Gadgetory

so you've left your phone plugged into the wall all night you wake up with it fully charged and ready for a full day of selfies catching Pokemon and selfies of catching pokémon but just a few hours in you get the dreaded low battery warning and there's nary an outlet in sight this is where portable battery banks can save the day you just whip it out of your pocket and bam no solar panel or flashbacks to playing with a scary jack-in-the-box to get the juice you so desperately need but with all the options out there how do you know which one to pick well aside from the usual reading reviews and checking manufacturer reputations just as you would do with a graphics card a webcam or an extra-large hamster wheel the most obvious place to start is with the batteries capacity it's typically expressed in milliamp hours which despite the name is actually not a unit of time so I just must hate us right but rather a unit that describes the amount of electrical energy a device can hold so you can think of a device whose battery is rated for fewer milliamp hours like an iPhone has a cup of water and a battery bank rated for more milliamp hours as a bucket of water so a battery pack with off high milliamp hour rating can hold enough energy that it can power up your devices multiple times or powerup devices like tablets with a higher battery capacity themselves so consumer grade battery banks start around 2,000 milliamp hours and go all the way up to over 9000 these devices at the higher end of that range are capable of charging your average smartphone eight times or even more but if you've had a few of them you might have noticed that battery banks with the same milliamp hour rating can vary quite a lot in terms of performance so what gives for one thing not all batteries discharged at the same rate all the time this is especially true if you're charging devices that draw a lot of curve such as high-end tablets this lowers the effective capacity to below what it would be if you were just charging low current electronics there's also more to life than just battery size there are features to consider in this video here we compared five rugged battery banks that advertised everything from built-in LED flashlights to shock and water resistance though it should be noted that some of these claims didn't end up panning out in the real world and while we're on that subject there's more to life than manufacturer's ratings for capacity to line has published a video that's me comparing how many times six different brands of battery banks could recharge an iPhone se and while most reputable brands were within fifteen percent of each other the worst one tested was less than one third as effective as some of the others and it doesn't get easier charging rate going back to our water analogy is how quickly you can pour from your bucket to your cup and is a huge factor for folks who want to plug in for 20 minutes while getting ready for that big date and not have to carry their charger around for the rest of the night typically battery banks have either one amp or two amp outputs both of which are running at the standard USB 5 volts if you have a device that can accept two amps of current as many newer ones can then a 2 amp output on your battery bank will not only charge your device faster but it will also keep it running if you need to use it while it's charging keep in mind though that chargers labeled as 4.8 amp or some other high number are usually referring to total current across all of the port's which is great if you're going to be plugging in multiple power-hungry devices at once if the regular USB spec isn't enough for you though there are even some battery banks that support rapid charging technologies like Qualcomm quick charge and Samsung fast charge that can power up your devices even more quickly by increasing from 5 volts up to as high as 20 volts but those require both a device and a charger that's in it now go forth with this knowledge and find yourself a battery bank that gives you all the power you've ever wanted just don't use it to try and invade Russia in the wintertime we all know how that works out speaking of working out that's yet another fantastic use for audiobooks from audible.com while you're driving while you're trying to sleep while you're sitting there at the family meal pretending to actually be interested in what you know crazy uncle Howard is talking about audiobooks are a great solution for a passing the time or be finding the time to catch up on the reading that you want to do but you don't have time to sit and stare at a book for audible has literally tens of thousands of audio books including periodicals fiction nonfiction and their platform is super easy to use and compatible with a wide variety of devices including your smartphone audible is offering a free audiobook with a 30-day trial of their membership service I've been listening to outlaws kiss by nichole snow a tantalizing romantic tale about a girl that falls for her captor who also happens to be the leader of a renegade motorcycle gang we've got the link in the video description to get a free audiobook with a 30-day free trial of their membership at audible.com slash tech quickie so thanks for watching guys if you liked the video hit do this if you just like to do that if you want to check our other channels do that if you want to leave a comment do that and if you want to subscribe then do that too