Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Forbes
Forbes
Business
Jon Martindale, Contributor

Grab One Of These Portable Chargers And You’ll Never Be Stranded With A Dead Battery

Carrying around one of the best portable chargers is a great way to increase the battery life of your most important devices, like your smartphone and laptop. They’re also great peace of mind when you’re traveling or don’t have ready access to a power socket. Some of them even offer faster charging than the chargers that come included with your devices too.

The best portable chargers come in all shapes and sizes, from big, power dense banks of energy with equally big price tags, to tiny portable chargers that can recharge your phone in a pinch. There are even chargers that come with their own solar panels—great for keeping your devices charged when you’re out in nature.

Whatever you’re doing and wherever you’re going, there’s a portable charger for you. Here are some of the best portable chargers you can buy today.

Best Portable Charger Overall

Omnicharge Omni 20+

For a charger that does absolutely everything and does it all well, the Omnicharge Omni 20+ is hard to beat. It includes a huge 20,000mAh charge capacity, fast carging at up to 18W for smartphones over USB-A, fast 60W charging for laptops over USB-C, and 10W wireless Qi charging for devices that support it.

All connected devices can take advantage of Quick Charge 3.0 technology for fast recharge, and it even has a 100W AC/HCDC outlet for laptops, drones, and cameras that don’t support USB charging. The Omni 20+ also comes with a built-in OLED display which shows the total power left in the charger, as well as the demands of each connected device. It also supports pass-through charging, so you can continue to charge your array of devices even when recharging the Omni itself.

At $200, the Omni 20+ isn’t cheap, but it can charge just about anything and does it fast and effectively, all the while giving you all the information you need about its capacity and draw. This is the best portable charger money can buy.


Best Portable iPhone Charger

Belkin Boost Charge Power Bank

The Belkin Boost Charge is a portable charger designed specifically for the iPhone users of the world and comes with the Apple MFi certified seal of approval. It has 10,000mAh of capacity to effectively recharge most iPhones at least twice over, and you have a few port options to do it with. Along with more typical USB-A ports (offering 12W and 5W respectively) the Belkin Boost Charge also includes a Lightning connector, which means you can use the same cable you use to charge your phone to juice up this power bank.

With a similar size and shape to contemporary iPhones too, this portable charger also fits into most iPhone charging docks. That’s a nice little touch of convenience which you won’t find on most portable chargers and it’s the main reason that this is the best portable charger for iPhones.


Best Small Portable Charger

Poweradd Slim 2

If you want a tiny charger that will give your smartphone a boost while on the go at a low cost, then the PowerAdd Slim 2 is a great choice. At just $11, it’s super affordable, and it’s less than four inches long and barely an inch wide. The tubular design makes it easy to slip into a pocket of any size, and with 5,0000mAh of power packed into its slim frame, it’s got more than enough to give most smartphones a full recharge.

It comes with all of the important overvoltage, overcurrent and overcharge protections, and though it doesn’t support the latest high-speed power delivery options for super fast charging, it’s not unreasonably slow either. It uses a micro-USB cable for charging (included) and has a single USB-A output for charging one device at a time. It’s also comes in a range of colors, so you can pick one that really appeals to your tastes.


Best Solar Portable Charger

Renogy E.Power 10,000 mAh

Solar power is a big component in the fight against climate change and you can improve your carbon footprint by using one to charge your smart devices. There are a number of option out there, but one of the best solar portable chargers is this Renogy E-Power model. It comes with 10,000 mAh of charge to dispense to your various devices, and a capable solar panel that can bring it back up to full charge in just a few hours.

That makes it great for getaways or travelling far from a power socket, and as a backup charger in case you run out of power when you least expect it. It even has a built in LED flashlight, which is great if you find yourself stuck in the dark without another light source. The Renogy E.Power has a built-in carabiner to make it easy to hang off your backpack or belt, and is rated IPX4, so can handle a little light rain should it not remain sunny your whole trek.


Best Portable Laptop Charger

Renogy 72,000mAh Power Bank

Most big power banks start to look like portable generators, taking up a huge amount of space, but this Renogy 72,000 mAh not only has an absolutely enormous capacity, but it’s smaller than your average tablet. It has enough power to recharge laptops, tablets, and smartphones multiple times over and can even use USB power delivery to quick-charge two devices simultaneously without overheating. Alternatively, you can use slower charging modes to recharge five devices at once, including one via wireless charging using the charging pad on top.

Where the USB-A and USB-C ports make this portable charger great for recharging consumer devices, it’s also one of the few devices that has a dedicated cigarette lighter port to power CPAP machines like the Phillip Dreamstation and Resmed S9. The only downside with a portable charger this big is that it’s too much to be flight safe, so you cannot take it on commercial airplanes with you.


Best Portable Charger for Laptops

RAVPower PD Pioneer 20,000 mAh Portable Laptop Charger

Ravpower makes a number of great portable chargers, but its PD Pioneer model is the best portable charger for laptops, partly because it has a big charge capacity, but also because it has all the connectors you need to support a wide range of devices. There’s a USB-C port for more contemporary, minimalist devices, but if your laptop comes with a traditional wall plug with a dedicated power brick, there’s an AC outlet for that too—it even has space for a ground plug. There are power indicator LEDs on the front, a cooling fan on the underside to make sure the portable charger stays cool during operation, and the whole design has a lovely quality feel which won’t stand out amongst your other laptop accessories.


Fastest Portable Charger

Elecjet Apollo Max

Thanks to USB power delivery and quick charge technologies, most modern portable chargers can bring your device back to life approaching a full charge quite quickly, but none of them do it as fast as the Elecjet Apollo Max. Its cousin, the Elecjet Apollo Traveller, is arguably a little faster but always out of stock; so for now, the Apollo Max is the fastest portable charger you can buy.

You can recharge your MacBook or Windows laptop quickly using the 60W USB-C charger, power up your smartphone super quickly using the 18W Quick Charge 3.0 USB-A port, and charge Samsung phones even faster thanks to its support of Programmable Power Supply (PPS).

Better yet, you can recharge all 10,000 mAh of the Apollo Max itself in just 19 minutes using its monstrous 100W USB-C charger. No other portable charger gets back up to full charge as quickly.


Best Premium Portable Charger

Omnicharge Omni Ultimate Power Bank

Along with making the best portable charger overall, Omnicharge also makes the best premium portable charger. The Ultimate is undeniably expensive, but its name is well earned as it offers everything the 20+ does and more.

It features a huge 38,400mAh bank to recharge any device multiple times over, USB-C and USB-A ports for charging a multitude of different devices, and it includes a DC-out port that lets you charge up laptops and 2-in-1 tablets faster than USB-C connections. It even comes with its own range of tips so you can more easily connect a wide range of devices.

It’s rated IP54, so is both splash and dust resistant, making this a great portable charger for photographers or hikers who need a lot of power for your devices. It also has the important Omnicharge OLED display on the front to give you all the detail you need about your various connected devices.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.