The power consumption in smartphone is known fact for one of the most limiting aspect of each smartphone. Electronics manufacturers are well aware of this matter and smartphones and tablets with high battery capacity has been rolling out in the market for long period of time. Developers also has been coming out with various battery saving application by killing more background application to reduce processor load and squeeze out more amount of battery. However, some heavy users that relies smartphone intensively still faced issues when it comes to battery life. Thus, a powerbank is essential in order to keep their phone up running.
However, there are alot of variation of powerbank available in the market. Some are priced as much as a entry level smartphone while some priced extraordinary low. What are the difference between them? Let’s find out the top 5 things to consider when choosing a powerbank that suits you!.
(1) Check your smartphone battery capacity, first.
One of the most important steps before buying a powerbank is to check your battery capacity of your smartphone. There is no reason to buy a small capacity powerbank to juice up the tremendous battery capacity inside. Another common issue is that the efficiency of the powerbank battery isn’t 100% and there will be some electrical energy was converted into heat. Thus, it is recommended to buy a powerbank that has higher capacity than your smartphone battery.
Another thing to consider is the power output of the powerbank. Tablets that comes with large display are usually packed with high battery capacity and a higher output charging adapter. That means, if you are charging your tablet with a lower power output powerbank, it could require a extreme long period of time inorder to charge sufficiently.
(2) Quality
Powerbank quality is another top factor to consider before buying. Different manufacturers often added different and customized PCB along with the factory that often be the key components when it comes to powerbank lifetime and quality. Major brands such as Asus, Pineng and Xiaomi has make high quality battery and PCB that can handle thousand and charge and discharge time. Meanwhile some vendor or manufacturer produce low quality powerbank by using small battery capacity and poor PCB design that could often leads to malfunction or even, explosion.
(3) USB charging cable
Quality powerbank usually comes microUSB adapter that can charges a variety of phones. However, the microUSB may not work because of the different adapter used in the smartphone. For example, older generation of iPhone uses different charging port compared to the iPhone 5 and 5s and later. Thus, it is an important point to consider prior choosing the powerbank.
(4) Powerbank size
Different vendors often release powerbank with different size that suits users preference. For example, some individual places their powerbank inside the handbag and doesn’t carry on hand. Thus, large size could not be an important issue when it comes to charging. However, size does matters. You dont want to carry a brick on your hand right?
The battery capacity powerbank and powerbank size are usually a trade off. Due to higher battery capacity, the powerbank size usually can grows exponential in order to keep the big batteries intact. Thus, after considering the ideal powerbank battery size, you may want to choose a powerbank that has ideal size depends on your user preferences.
(5) Price and build
Depending on vendor, different qualities of powerbank comes with different material build. For example, some powerbank manufacturer uses metal alloy finish on the main body while some lower-end powerbank uses plastic finish on the body. Although the main material built isn’t an essential issue, it depends on the the users favourite and preference.
If you ever found an identical powerbank with low price tag, it could likely be an imitation product. Those product usually comes with poor PCB design and low battery capacity that could impose risk from overheating to explosion hazard. A high quality powerbank doesn’t always offer high amount of price and can be purchased easily from trusted retailers.
Author: JS Yip
