Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsSpecialized Device Aimed At High-End Users
Reviewed in the United States šŗšø on February 6, 2023
This thing is pretty cool, but it is also really not the power bank for everyone. It is more of a specialized device designed for people with just about the most demanding, cutting edge, portable power requirements around. People who need a lot of total battery capacity AND potentially very high current draws, but still want something relatively portable that can drop into a backpack. If that is your use case, this thing is very nice. For everyone else, it is probably a bit of overkill.
Understand that both high battery capacity AND the high output power are each going to meaningfully increase the device's size and weight, which matters a lot when thinking about portability.
Both of these features also add additional cost, and that is before you add the cool little OLED status screen. So unsurprisingly, given everything it is capable of, this premium device is not exactly cheap.
As for the size and weight commitment, in person this thing is a bit of a beast. It contains a total of six 18650 cells and a 140 watt charger, after all. In practice, it is big enough and heavy enough that you will be leaving it home unless you know that you really need it.
I am in the target market for this thing - my primary use case is for a MacBook Pro 16", where I am going to be without access to any power outlet for an extended period of time. If that sounds like you, needing extended runtime of a single, quite powerful computer off-grid, great. But if your power bank needs are more modest, I would definitely consider other, cheaper alternatives. Anker makes good stuff and they have power banks in all sorts of sizes and capacities. So don't buy more than you really need here.
For example, this unit probably isn't the best pick for charging up a bunch of your phones, flashlights and such in an extended power outage. Yes, it could be used in this way in a pinch, but charging a phone or even a tablet with a device that can output as much as 140 watts at once is a bit of overkill. I have also found that very low wattage devices are often not even detected by the USB-C ports, even in trickle charge mode. Those things need to be charged through the USB-A port, and there is only one of those on this device. That is not really a flaw in this product, Anker could certainly have enabled low wattage charging through the USB-C ports. Instead, it is more a reflection of what this device is really designed for.
The build quality seems good, and the little screen showing input and output wattage is definitely not a gimmick, it turns out to be so useful, because it also gives instant estimates of how long the device can power whatever loads are plugged into it, time until the battery is full, and even the number of charging cycles the battery has gone through. The interface is dead simple, with about the only things you have to control are whether the screen shuts itself off or stays on, and whether to enable "trickle charge" mode so that very low power demand devices can still draw power.
The manual notes that to get the full 140v out of it, you should use the mag-safe connector with the Macbook Pro 16". This is because the USB-C ports on the Mac Book Pro max out at 100 watts. In practice, this limitation won't matter much, unless you want to quick charge the Mac for some reason. 100 watts is normally plenty to just keep the machine running, even under very heavy load, and pulling the power out more slowly should help the unit last longer anyway.
What don't I like? Not much. About the only thing that could be improved is the relatively small number of ports. I'd like to see another USB-A port on this at minimum, and at least one or two more USB-C ports. This is a relatively high capacity device, and more ports would give greater flexibility to this device. Right now it is more of a one-trick pony focused a little too aggressively on high-end, power users. I am glad they released this thing, but I suspect a slightly de-rated version of this that outputs maybe 60 or 80 watts maximum with more ports would be more useful to a much larger set of people.
