The most common device for which we buy a portable charger is our personal smartphone. That is why today we are going to reflect on what to pay attention to when choosing a power bank for a phone. What to pay attention to when choosing a power bank for a smartphone? What to keep in mind? Feel free to read our short guide that will help you in making this important decision.
1. Phone battery capacity
A frequent question we hear is “how many times will the power bank charge the phone?”.
There is no obvious answer. The most important thing we have to check is the battery capacity in our phone, and it can range from a little over 1,000 mAh to even 4,000 mAh. Of course, the fact that our phone battery has 2,550 mAh does not automatically mean that a power bank with a capacity of 5,200 will charge it twice. Remember that unavoidable energy losses occur during charging which, as a result, can reduce the real efficiency of a power bank to as low as 75%. This is a completely normal phenomenon that has to be reckoned with. We write more on this subject in our article How many times will a power bank charge a phone?
Another factor, which can make a power bank give the impression of not being efficient enough, is that a connected phone still uses energy on an ongoing basis due to applications and modules running in the background. It is a good thing when a phone power bank has a capacity at least three times higher than the capacity of the phone battery itself. Of course, if we need a charger for emergencies only, we can opt for a model with less capacity, but we have to remember that we may slightly miscalculate. Look how models from several capacity categories perform.
2. A power bank for a phone – what parameters to pay attention to?
If we have a phone that allows fast charging, it is worth choosing a power bank supporting charging with intensity of 2.1 A or more. Thanks to this, we can get as much as a two times shorter charging time compared to other models. The intensity of 2.1 A surpasses most of desktop chargers as well.
All large powerbanks models and some of the medium ones have a fast charging port, but remember that this option will not prove useful if the phone is not compatible with it. Below you can see a few power bank models for phone that have a fast charging port.
3. Demand and style
Purely subjective matters are also important when choosing a power bank for a phone. We have to think about what we will expect from our portable charger. Will a compact pocket model, which will save us if it turns out that we have to stay longer at the university, be enough or maybe a monster with a capacity of 20,000 or even 30,000 mAh, which will fully charge our phone 8–10 times during a cycling trip to Barcelona? The last thing is style, of course. A minimalist, stylish, miniature in the colour of magnolia or maybe a “gold bar”? Here we have a very large range of options.
