Google News Lab Fellow & journalism graduate, into technology, development,
design & photography.
If youâve room in your bag or pockets for a portable battery bank, you need
never run out of smartphone juice again. But it's worth choosing one
consciously:
a good battery bank can take a few people to a festival, powering everyone's
speakers & phones, or get you through a week's driving abroad with your maps
app for navigation. A lesser bank just gives a few hours' juice when you're
stuck. Here's what to look out for before you buy...
There are battery banks in all shapes & sizes: from lipstick to cats, if you're
into things that look like other things. But the cheap & small ones usually
arenât as good: make sure you read the number of mega amp hours (mAh), as
this tells you how much charge the battery can take.
Capacity is key
The latest smartphones have bigger batteries than their predecessors, meaning
older battery banks (and their claims on how many charges they'll give you) are
a bit out of date.
Phones vary in capacity, but most of the big brands' flagship phones from the
past year or so float around 3,000mAh. Next yearâs phones will hold more. And
so on.
To really ensure you donât ever have to commute without your beloved screen,
you should get something that will give your phone a few charges. Unless it
actually fits in your wallet, donât bother buying anything below 3,000mAh,
youâll just have to remember to charge it after every use, and you will of
course forget.
10,000mAh is respectable, and you can get one in the shops for around â¬30, or
cheaper online from eBay or Amazon. If you can spend more, and wait for
delivery, you can get up to 30,000mAh, enough to keep the whole family from
having to make eye contact for a few days. But check the size & weight before
you buy, or you might end up (like me) lugging a brick everywhere you go just
because "30,000 is better than 20,000".
Hard luck of the Irish
If youâre planning on buying from Amazon, thereâs an obstacle: new rules
restricting delivery of items to Ireland, including lithium batteries.
We're not the only ones who can't buy lithium batteries:
light bulbs are a different story
We Irish are no strangers to the label 'doesnât deliver to Ireland'. There
are workarounds - such as using parcel services giving us a Northern Irish
address. In the case of the battery restriction, unfortunately, this doesnât
work. Amazon wonât deliver lithium batteries to Northern Ireland either.
But there's one workaround:
An Postâs Address Pal <https://addresspal.anpost.ie/> is like the parcel
services you may already use, but gives a mainland UK address. Itâs slower
than other services: taking between four & five working days to deliver, but
maybe worth it if the product has free UK delivery.
If that's too much messing, buy from an Irish site or in shops: bear in mind, a
lot of what's on the high street is low capacity. If it doesnât say the mAh,
assume it's low.
Other features top check
Check the output of the bank and the needs of your device before you buy,
particularly if you want to charge devices like tablets or laptops. 1 Amp is
not going to be enough for a tablet - and itâll be slow to charge your phone
too - so check if thereâs a USB 2.0 or better. But you don't need to buy a
bank that says it's approved for your specific model or brand.
Some of the beefier banks can even charge a laptop at 30W. To check if that
means you too, pick up the fat bit (adapter) of your laptop charger and read
the tiny print. If it says 30W or less, (and this is the output of the battery
bank you're looking at) youâre in business.
Other features you might like, which you might not find on the high street, are
newer ports: such as USB Type-C, Appleâs lightning port, Qualcomm's Quick
Charge (if your device is compatible) or Google's USB-PD.
Ah, we can carry enough charge for ten phones in our pockets, but we're still
no closer to decommissioning that drawer full of slightly-different cables.
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