Anker 24,000mAh 737 Portable Power Bank / 3-Port Charger Expired

Hi, I can clear up some confusion here. I got carried away and it's going to be a long one. Tldr: Steam deck's battery is about half of Anker 737 so your results are perfectly fine.

First thing to keep in mind is that some of these Chinese power bank ratings are grossly exaggerated. They have no shame scamming people. Project Farm in their recent battery bank shoot out found the worst offenders only delivered 28% of their promised capacity.

Second, there's going to be a power loss due to overhead and heat. You're never getting back from the battery exactly how much you put in. People claim about 15-20% loss in energy stored.

Finally, mah rating alone doesn't really tell us how much energy there really is. The best way I can explain is using water as an example. If I take two pipes and fill them both with water. One pipe is twice longer than the other pipe, does it mean that I can fill the short pipe two times with water from the longer pipe? Of course not. Shorter pipe could be 3 times as wide as longer pipe. We not only need to know the length, we need to know the width or diameter of the pipe. Once full dimensions of container are known, we can calculate how many gallons or litters it holds and can compare the two and truly see which one is bigger and by how much. So in this case mah rating is like length of pipe and voltage rating is like width/diameter. We multiply voltage by amps and we get watt-hours or Gallons in my example. A quantifiable amount of energy stored in any battery that lets us compare them irregardless of their voltages.

Another way to think about it is gas cans. If I tell you I have a 5 gallon gas can you have a concrete idea of how much gas it holds. But if I tell you I have a 12" gas can you really have no idea, it could be 3 gallons, it could be 10 gallons. Mah and voltage rating is just dimensions of the battery (container), Watt-hour rating is the actual capacity.

Lithium-ion cells run at 3.6-3.8 volts. Anker rates their power bank at 24000mah at 3.6 volts. 24000 mah is 24 amps. 3.6v x 24amp = 86.4 Wh. According to Project Farm testing, Anker 737 delivered 69Wh or 79% of its claimed capacity. So it's more like a 19000mah. It's not horrible IMO compared to some other brands, it wasn't the most honest power bank on the list, but I think it's still pretty good. The best one on the list did 89% of claimed capacity. Anker may also have the most overhead consumption with that screen.

Steam battery is rated at 5200mah at 7.7v. "Pipe diameter" of steam deck battery is twice as wide as on Anker 737 and will require about 10400mah at 3.6 volts to fill it. Deck's battery is really just two 3.6v 5200mah cells linked together on the inside. 7.7v x 5.2amp = 40Wh capacity. That's almost half of Anker 737 rated capacity. Project Farms claims it has 69Wh capacity so I suspect you will not get another full charge even though your Anker showed 50% left, probably a 3/4 charge left.

Take anker 737, chop it in half with an axe, that's literally how much battery is stuffed into LCD SD. OLED SD is even better at 50Wh.

PF Video: https://youtu.be/G1sjqaRll2s

Ok, I'll see myself out

EDIT: Forgot to say, all these companies should really advertise Wh instead of mah on their power banks, but you know, 86 is just not as big or cool of a number as 24000!!!.

I own 3 of these, and I can say annecdotally from my own experience, that these have been pretty amazing. The first time I purchased it was at $99, and it quickly became the most stolen object in my household. Could never find the damn thing anywhere, everyone abused it, and it's probably journeyed more distance than I ever could in a lifetime, since it was being abducted for all sorts of trips. The biggest benefit is just how fast it can recharge, 1hr+ to full charge, keeping phones and tablets alive throughout the day. It is exceptionally heavy though, as you would expect for it's size, but all things considered, still very portable. I ended up purchasing 2 more, labeled them: house pet, travel pet, for the streets. Do I think it's worth the $99 when I bought them? I think $75 is more fair, maybe $80, have yet to see performance drop in terms of port and capacity, but at $90, i'll be picking up one more to label as: outdoors pet. Thanks OP for the post!

Being a frugal Slickdealer, I've looked around for cheaper Power Banks and happened upon a similar capacity power bank from Move Speed: https://a.co/d/4YmxAqu

I've bought two of them about 6 months apart. First was $50 and included a 100W GaN charger and the second one I just purchased last week was a little over $28. Incredible deal for a 25000mAh 130W Output power bank. Just have to watch the product as the price fluctuates often to catch a deal.

In any case, it's worked great every time I use it. I don't have any devices that take 130W over USB-C but have confirmed it at least does 100W. It's only 1" thick and is 5 ounces lighter than this Anker. Not as much tech info on the display though, although I just need to know the watt draw and power remaining.

Anker, of course, is a trusted name. Worth the extra $$$ ?? Probably to most. But I like saving money too.