Even when working from home, it can be difficult to find a power source. Your computer, monitor, WiFi hub, and other gadgets and gadgets hog those scattered power outlets. And when you're on the go, having a power source on hand for your devices is especially necessary. The solution: a portable charger to keep your phone, tablet and much more on top of charge.
To help identify the best options and avoid that dreaded “low battery” notification, we spent several weeks testing portable chargers: draining devices, charging them, and calculating capacities. Finally, we found three winners that we think are the best option for the vast majority of users:
The best overall portable charger: Anker PowerCore 13000 . The Anker PowerCore 13000 is everything you could want in an external battery: it is very portable, it has two fast charge ports and it has a capacity high enough to charge multiple devices at once.
The most portable: Belkin Power Pocket 5K . The Belkin Power Pocket 5K is incredibly light and small, able to fit in virtually any bag or pocket, and at the same time has the ability to fully charge your smartphone.
The best portable charger for iPhone: Belkin Boost Charge Power Pocket 5K . The Belkin Boost Charge Power Pocket 5K perfectly accompanies any iPhone, thanks to its MFi certified Lightning charging port.
A quick look at the winners
After carefully reading through numerous expert reviews, analyzing the top brands of portable chargers, and applying our knowledge of the market, we settled on nine chargers for our tests representing a broad spectrum of price, capacity, and size.
Battery life was the most important feature, but we also focused on design and portability. We understand that some people want to get the most out of a large capacity battery, while others may choose to sacrifice a certain level of capacity for a more portable product.
The Anker PowerCore 13000 achieves all the goals that an ideal portable charger should set itself. Where it shines the most is in carrying capacity. It features 13,000 mAh (mAh is a measure of how much power a device emits over time), which is enough to fully charge an iPhone 11 two and a half times. Plus, it has two fast-charging USB Type-A ports so you can charge a couple of devices simultaneously. While it doesn't have the highest charging capacity on the market, at just $ 31.99 it's a real bargain for so many mAh.
The Belkin Power Pocket 5K ultraportable is almost the same size as an iPhone SE, but weighs even less. And, proving that the old aphorism that "big things come in small packages" is correct, it contains enough power to fully charge an iPhone 11 from its unique USB Type-A port. The $ 29.99 price tag is really the icing on the cake.
The Belkin Boost Power Pocket 5K pairs well with iPhones thanks to the inclusion of a Lightning port along with the USB Type A connection. That means you can use the same cable to charge your phone and battery. Not only that, but it is certified as MFi by Apple. At $ 39.99, you're paying a bit more for compatibility, but we think many users will find it worthwhile.
The winners, in detail.
Best Overall Portable Charger: Anker PowerCore 13000 (from $ 31.99; amazon.com)
In short, the Anker PowerCore 13000 has an incredible quality / price ratio.
You can load a lot with this device, and quickly. The PowerCore 13000 has enough capacity to fully charge an iPhone 11 two and a half times, or two Samsung Galaxy S20 from scratch to more than 90%. And you won't be sitting idly for too long, either, as the PowerCore 13000 takes just 41 minutes to charge an iPhone from 11 to 50% - the fastest charge in our tests.
While the PowerCore 13000 doesn't deliver on its promise of 13,000 mAh (we found that it offers more like 7,918 mAh), it hit a respectable 61% of what is advertised, a percentage that put it on average among all the batteries we tested. In other words: none of the portable chargers we tested lived up to the numbers they put on the outside (this is common since there are always inefficiencies in power transmission), but the PowerCore 13000 has more charging capacity than the most of the others we tried. Plus, it costs just a few dollars more than the Belkin Pocket Power 5K but offers more than double the mAh.
The battery side houses three ports: two fast-charging USB type-A ports and a micro-USB port for charging the battery. When we charged an iPhone 11 and a Nintendo Switch simultaneously, the battery hardly warmed up. Four LED lights alert you to the remaining battery life of the charger, with a button on the edge to turn on the lights.
The charger's matte plastic design feels nice to the touch and stands up to stains surprisingly well. It is about the size of a full wallet, making it easy to carry. And it's durable: The charger survived our drop tests, which included a one-meter drop on grass and a half-meter drop on carpet, with no external or internal damage.
Overall, the Anker PowerCore 13000 not only has good charging, it has two ports to spread it out and is quite small and durable, making it very valuable for $ 31.99.
Most portable: Belkin Power Pocket 5K ($ 29.99; amazon.com)
When we first came across the Belkin Power Pocket 5K, it was hard to believe its size - just 5 inches long, 2.5 inches wide, and half an inch thick. There will be few places where this battery will not fit.
It was the smallest and lightest charger we tested; You might even mistake it for a cell phone. This portable charger is truly the best exponent of a personal power bank, it easily fits in a pocket next to your mobile device.
The carrying capacity of the Power Pocket 5k is modest, but it lived up to the performance on all the models we tested. While its maximum capacity is stated to be 5,000 mAh, we measure it at approximately 3,655 mAh. That's 73% of the expected value, which is 12% better than the average in our tests. Although its capacity is not huge, it is more than enough to restore life to a battery in the iPhone 11 or Samsung Galaxy S10. The only significant drawback we could find was the charging speed: it takes a little over 51 minutes to charge an iPhone from 11 to 50%.
Like the PowerCore 13000, the Pocket Power 5K received no surface or internal damage during our drop tests. And if it breaks, it comes with a two-year warranty along with a generous $ 2,500 Connected Equipment Warranty (covering unlikely electrical damage).
The Belkin Pocket Power 5K is impressive in size. Although the capacity is not huge, it is more than enough to meet the needs of most personal devices and small enough to keep it in your pocket wherever you go.
Best Portable iPhone Charger: Belkin Boost Charge Power Pocket 5K ($ 39.99; amazon.com)
The Belkin Boost Charge Power Pocket 5K offers slightly less capacity than the Belkin Power Pocket 5K, but is a perfect match for iPhones, and charges faster, too.
Next to the Belkin Boost Charge is a USB Type-A port and a Lightning port (MFi approved) for charging the battery. Here's the key here: that's the same type of port that your iPhone has. In other words, as long as you have a cable to charge your iPhone (let's assume so), you also have a cable to recharge this battery. Cable consolidation is a great idea. This charger also pairs better with a smartphone because it is lighter than the Anker 13000 and has a more rectangular shape, making it feel a bit more comfortable in your hand.
The Boost Power Pocket 5K has more than enough juice to fully charge an iPhone 11. It also took just over 45 minutes to charge an iPhone from 11 to 50%, which is faster than the Belkin Pocket Power 5K by six minutes. The capacity of the Boost Power Pocket 5K is advertised as 5,000 mAh and during our tests we measured around 3,415 mAh. That's almost 70% of the advertised value, making it one of the top three batteries we tested in terms of delivering on the promise (average was approximately 61%).
All in all, the Belkin Boost Charge Power Pocket 5K is an excellent personal charger for your iPhone. Both with MFi certification and cable consolidation thanks to the Lightning port, they really matter. And at $ 39.99, it will become your iPhone's best friend.
Note: The above prices reflect the price at the time of article posting.