Should I buy an Anker power bank?

If you’re here, the likelihood is you're shopping for a new portable charger. Below we’re going to talk you through everything you need to know when buying a power bank and whether you should consider an Anker one.

Anker is one of the biggest brands in the power bank space, and you’re likely to see the name appear in a variety of best of lists for power banks, as the company makes some of the best products on the market.

Just check out our best power banks list and you’ll see Anker mentioned a couple of times.

Our list of the best power banks money can buy

Design

The design of Anker power banks isn't going to get you particularly excited, but a stunning design is unlikely to be something many are looking for from a portable charger.

Instead the company has made its whole range into slim products that are as small and practical as possible.

You've often got the color choice of white or black for your power bank, but a large variety of devices only come in the latter color. Some of the smaller ones also come in red, blue or gold.

One of the brand's most popular products is the Anker PowerCore 20000. This is a slim option that's lighter than most other options on the market and is easy to carry in a bag.

It probably won't fit in your pocket, but there are other Anker products in the range that are capable of doing that.

Anker offers slim, circular power banks that can slip into your pocket all the way through to big behemoths that you'll need to carry around in a bag. Specifically, its devices range from a pocket-friendly 3,350mAh option all the way through to a 26,800mAh one at the top end.

The number in the title of the power bank usually refers to the capacity of it, so the PowerCore 20000 for example features a 20,000mAh battery.

Features

Anker's power banks generally do what they aim to with relatively little extra. For example, the brand doesn't have any power banks that also support wireless charging or any other exciting features.

There are a few things you need to know about them though before you buy one.

If your phone supports Qualcomm Quick Charge technology, you'll have to buy a specific Anker power bank in order to make the most of that. Most Anker power banks come with a technology the company calls PowerIQ and VoltageBoost that combine to deliver fast charging.

The Quick Charge technology from Qualcomm is supported on some Anker power banks, but those are a little more limited and you'll have to find that specifically mentioned in the specs.

It's also worth noting how the power bank itself is charged up. Some devices from Anker still support micro USB, while others use USB-C. At the moment, no Anker power banks can be charged up with a Lightning cable.

You can always buy an extra cable to charge up your power bank, but we just find it useful to only have one type of cable, so if your phone supports USB-C charging you'll likely want to find a power bank that supports the same.

Some devices also charge multiple products at the same time. Generally the rule is if you've got a smaller power bank it will likely only have one charging slot, while some bigger Anker power banks have more than one charging port.

Also, Anker is the official portable charger brand for the Nintendo Switch. It has two products that are specifically optimized for the portable console in its PowerCore 13400 Nintendo Switch Edition and the larger 20100 Edition too.

We've used the latter of those two products a lot, and find it'll get around a charge and a half on your Nintendo Switch. It's especially useful for long plane journeys considering the console itself usually lasts for only around three hours with intensive playing.

Price

Anker makes affordable products. They may not be the absolute cheapest on the market, but Anker's chargers are generally competitively priced.

At the time of writing, we looked around for some 10,000mAh power banks and the Anker PowerCore 10000 cost £21.99 / $34.99 / AU$50 but some comparable products from competitors had undercut that, hitting around the £15 / $25 / AU$25 level instead.

That's a bit of a jump up for the Anker product, but generally it's worth paying that to have a power bank from a more trusted brand.

Anker often discounts its products around sales periods like Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day too, so you can expect the price of its power banks to shrink down a little around that time.