Understanding Power bank and its ratings !
Power banks now come in all sorts of sizes.
From the little chapstick sized units you
get for free at tradeshows, to units that
are the size of car batteries.
But it’s not quite so easy to understand
as the days of AA, C or whatever your toy needed.
Batteries today show ratings in milli-amp-hours
or m.A.h. for short.
You’ll see numbers that range from 2,000
to 20,000 or even higher.
But what does that actually mean for you?
Most smartphones today have batteries that
are in the 2-3 thousand milli amp hour range.
So with a 2,000 m.A.h. power bank you can
get about half a charge for your phone.
You may be thinking, “wait a second, Trish,
the math doesn’t add up!”
There’s always a little bit of battery drain
when using the power bank so even if your
phone battery matches
the size of your power bank,
you probably won’t get
a one hundred percent charge.
If you get one of those beefy 20,000 milli
amp hour units you can expect to charge your
new iPhone, Galaxy, or whatever you have about
8 times.
Love it.
But battery size is only
one piece of thepuzzle.
Usually what I want to know is how quickly
I can get back to a full charge.
If you’re looking for batteries you’ll
see terms like fast charge, quick charge,
or something similar.
What do they actually mean?
Quick charge is an actual technology used
on some Android phones… but you have to
have an Android with a Qualcomm processor
to take advantage.
It allows you to safely charge your device
as fast as possible.
They claim it works up to 4 times faster than
other standard chargers.
So what about the rest of us who aren’t
lucky enough to have a Qualcomm phone?
Well that’s where “fast” charging or
whatever similar
term the battery bank
you’re looking at is using.
It’s essentially just charging
your phone using
2 AMPS instead of the
1/2 AMP charger most phones come with.
There’s some debate on whether or not this
type of fast charge can ruin batteries quicker,
but in a pinch it sure is handy.
Then of course there’s color, shape, style
- that’s all personal preference.
Anybody in the market for a new power bank?