How to Identify a Good Quality Power Bank
If you’re a frequent traveller or a person who depends on smartphones or tablet devices for day-to-day work, dealing with your phones battery life is a frustrating and annoying experience as many new generation phones do not have long battery lifespans.
Unlike the good ol’ days, where the battery life of a phone was nearly 3 to 4 days, new generation phones, which have evolved over time to include bigger, High Definition screens, high capacity processors, increased RAM, improved operating systems and much more, suffer from lower battery spans due to the high battery capacity that’s needed.
On average, smartphone batteries that run Android, IOS and Blackberry platforms last nearly 18 hours (give or take a few hours according to usage), however, that’s still not enough capacity and the battery seems to run according to murphy’s law, dying when we need it most. There is a simple answer though, many think that carrying a spare battery will do, but to be realistic, it won’t. The best solution is to carry a portable power bank with you wherever you go.
So the first question which pops up is, why not carry a spare battery? The answer is simple, it’s troublesome; and you have to replace the battery and reboot the phone, possibly losing your data. A power bank is much cheaper and more reliable.
How to choose a Power Bank:
First you need to understand your requirement, as well as your smartphone or tablet’s battery capacity and life span. The capacity of a battery and the power bank are measured by mAh (Milliampere Hour). The higher the capacity, the higher the number of charges u can get out of it.
EX: Phone – 1500 mAh, Power Bank 2000 mAh = 1 1/3 charges.
EX: Phone – 2000 mAh, Power Bank 10000 mAh = 5 charges
These are basic calculations; in reality it’s difficult to determine the actual number of times you can charge your phone with a power bank, since you need to factor in your usage as well.
Before you buy a Power Bank make sure that the output voltage of the Power Bank and the input voltage of your phone are the same or the output voltage of the power bank is higher, or it won’t work properly. In the today’s market, you can find power banks in different sizes, shapes, capacities and prices. There are power banks with the capacity of 1500 mAh to 16,000 mAh and more starting from Rs 1000 and going up to more than Rs 15,000.
After deciding the capacity you need from a power bank, you also should consider buying a power bank which has protection against short circuiting and overcharge. Buying a Power Bank with protection against short circuiting will help reduce the chances of both the Power Bank and phone exploding (sadly, these things do happen), after spending good money for your smartphone and Power Bank, it’s always best to protect both devices.
To ensure that the Power Bank you buy works for a good period of time, get one with the option to protect against overcharge; as overcharging leads to a shorter life span.
Above all, make sure that you purchase a branded Power Bank from a reputed seller to avoid unnecessary trouble as buying fake, low quality products could damage your devices and reputed sellers will usually offer warranties on their products.