What Type of Portable Charger Is the Best for You

Bigger is always better. Actually, not really.

It's only better if it fits your needs. A smaller portable charger might be better for you. It might also not be what you need at all. The question is, what are your needs? 

Automatically, you would assume that the portable charger with the biggest capacity is better. Mostly wrong. You will learn in this blog that capacity isn't actually the most important thing. Most companies provide big numbers but don't deliver on performance.

The Benefits of a Smaller Portable Charger

Wake up. Decide that you are going on a short trip. You are not taking your car, so you can't store your items anywhere. You don't have any backpacks with you either. What now? 

A smaller portable charger such as the Zendure A1 or A2 won't charge your phone many times during the day, but it will give you that one or two extra charges. And it will do so while keeping you comfortable. 

And that's the big advantage of smaller portable chargers. They are simply more comfortable. You need to be able to put your charger into your pocket on short trips, and smaller portable chargers allow for that. 

They are not great when it comes to keeping your device charged for several days, but they are a great short-term solution if you need comfort. 

The Benefits of a Bigger Portable Charger

Wake up again. Decide that you want to take a weekend trip with your car or with luggage. You now have the space to carry your bigger portable charger that wouldn't fit into your pocket as easily otherwise. That's when bigger portable chargers such as the Zendure A8 QC are a better choice. 

With the A8 QC for instance, you can charge your phone several times. It means that you can go without seeing an electrical plug for many days. And since it's bigger, it also has more USB slots meaning that your friends can charge their devices too. It also comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0

But bigger is only better if you have the space to carry a bigger charger. If you don't, then bigger is not better because it's not convenient. It's definitely not needed if you are not going to be gone for long. You need to choose based on whether you need lots of power or whether you need convenience.

Now that you know about what type of charger will suit you best, there's now also some other stuff that you need to know about.

4000 mAh Is Not Always Actually 4000 mAh

What you see isn't always what you get.

Just because a portable charger states that it has 4000 mAh doesn't mean that 4000 mAh will go into your phone. Companies love providing big numbers. These numbers usually aren't the reality. That's why when you see portable chargers with incredible mAh at an even more incredible price, you might end up thinking it's not working right as it isn't charging your phone as many times as you thought it would. 

You can read about this more in detail in a post about battery capacity, but if we were to break it down into the simplest form possible, most chargers are rated at 3.7 volts while the devices that they power require 5 volts.

That means that the actual number of mAh that will go end up in your phone might be significantly smaller than you expect. You need to be careful when it comes to this especially when it comes to smaller portable chargers as otherwise, a charger with 3000 mAh can turn into a charger that won't actually charge your phone fully.

Written by Michael Smolski.