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 pokemon but just a few hours in you get the
dreaded low battery warning and there's narian 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 the 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 battery's capacity it's typically
expressed in milliamp hours which despite the name is actually not a unit
of time scientists 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
as a cup of water and a battery bank rated for more milliamp hours as a
bucket of water so a battery pack with a high milliamp
hour rating can hold enough energy that it can power up your devices multiple
times or power up devices like tablets
with a higher battery capacity themselves
so consumer grade battery banks start around 2000 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 discharge at the same rate all the time
this is especially true if you're charging devices that draw a lot of
current 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 manufacturers ratings
for capacity too 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 15 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 1 amp or 2 amp outputs
both of which are running at the standard usb 5 volts if you have a
device that can accept 2 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 ports 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 support 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 winter time we all know
how that works out speaking of working out that's yet another fantastic use for
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while you're driving while you're trying to sleep while you're sitting there at a
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 b finding the time to catch up on the
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book for audible has literally tens of thousands
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fiction non-fiction and their platform
is super easy to use and compatible with a wide variety of devices including your
smartphone audible is offering a free audio book with a 30-day trial of their
membership service i've been listening to outlaws kiss by nicole 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
audio book with a 30-day free trial of their membership that's audible.com
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