Gear Review Anker Powercore 20000 Charger

pstm13

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I recently purchased an Anker Powercore 20000 charger for business and personal travel as well as backpacking. I was in Dallas at the time on a one week business trip. My wife was leaving for NYC when I got home. This charger appealed to me because of the claim that it could deliver 7 full charges to a smart phone. At $49 the Powercore appears overpriced next to other low cost alternatives. The shelf at Wal-Mart was full of other options at or below $10. However, I have a lot of experience with those budget chargers and was finally willing to fork out the money for a serious power source.

Upon opening the box I noticed the weight of the charger. It is all battery with no space inside to make it appear more powerful than it really is. It was fine for traveling. It has two USB ports. The green port was for extra fast charging. There are also four LED lights and a power button. That’s it. I wish it had an LED light for tent use. I immediately began questioning its viability on the trail in my pack. I would bring it along if I was going to be on the trail more than 4 days and planned a significant amout of phone use, was doing a great deal of filming for a thru hike YouTube channel or similar. It would also be useful for a large group of people. I would probably talk someone else into carrying it though.

The Powercore takes several hours to fully charge. Upon full charge I plugged in my phone in the green port and noticed a significant increase in charging speed from a standard battery charger. I was planning on bringing the charger to meetings but I didn’t need to because of how fast it charged up my phone. I was very pleased and felt like it was well worth the money even at that early stage. Over time my opinion has not changed.

I charged my phone (iPhone 6) four other time s that day. The Powercore still had just under 1/2 power left. This gave me the impression that the seven charge claim was a solid estimate. Especially if you have your phone on airplane mode while charging.

Overall I am very impressed with the Anker charger and give it a solid thumbs up. I may purchase another smaller model for my backpacking trips. I usually only get out for 2-3 nights at a time so this model would be overkill for my personal needs in that timeframe.

Do you have an Anker charger? How do you like it? Have another charger that works for you?

Feel free to comment...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0X3NL5/?tag=backcountrypo-20

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I bought a couple of these for emergency preparedness. They're great. But then each of my kids adopted one of them and now their phones never run out of charge no matter how many games they play, argh.
 
I've been looking at their solar charger. This makes me feel a little better about it.
The brand appears to be the real deal. The stats. given by the company appear to line up with my experience. That suggests good internal components that regulate steady output.
 
I used to take one or two of the smaller ones, maybe 13k if I remember right, on longer trips. Only downside is the weight. Tend to just take extra camera batteries and use a mophie battery case on the phone now.

These types of cables are great with the ankers though. No worries about forgetting one cable type or another:

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I use a Steripen and a Revolt headlamp. A charger with that thing would come in handy.
 
I've got a 10,000 mAh Anker that I usually take backpacking. I really like it! It's usually enough to keep my phone and my wife's phone going for a few days.
 
I have only ever heard good things about Anker, and that is the one for backpackers.
However, my folks bought me some off brand solar charger at Christmas. I store it in my camping gear box and have used it 5 or 6 times already to charge my friends phone and mine. It charges very fast too.
I have yet to charge it at home or leave it in the sun haha, I always forget to take it out of my pack until bed time. Whatever I have, seems to be a miracle. Once it gives out though, I plan on purchasing an Anker.
I can't imagine my gadget is lightweight though. What is the weight on the Anker?
 
Isn’t 20k overkill for backpacking? I use a 6000 mah for week long trips and it has always been enough. I use it to top of my iPhone which only runs in airplane mode for gaia. I never need to top off my InReach since I only turn it on for a few minutes each night to send my wife a text and occasionaly get a weather forecast. I carry one camera battery inside my a6000 and one spare and have only had to top off a camera battery once or twice on week long trips before. I think if I was going for a 2 week trip or taking video on a 1 week trip I’d carry a 10k but 20k is a huge weight penalty for juice you probably don’t need. My 6000 mah is 5.4 oz btw

I also make sure everything is topped off before I leave, that my iPhone is in airplane mode when I’m recording tracks, otherwise off, turn my screen brightness down, and make sure there are no apps running in the background.
 
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@Noun Sequitur I have the solar panel and used it extensively last year when we were on our 3 month road trip. It works wonderfully! They also have an 18 month quality guarantee on their products and a 30 day return policy so that helps with the initial apprehension. I would imagine it would pair very well with their battery bank.

https://www.anker.com/warranty
 
Isn’t 20k overkill for backpacking?

Yeah, that thing is heavier than some sleeping bags! I leave my phone off most of the time while backpacking and in airplane mode when it's on for navigation and usually end up using only a small fraction of the battery capacity on a trip.
 
I just bought an Anker 6700 a week ago and I'm about to test it out on a 3 night backpacking trip to keep my Note 8 charged. We'll see how it goes. It weighs like 4.5 oz...we'll see if it's worth its weight.
 
Thanks for bringing this up and reviewing. I’ve switched to an iPhone for not only gps but got the ProCamera app to shoot in raw, tif or heif and use a couple of their addonns to extend the capability giving better results than I had imagined. So I have been eyeing the Anker offerings and have had a lower power model bookmarked, one that charges the phone twice, very small and 4.4 oz. But 7 charges for a longer trip sounds fantastic.
 
Isn’t 20k overkill for backpacking? I use a 6000 mah for week long trips and it has always been enough. I use it to top of my iPhone which only runs in airplane mode for gaia. I never need to top off my InReach since I only turn it on for a few minutes each night to send my wife a text and occasionaly get a weather forecast. I carry one camera battery inside my a6000 and one spare and have only had to top off a camera battery once or twice on week long trips before. I think if I was going for a 2 week trip or taking video on a 1 week trip I’d carry a 10k but 20k is a huge weight penalty for juice you probably don’t need. My 6000 mah is 5.4 oz btw

I also make sure everything is topped off before I leave, that my iPhone is in airplane mode when I’m recording tracks, otherwise off, turn my screen brightness down, and make sure there are no apps running in the background.
I agree and I used the exact term in my review.
 
I agree and I used the exact term in my review.

Yup, it wasn’t a gripe about your review which I found really helpful and appreciate you taking the time to write. I was just trying to get a dialogue started on what others find to be an ideal power size for backpacking.
 
Yup, it wasn’t a gripe about your review which I found really helpful and appreciate you taking the time to write. I was just trying to get a dialogue started on what others find to be an ideal power size for backpacking.

I think my backpack size one is like 3000 mah and I've never depleted it. I don't know that I've ever charged more than once in a trip though.
 
Checked mine, they are 13k. You can defintely deplete them on a trip depending on what you're up to, especially burning through and recharging slr batteries shooting video.
 
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