Being caught short of power for your smart devices, when you’re nowhere near a power outlet, is a regular occurrence with today’s power hungry devices. Battery anxiety can be fairly common when you’re out and about for long periods of time whilst heavily using your smart device for things like navigation, video or audio playback. This is when a power bank is your faithful friend in situations like these.
There are a number of power banks in the market now. My first was from Anker, purchased many years ago, yet it still manages to get me out of situations when I need to juice up my iPhone where there is no power supply in sight. Now years on, Anker continues to dominate this area. They also continue to enhance existing lines and evolve their suite of power banks with new models.
The PowerCore II 10000 is one such power bank that comes new from Anker in their Ultra-Compact line, and considering the 10000mAh battery capacity in this model, it certainly lives up to being in this category.
Packing a huge 10000mAh, the PowerCore II provides enough battery capacity to charge the latest iPhones 3x over or an iPad Pro 11” 1.2x over. That’s pretty great considering all this juice is crammed into a power bank the size of 3.8 x 2.4 x 0.9 inches. Its weight of 195g/6.9oz isn’t going to weigh your bag, or even your coat pocket, down too much either.
To fill the PowerCore II you use the supplied micro-USB to USB-A cable. It’s also Quick Charge compatible, so using a powerful Quick Charge wall adapter you will be able to fill its battery capacity relatively quickly, in four hours infact.
Its compact exterior is sleek looking with an outer casing that features a rough, diagonal line texture to it. Personally, I am not a fan of this texture though. Although grippy, its texture isn’t a pleasure to feel when
A decent power bank shouldn’t leave you wondering as to how much charge is remaining inside. Anker usually adopts a series of lights or a dial of lights on their power banks, and the PowerCore II continues to adopt this trend. Its coin-sized dial of eight lights displays when it is fully charged, with each light depleting as the battery drains away. Pressing this dial when nothing is connected to it will also display the power bank’s battery status.
The PowerCore II has justs two ports on the business end of the power bank. There is one USB-A 3.0 output port that can deliver up to 18W, using Anker’s high-speed PowerIQ 2.0 charging technology. This means it can identify the connected device and efficiently supply the fastest possible charge to it, up to 18W.
Next to it is a micro-USB port that’s used for power input only. The time to recharge this power bank will vary depending on the wall adapter that’s charging it. Quick Charge adapters will fill the PowerCore II in just four hours, 5V 2A chargers in five hours, and lower 5V 1A chargers in 10 hours. So if you wish to keep the PowerCore II topped-up make sure you use a Quick Charging wall adapter, such as the Anker PowerPort II we have also reviewed here.
As an ultra-compact power bank, the PowerCore II delivers in spades. Retailing for a mere $35.99 on Amazon its price reflects its solid build quality, performance, size and of course its free 18-month worry-free warranty. Its compact size certainly makes it ultra-portable whilst delivering up to three complete charges to a variety of the latest smartphones whilst also having the 18W power delivery technology to charge even power-hungry iPads and, dare I say it, laptops! If you’re after a good all-round power bank that simply delivers, check out the Anker PowerCore II 10000 power bank.
