5 Power Banks That Do More Than Just Charging

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

There are several scenarios in which a power bank offering more than just recharges comes in handy. For example, if you are traveling to another country, you might consider a power bank that connects to the internet via an eSIM and helps you with communication, navigation, translation, and posting on social media.

Another scenario is where you’re a coffee lover who usually goes for a morning run, but sometimes has to leave your drink behind for a power bank because you forgot to charge your phone overnight. For this purpose, there is a travel mug whose lid also serves as a power bank. You can charge your phone when you stop for a coffee break, ensuring it doesn’t run out before you get home.

When shopping for a power bank, most people simply want something they can rely on to charge their phone in a snap. But the next time you’re looking for a power bank, consider purchasing one that can meet your other needs in addition to being a useful backup charging method.

In a way, pagers or beeps can be considered the original notification system. For someone to beep you, they will need to dial the number assigned to the pager, leave a short message or phone number, and it will be sent to you via radio signals. When cell phones and texting became commonplace, the beeping sound became obsolete. Today we offer several products inspired by the beeper design, and the Trozk Beeper power bank is one of them. Its design is similar to the NEC pagers of the 80s and 90s, which were black and rectangular and could fit in the palm.

The Trozk power bank also has a beep feature, but you can only send and receive messages from others in range who are using the same device. It’s meant to be a fun way to communicate with friends using pre-programmed messages rather than something you’d have to rely on in an emergency, like an actual beep. The power bank costs $48 and comes in a range of colors, including clear, purple, orange, and that classic black look.

It has a battery capacity of 10,000 mAh and supports fast charging up to 30W using the Power Delivery (PD) protocol. This means it can communicate with smartphones and other devices that support PD charging to negotiate safe charging levels. Just be aware that fast charging may generate additional heat compared to regular charging.

The Trozk Floppy Magnetic Power Bank with Storage is another portable charger inspired by a retro device. It resembles a floppy disk, which was the first successful portable storage medium, widely used in the 1970s and remaining popular for another three decades. The 3.5-inch version was the most common, offering up to 1.44 MB of storage. It’s laughable by modern standards, but back in the day, a floppy disk was essential storage for documents and small applications before eventually being replaced by flash drives and rewritable CDs and DVDs. Unlike the Beeper Power Bank, this one has utility beyond just pleasure, as it’s also a storage device with 64GB of space.

The storage of the Floppy Magnetic Power Bank consists of Samsung flash memory chips. This makes it the equivalent of a high-capacity USB stick; only, it is bulkier because it is a portable charger with a 10,000 mAh battery. It is intended to be an emergency storage device with read and write speeds of up to 158 MB/s and 48 MB/s respectively.

It has a charging speed of up to 22.5W when wired, but it also supports MagSafe wireless charging. It’s more convenient than wired charging but less efficient and generates more heat. It costs $56, but if you just like the aesthetic, you can get the Floppy Magnetic Power Bank without storage for $48.

One of the biggest issues people have when taking a photo or video using a phone’s camera is the ergonomics of holding it horizontally and the lack of tactile feedback from the on-screen shutter button. Camera grips like the ProGrip Mobile Battery Grip aim to solve this problem by helping you keep the phone stable while providing a hardware button for the shooting action. They bring the experience of shooting on your phone closer to a DSLR camera, in an ergonomic sense, thanks to the grip. It also has a swivel system that allows you to switch between landscape and portrait modes.

The ProGrip Mobile Battery Grip has a 6,400 mAh battery that offers 18W of fast charging and is also a Qi wireless charger. The grip has slots that allow you to mount it on a quarter-inch tripod and cold shoe mount. The handle also serves as a vertical and horizontal stand, which is ideal for taking a Zoom call or recording a video hands-free. You can get this handle for $150 on Amazon.

The Appesso AmpMug First Gen charges both your smartphone and your energy. The mug costs $58 and was a Kickstarter project backed by people who liked the idea of ​​making a niche product a reality. From the outside, it looks like a regular travel coffee mug, but inside the lid is a 6,000 mAh power bank. It’s also a MagSafe charger, which allows modern iPhones to clip onto it and charge wirelessly. Android phones can also use the charger, but they will require a MagSafe adapter or compatible case to take advantage of the magnetic alignment. Additionally, the cup’s removable 30cm shoulder strap doubles as a USB charging cable.

The Appesso AmpMug holds up to 450ml of your favorite caffeinated beverage. It has a double-walled, vacuum-sealed construction, which means there is a pocket of airless empty space between the two walls. This prevents heat and cold from entering or leaving the cup, providing enough insulation to keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold for hours.

Power banks are an essential tool for traveling and are useful in scenarios where wall outlets are rare. What’s also important when traveling is a portable hotspot like the Linklan LA8 eSIM Hotspot Classic – another Kickstarter project that brought a niche product to life. You can find several mobile hotspots with power bank functionality on Amazon, but many of them don’t offer any SIM card options, meaning you have to rely on the manufacturer’s data plans, which can be limiting and expensive. The NETGEAR Nighthawk 5G mobile hotspot was a good option. It supports both physical SIM cards and eSIMs, but it’s quite expensive, at $500.

This 4G LTE hotspot costs $269 (it’s on sale for $149 at the time of writing) and lets you connect to over 500 eSIM data plans in over 180 countries. If you’re traveling alone, it may be easier to just get a travel SIM card and use your phone’s dual SIM functionality to avoid replacing your regular SIM card. But when you’re traveling in a group, a mobile hotspot can reduce the need for everyone to have their own travel SIM card, as well as eliminate the frustration of frequently activating your phone’s hotspot so others can connect.

You can connect up to 16 devices to this hotspot and it has an app that lets you track data usage. With its 10,000 mAh battery, it can support up to 48 hours of continuous use and it is a fast charger with a power of 22.5 W.

We considered a wide range of scenarios when choosing these power banks, without excluding fun novelty options. However, we wanted the power banks to have a minimum battery capacity of 5,000 mAh, so that they could fully charge a smartphone. We also didn’t want to choose options that were too expensive for the extra utility they provide, so we figured a good price would be under $300.

Another important factor was user ratings. For every product available on Amazon, we require that it have a minimum of four out of five stars, which is generally the basis for products to be considered excellent. It also needed to have hundreds of reviews instead of dozens to ensure enough people bought it and were happy. For products without publicly available reviews, we have checked public support elsewhere, such as Kickstarter, to ensure there is sufficient support for the project.