These Portable Chargers Will Keep Your Devices Juiced All Day Long

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A low battery warning may be a regular occurrence for most of us these days, but it thankfully doesn’t have to mean an end to your mobile device use until you get back to your home or office. A portable charger — also called a power bank or battery pack — can ensure that your phone, tablet, or just about any other portable device always has enough juice to get you through the day. Serious road warriors can even get larger, more capable battery packs that will provide enough charge to recharge a full-size laptop.

The Best Portable Chargers

• Best Overall: Anker PowerCore Slim 10000 PD

• Best for iPhones: Apple MagSafe Battery Pack

• Best for Emergencies: Eton American Red Cross Clipray

• Best for Laptops: Mophie Powerstation Pro AC

• Best No-Frills Option/Best Budget: Anker PowerCore Fusion 5000
  

What to Consider

The key things to consider with a portable charger are what devices you’ll be using it with, and how often you expect to be relying on it for power. Many newer portable devices rely on USB-C for power, but there are plenty that still use a standard USB port. You’ll want to choose a portable charger that has the right output ports for your devices, and one with multiple ports if you expect you might need to charge multiple devices simultaneously.

If you think you’ll be relying on the charger to fully recharge your devices or even recharge them multiple times, you’ll want to look for a higher-capacity power bank. A 10,000mAh charger will likely be sufficient for most people’s everyday needs, but a 20,000mAh or larger battery pack can give you enough power to recharge devices multiple times and offer a bit of added peace of mind.

As you might expect, however, the higher the capacity gets, the less portable the chargers become. If you’re only using the power bank occasionally to top up your phone’s charge, you may want to consider a smaller capacity 5,000mAh charger that can be tucked away much more easily.

How We Selected

It doesn’t take much searching to discover that there are a lot of different portable chargers out there to choose from. To narrow things down for this list, we relied on our own experience covering mobile devices and consulted a range of trusted sources and customer reviews to determine the best portable chargers on the market today.

Best Overall

The Anker PowerCore Slim is Goldilocks’ choice of portable batteries: It’s not too small, not too big, and its size and capacity are just right. The battery has two USB ports (one USB-A, one USB-C), and it’s powerful enough to recharge an iPhone X twice. So, if you forget to recharge the battery on your charger — which happens — you’ll be OK. It’ll still have juice to recharge your smartphone when you forget to charge that, too. If you’re using a Lightning-to-USB-C cable, it’ll recharge your iPhone’s battery 50% in just a half-hour.

When fully charged, the battery is even powerful enough to give a MacBook an additional 30 minutes of power. Of course, that’s assuming you have a newer USB-C-equipped MacBook. Speaking of USB-C, Anker throws in a travel pouch and a USB-C to USB-C cable to recharge the battery, which takes 3.5 hours (if you’re using a fast charger) or 9 hours with a standard charger and a USB-A to USB-C cable.

Although we would have liked to see an integrated charging cable with this external battery pack, it’s a shortcoming we’re willing to forgive, considering the PowerCore Slim’s portability and powerfulness. The battery is about the size of an iPhone 8, weighs less than a pound, and is strong enough to recharge an iPad Pro. It even has a trickle-charging mode to safely recharge smaller devices like wireless earbuds that don’t require as much power. It’s backed by an 18-month warranty.

Best for iPhone Owners

It’s no surprise that Apple’s own portable charger demands a premium compared to other options, but the company’s MagSafe Battery Pack will give you some features and a degree of portability you simply won’t find elsewhere. Unlike the other chargers on our list, this one is a wireless charger, and is designed to magnetically attach to the back of an iPhone —assuming it’s an iPhone 12 or newer, that is.

It’s so portable that you can easily leave it on your iPhone while you’re using it, but that does, of course, mean some trade-offs. Chief among those is the battery pack’s 1,460mAh capacity. That’s far less than many other small and inexpensive battery packs, and won’t be enough to fully recharge an iPhone, let alone give you multiple charges. It will provide enough juice to give you quite a few hours of use, however, which will likely be all that most people need to get through a day.

It’s also slower to charge when connected wirelessly, but you can plug in a Lightning cable to speed things up if you’re in a rush. And, somewhat surprisingly given the iPhone’s many color options, the MagSafe Battery Pack is only available in white — although how much of a con that is will depend on personal preference.

Best for Emergencies

A portable charger can be invaluable, but it will only help you if you’re able to keep it charged. If you want a true fail-safe solution in the event of an emergency, you may want to look at something completely different like Eton’s hand-crank American Red Cross Clipray charger. It will ensure you can charge your phone whether you have a power outage at home or are miles away from the nearest AC outlet on a camping trip.

What it’s not is a replacement for a regular power bank. You won’t get anywhere close to fully recharging a smartphone or tablet with the Clipray, but a bit of concerted effort with the built-in hand crank will give you enough power to make a phone call or send a text.

The built-in LED flashlight makes the Clipray an even more invaluable addition to your emergency kit, and a carabiner clip incorporated into the handle makes it easy to keep close at hand at all times. If you’re looking for even more capabilities, Eton’s FRX3+ model adds a built-in radio, solar panel, and higher-capacity battery.

Best for Laptops

There are portable chargers that let you get a few more hours of use out of your smartphone, and then there are chargers that are truly intended to replace an AC outlet for the better part of a day (or longer). Mophie’s Powerstation Pro AC not only boasts a huge 27,000mAh capacity, but it packs a standard AC outlet that can accommodate laptops not powered by USB-C (or just about anything else short of truly power-hungry small appliances).

As you might expect, it is a tad on the bulky side — most reviews have compared it to a paperback book in size — and, at over 2 pounds, it will weigh your bag or backpack down a bit. That’s a small trade-off to make if you regularly need to rely on a battery pack for extended periods of time, however, and the increased productivity it can provide will likely more than justify its premium cost for many.

That’s not to say there’s no room for improvement. While there are two USB-C ports, there’s just one standard USB-A port and there’s no wall charger included in the box, although that is increasingly becoming the norm. As The Gadgeteer notes in its review, it also would be nice to have a digital readout displaying the exact level of charge instead of the four simple indicator lights Mophie has chosen to use. Those are relatively minor complaints, however, considering the Powerstation Pro AC more than delivers where it counts.

Best No-Frills Option/Best Budget

If you have a tight budget and all you need is a basic, no-frills, portable battery pack that’s also super reliable, the Anker PowerCore Fusion 500o is a solid choice. It’s unlike any other portable battery in our roundup since it functions as both a battery and a wall charger. This means you can use it to recharge your smartphone or tablet overnight, unplug it, and top off your smartphone again later without any need for an outlet.

It’s about the size of a tape measure and its prongs fold down, so it’s not too bulky and is easy to travel with. This hybrid charger offers up to a decent 5,000mAh capacity — enough juice to recharge a smartphone twice.

The battery, which weighs a bit less than 7 ounces, has two USB-A ports. There’s also a MicroUSB port on board, but that’s only for recharging the battery itself — if you don’t want to use the standard prongs.

The battery takes 2 hours to recharge. It comes with a 2-foot-long micro USB cable for recharging and is backed by an 18-month warranty. We would’ve liked a USB-C port on board, but given this battery’s low price and small size, we think it’s well worth the cost.

Anker sells another variant that’s powerful enough to recharge laptops and tablets via a 30-watt USB-C port — however, it costs four times as much as this one, despite having the same 5,000mAh capacity.

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