With a multitude of portable charger brands on the market, there is heavy competition between different brands to stand out. This is great news for people like you and me! It means that portable charger companies are constantly striving to outdo each other in price, quality, and quantity.
Sometimes, a few manufacturers rise above the rest. They might not do everything perfectly and certainly, no brand is without its faults, but they are true innovators and market leaders. Below is a list of the best value, best quality, best customer service-focused brands in the power bank market today.
1. Anker
Official website: http://www.anker.com
Anker is without a doubt the market leader in portable chargers. They offer a vast array of power banks in many forms including solar chargers and various other power-related products. There are three main things that set them apart.
- Firstly, their products are built well and made to last. To keep prices low, it’s important to know what sacrifices to make during manufacturing. Anker is particularly careful with the design of their products and the quality of their batteries. They are only using the best equipment to get the job done.
- Second, their commitment to their customers. Anker customer service is famously understanding, forgiving, and generous. In the world of portable chargers, loads of things can go wrong. Your battery pack can be defective, wiring can be faulty, and a host of other issues. Anker offers an 18-month warranty on all (or most) of their products and they really do all they can to ensure the quality of their product is up to scratch.
- They also price their items accordingly. They have some of the best value portable chargers on the market without a doubt. Buying a piece of electronic equipment in this day and age can be a difficult task. Do I go with the cheaper product and risk device failure? Or do I spend a bit more and hope that the components are of higher quality? Anker is the best of both worlds.
Anker is the Cadillac of power banks. Reliable, fairly priced and they get the job done. They are potentially the most prolific of all power bank brands and certainly one of the biggest dedicated power bank manufacturers worldwide.
Anker is a California-based company, the brainchild of some ex-Google employees. Launched in 2011, it wasn’t long before they became the number 1 power bank brand on Amazon.com. Since then, as a testament to the quality of products and innovation, Anker has expanded worldwide and become a global leader in mobile charging.
I get a lot of power bank-related questions sent to powerbankexpert.com. Often when someone is looking for a product to suit a particular need, Anker’s name comes up. Anker certainly isn’t perfect. Don’t be afraid though! For the sheer volume of products sold, Anker does an excellent job of keeping their defective product count low.
What Types of Products Does Anker Sell?
One of Anker’s advantages is its research and development team. They are able to design and produce products quickly and effectively to keep up with current tech and demand. They were one of the first companies to take advantage of quick charging and developed some of its own in-house systems which are replicated by competitors today.
Although Anker has their feet firmly on the ground in power banks, they also make a wide range of power-related accessories. The Anker philosophy is to make people as mobile as possible. They do this with a huge range of smart products.
Anker seems to have dipped their toes in just about every mobile power consumer market. You will see that I have reviewed four Anker products, three power banks, and one solar charger. All four products have received an above-average score. One of them entertains one of the highest scores I have given out on the site.
Apart from obvious performance and design considerations, Anker is a big company that actually cares about its customers. Being a company based in America, many of the good business practices inherent in good US companies can be seen in the finished products.
The last thought on Anker’s products is that they are always moving forward. Having a look at Anker’s current portfolio means that I’ve already fallen behind and it’s time to load up again to see how they’ve progressed.
Anker is a stalwart in the power bank game. They continue to improve upon and develop their technologies while keeping a close eye on the market and more importantly, their customers.
It can be a danger to diversify too quickly and produce subpar products just to keep up. Anker has avoided this and continues to be one of the most reliable brands in the game. If you want a product that performs well and that you can trust, you know where to go.
Recommended Anker Power Banks
2. RAVPower
Official website: https://www.ravpower.com/
RAVPower is Anker’s fierce competitor in the portable charger game. Something like the RAVPower 20000mAh shows you just what they can do. Similar to Anker in some respects, RAVPower has some great products that pack a lot of punch for the price. In some cases coming in a little cheaper than comparable products, they certainly love competing on price.
While this is certainly not true for all their models, RAVPower is still finding its feet in the battery power-to-size game and could maybe do a little more to get the size of its units down. They also seem to have a slightly higher detection rate, with the occasional case of an overheating unit or faulty USB ports.
Don’t let these issues hold you back, however, RAVPower also offers a lifetime warranty on almost all their products. RAVPower is still seen as one of the best portable charger brands in the market and their range of high-capacity units is capable of sending your phone or tablet some serious juice.
RAVPower’s Amazon Brawl
It’s not a secret that Amazon is the main marketplace for all these manufacturers and it represents the largest chunk of their overall sales. So it came as a surprise when someday all of a sudden I wasn’t able to find any RAVPower product on Amazon anymore. At first, I thought it was a glitch, but it turns out that Amazon basically kicked RAVPower completely off the marketplace.
The reason for their banishment from Amazon was related to the fact that RAVPower added some review requests in the product boxes they were delivering. Reviews are a very big deal to any Amazon brand, but it’s against the terms and services to proactively ask for them, especially if you reward users with either products and/or discount codes.
Although RAVPower tried to circumvent this challenge by relisting their products under new brand names, they never fully recovered from the blow. Before being canceled, RAVPower was neck to neck with Anker for the leading position in the power bank market. But right now, Anker is by far the leading company, while RAVPower has fallen from the charts almost completely.
They still make high-quality products that you can find on their brand website, or under some different names on Amazon. But this episode has stunned this company’s growth in the long run.
Recommended RAVPower power banks
3. INIU
Official website: http://iniushop.com
INIU was a brand that manufactures power banks, phone chargers, and related mobile accessories. The brand is most known for producing compact and portable power banks which are their most popular products. They often feature technologies such as fast charging, multiple USB outputs for charging more than one device at a time, and intelligent charging to provide the safest maximum recharge rate for the attached device.
INIU power banks are generally seen as a good balance between price and performance, providing reliable service for charging mobile devices. They are a great option if you don’t want to spend loads of money on premium brands such as Anker. I’d say they are the overall highest-quality budget brand. You can’t really go wrong with an INIU power bank although it might be twice as cheap compared to a premium brand.
Another big plus for INIU is that most of their power banks come with LCD display screens that clearly show the charge level of the battery. These are more useful than the classic LED-type of indicators that are very common.
Recommended INIU power banks
4. Aukey
Official website: http://www.aukey.com
For pure battery power and value, it’s hard to go past Aukey. They have a range of slick designs and consistently test well in battery efficiency and delivery speed tests.
Almost all of their devices support at least Qualcomm Quickcharge and pound for pound, they represent some of the best quality-to-price ratio products in the game. Check out the Aukey Basix Pro for an awesome offering from them.
Aukey isn’t just about power banks. Their website has an awesome range of camera lenses, outdoor audio equipment, and adapters. Like many of the cheaper options, Aukey does have its fair share of product defects and firmware issues.
Taking this into consideration, Aukey still outdoes many of the brands in the portable charger scene. We look forward to seeing some more of what they have to offer over the coming months.
Another Power Bank Behemoth, Aukey is in a league of its own. Matched in quality, range, and customer service only by some of the industry’s best companies.
Aukey not only put out up-to-date, affordable power banks, but they also dabble in a variety of tech subcategories. I’ve been testing and using Aukey products for a long time and even their older models still hold up.
There’s no doubt that Aukey is one of the bigger power bank companies around. They boast distribution in more than 20 countries and their presence on Amazon.com is hard to miss. So just what does Aukey offer in terms of product range?
Aukey certainly doesn’t mind getting their feet wet in the electronics market. They have a range of lenses for smartphones, audio accessories, and even gaming keyboards and peripherals.
Where I think they really shine, however, is in their power banks. Aukey power banks always caught my eye as well-designed and generally pretty attractive products.
Aukey runs the full gamut with its power banks, everywhere from the lipstick-shaped USB-C 5000mAh power bank to the huge 20000mAh which looks it like could be one of the most reliable heavy-duty power banks on the market.
Aukey is now dipping its toes into the solar power bank market and I look forward to trying them.
Certainly one of the most reliable and popular brands on the market, Aukey provides up-to-date, quality power banks. With huge production numbers comes a little bit of uncertainty that your unit is going to work as well as the next one.
Luckily Aukey has a great track record with returns and decent customer communication. Honestly, it’s a pretty safe bet to buy an Aukey.
Recommended Aukey power bank
