bank, you don't need to keep it fully charged all the time, with half of the battery prepared beforehand, it's enough to deal with many charges for your smartphone.
What does mAh mean?
The commonly seen mAh, abbreviated for milliampere hour, is actually a unit of electric charge. It's meant to measure the power bank's battery capacity. Usually, bigger number in mAh means more charges your power bank holds based on a full charge.
How to calculate power bank's real capacity:
There's an existing formula to accurately calculate power bank's actual capacity as below:
real capacity * conversion rate * phone battery health / phone capacity = total charge times
For example, for a 12000mAh power bank, believed to be able to charge a 1500mAh capacity cellphone 8 times: 12000 x 0.8 x 0.8 / 1500 = 5.12 charge times (0.5-1 times plus minus)
What is power bank's conversion rate?
The conversion rate in power bank's charges is considered to be the remaining percentage of the battery after the battery lost in heat or the circuit board inside the power bank. In other words, it simply means how much battery is successfully transferred from the power bank to your USB devices. For standard USB power banks, they use the precharged power while solar power banks make use of the solar energy right from the sunlight. The higher conversion rate will help make the most of it. You'll make your day productive with a reliable conversion rate.
What types of battery cells are used in power banks?
At earlier stage, most power banks were constructed with 18650 battery cells. Now popular power banks tend to use Li-polymer battery instead. There's a huge difference between these two types of batteries.
Size Type: fixed 18650 battery, flexible Li-polymer battery
Safety Level: 18650 battery is apt to produce heat while Li-polymer battery is safer in comparison.
Manufacturing Cost: lower cost for 18650 battery while higher cost for Li-polimer battery.
Self Discharge Rate: 18650 battery discharges faster compared with Li-polymer's low self discharge.
Durability: Li-polymer battery obviously lasts longer than 18650 battery when they are being used in power banks.
What are the differences between branded power banks and generic power banks?
They have something in common, namely they work as power banks, providing backup power for your devices. However, the performance, quality and durability may differ. Most branded power banks come with real capacity as marked while generic power banks' actual capacity could be usually lower than marked capacity. This explains why some 10000mAh power banks work better than some 12000 to 15000mAh power banks.
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Check these excellent sources of branded power banks which have been given highest recommendations.
Poweradd Power Banks :
One of the typical models: Poweradd Pilot X7 20000mAh Compact Power Bank
Price: $21.99
Capacity: 20000mAh
Anker Power Banks:
One of the typical models: Anker PowerCore+ 10050 Premium Aluminum Portable Charger
Price: $35.99
Capacity: 10050mAh
Xiaomi Power Banks:
One of the typical models: Xiaomi 10000mAh Pro Fast Charge Light Power Bank
Price: $44.26
Capacity: 10000mAh
Aukey Power Banks:
One of the typical models: Aukey 12000mAh Portable Power Bank
Price: $19.99
Capacity: 12000mAh
RAVPower Power Banks:
One of the typical models: RAVPower Portable Charger
Price: $19.99
Capacity: 10400mAh
Aibocn Power Banks:
One of the typical models: Aibocn Power Bank 16000mAh External Battery Charger
Price: $15.99
Capacity: 16000mAh