PowerCore+ mini 3350

I am relatively new to the whole smartphone thing -- I only got my first smartphone in the summer of 2013 -- so I continue to struggle to adapt to the different landscape that is the smartphone. A "feature phone" (or "dumb phone," as my dad calls it) has a battery that can last for several days of moderate use. A smartphone can last about a day and a half of moderate use, and forget about using it heavily for a day. Your battery will run out, and you are left looking for an outlet (and hoping that you remembered a charger), or you are suddenly without your phone! This happened to me one too many times, and I came to Amazon looking for a device like my friends' iphone second-battery attachment, but for a different type of smartphone. What I found instead was a little "lipstick-style" battery pack that I could attach as needed to my smartphone to have an extra portable charge. I was skeptical -- can a whole charge really fit in something this size? And does it make sense to charge from a device like this? I'm not an electrical engineer, but I remember a whole thing about AC to DC to AC conversion that a friend of mine told me once. Still, it was worth a shot, so I got one. In short, I am extremely pleased with this device. Let me tell you why. 1. Portability. They say it's a "lipstick style" battery pack, but you should know it is bigger than a lipstick. It's about the size of a roll of quarters, though, so it's not that much bigger. It's reasonably light, and it comes with a little usb cord and a little cloth baggie to put both the battery pack and the cord into. I wouldn't say that you should carry this around in your jeans pocket -- it would be a little bulky for that -- but it definitely could go in a medium-sized purse or a coat pocket or briefcase. In a standard backpack, you'll forget it's there until you need it. You can even have your phone plugged into it while you carry the phone around, if you don't mind the bulk of the two items in your pockets at the same time. 2. Functionality. It charges pretty quickly, or at least no more slowly than my wall/car charger does. I have charged my smartphone (a Samsung Galaxy Stellar) from about 10% to 100% with no problem, and I even used this to charge a digital camera with an internal battery. In fact, I used it to power AND charge that camera, so I was able to use the camera even as it charged. I'm not sure how much charging the battery pack can actually do on a single charge, because I'm not an engineer/physicist, but it certainly fulfills my basic needs for modern usb-powered devices. 3. How to use it. Okay, so the one thing that it didn't come with (which I sort of think it should) is an AC-to-USB power converter. That said, maybe Anker is trying to appeal to the international market by not including such a device. Plus, who doesn't have a dozen devices in their homes with USB ports at this point? Anyway, you plug the USB-Micro end of the cord into the Anker, and then the other end goes into a USB port on a computer or charger brick. Then you let it charge until the LED light on the Anker turns from yellow to off. Then, when you want to charge a device, you change the plug so that the USB-Micro end plugs into the device you want to charge, and the other end of the USB cable plugs into the Anker. (Note: this means that you can charge the Anker only with a USB-Micro cable, but you can use any USB cable to charge a device, though I haven't tried anything other than my smartphone). Now, once you have plugged in the device, you have to press the little button on the Anker! I cursed Anker's hearts the first time I tried to use this thing, because I didn't read the instruction manual and thought I had been swindled. Nope, I'm just kind of dumb. I pressed the button and VOILA! It started charging. I keep meaning to see if the Anker will power my usb-powered speakers, because that would be really neat. I haven't tried it yet, though. 4. Aesthetics. This seems silly, I know, but I really like the look and feel of this battery pack. No joke, it's just kind of satisfying how it looks and feels. I can't put my finger on it. Sometimes, I just like using electronic devices. This is one of those times. I I'd recommend the Anker mini battery packs to anyone who wants to carry around a little extra juice. You'll probably get a charge, maybe a charge and a half (depending on your smartphone make and model) out of it. For this price point, you can probably get two, if you're really worried about it.

I thought it about time to finally write a review about an Anker product. I am so impressed with this company and I hope that this may help others choose what I believe are the best products on the market. Over the past 3 years i have purchased multiple products form Anker. I don't remember how I first heard of the company or decided to buy/try the product, but I do remember it was a portable battery charger. If I remember correctly, it was one of the Astro products. I remember being so impressed with the charger that When I needed a specific product, I would look to see if Anker produced and sold it. Over the past 3 years I've purchased the following products. One 24W Dual Port rapid charger, four 40w family chargers, four 3 feet lightning cables, two 2nd generation Astro 3 chargers, 2 slim she'll 6s plus case protectors, 11 tempered glass protectors for various Iphones, 2 power core plus mini's, 10 6' lightning connectors, power line micro usb 5 pack, 2 CD slot car mounts and a premium aux audio cable. You must be thinking " what the heck is this guy doing with 10 of this or 6 of that. Every product I've listed, I bought and was so impressed with every aspect from the packaging to performance of the product that I have started giving them away as birthday and Christmas presents. For example , the CD slot car mount was the best mount I've ever purchased and believe me when I say " I've owned at least 10 mounts over the years" and they are all garbage when compared to the Anker mount. I had to have one for each vehicle. If you do not use you CD tray in your car to play CD's then this is the best phone mount you can buy. I've had a couple of problems with the 40W family chargers. 2 of the original chargers had a couple of the ports stop working. I called the Anker support line and all I can say is the customer service is a 15 on a scale of 1 to 10. They sent me a replacement product and no questions were asked. It was just done. I've had no further problems with the chargers and my children all have a 5 port charger as well as one behind the couch. One plug, one charger, 5 ports, 5 lightning cables and I have no more complaining children!!! I started this review to specifically talk about the PowerCore+ Mini. I received the product yesterday and was satisfied with the packaging. It was not what I am accustomed to with Anker products, but it was ok. If you buy an Apple product you will understand what I mean when I say "the packaging is as beautiful as the item inside" and you know the company has put tremendous effort into the small details. Anker is by no means on par with Apple but they are one of the BEST I've come across. The packaging was ok, but I have to mention that the thought did cross my mind that it could have been done a little better. I unboxed the mini and what I found inside was exactly what I expected. A beautifully crafted product that looks just as good as anything Apple might produce. I was very impressed with the aluminum body and the front layout with the led button. My second thought was " once USB Type- C becomes widely adopted and you have only one small connector on the front for charging and loading, this will be a slam dunk. I thought to myself, " If Anker would adopt the Type-C interface on this product, they could likely increase the battery size another 20 to 30%. Needless to say, I was impressed. I plugged the unit in and let it fully charge overnight. As you see in the list above, I have a couple of the larger Astro 3 chargers and I get multiple charges of my iPhone with those larger units. I'm thinking to myself, " what can this tiny thing do"? I decided that I would carry the charger with me all day and finally plug it into my phone after the battery goes dead. Now this was not as easy as you think it may be. I have the new iPhone 6s Plus with a 2750 mah battery and that thing last all day. I've had the phone 3 weeks now and I've never had the battery go dead on me. I've been close a few times, but never needed to hook it up to my Astro 3 for a boost. Driving out of Manhattan today I had my phone running 3 GPS navigation programs and had you tube playing videos all just to kill the battery. I finally noticed that the phone was dead and at exactly 7:00pm I plugged the Mini into the iPhone . 1 hour later It was at 33% and the light changed to yellow. At 1 hour 35 minutes I checked and it was at 49%. At 2 hours the light started blinking red and my phone was at 78%. I did turn on airplane mode as soon as the phone powered up. I wanted to get an idea of what the battery could do and be able for others to repeat the process under the same conditions. In my opinion, the only way to get close to this is to activate airplane mode for the duration of the loading. I was amazed at how far this tiny lipstick charger performed. I believe this is the perfect charger to carry all day just in case you need a boost. I would never replace my Astro chargers but this is the perfect compliment to my collection. :) Summery: This is the perfect product to grab when heading to the supermarket and realizing your phone is at 3%. With the mini, you have a product that can solve the "going out to dinner" and realizing your phone is almost dead problem. I would not carry this on the all day hiking trip where I know my phone GPS will be gobbling up power and I may not be home till late at night. I would have my trusty Astro 3 in my backpack. I am sure I will be using this charger almost every day!!

I'd like to start by saying that this little guy does his job really well, and despite any grievances I might have with him, he is still my go-to out of my portable chargers purely due to his small size and decent amount of charge. The Anker powerCore+ mini is definitely a good product, it does a decent job of charging your phone and it'll charge an iPhone 5S from about 20% to full twice before dying out. There is definitely nothing wrong with how the product is being sold, the truth is it works like a charm and has no annoying tendencies to power on randomly or discharge a lot of electricity which hinders its performance. I will say, however, that it does have a nasty little habit of not turning on when you press the button and when you plug in your phone. Additionally, it takes quite a while to charge, mine won't charge from red to green for about 6 or 7 hours, which, considering how you only get 1-2 phone charges off of it, is a little underwhelming. It also is limited to usb, which means that it will not work for those who have older phones and need to charge them. Lastly, it does not charge using the usb port, so never lose that cord that comes in the box. Overall, I'd say this product deserves the 4 stars it gets from me, however, by that logic, it also earned the loss of one star due to its random and seemingly unnecessary defects.

This is my second Anker Astro Mini 3000, and the Mini was my first Anker purchase, my "gateway" product that introduced me to Anker. Like most companies, they make good stuff, but what has really set Anker apart is their attention to customer satisfaction. Plan on being happy with what you get from Anker, their designs are simple, smooth and elegant; but as with any piece of electronic equipment, sometimes they don't work perfectly coming off the assembly line. Anker will make it right and you will quickly find that you, too, will get sucked into looking at more of their stuff because Anker stood by what you bought. Mine have worked flawlessly from the get go, but if you read reviews for Anker products, if someone has an issue, Anker fixed it ASAP. It's rare to see that type of proactive customer service. And it's awesome. When I posted my 1st review on the Astro Mini 3000, Anker sent me a follow-up message to see how I was enjoying the product. It does great at phone charging, totally convenient and invisible in a jacket or pants pocket. I can even throw my phone [a Nokia N9] into my pants pocket *with* the Mini attached because I'm low on phone power and it doesn't look all "Is that a phone charger in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" I can use the phone with the Mini attached and it isn't too clunky. This is a very convenient product for phones. The Mini is small, lipstick case sized, and will provide a smart phone with more than a full charge. If you need more than one full charge + a little bit while you're out and about, get a bigger battery from Anker. They have a lot of different sizes avaiable, but none as conveniently sized as the Mini. My favorite feature is that the Mini outputs 1 full Amp of charging power. You'll find most USB chargers, wall chargers, etc., will output .8A, what this means is that using the Mini [or most any of Anker's external batteries] will get your device charged *faster* than when plugged in at home. Sometimes I'll use the battery to charge my phone or GPS for a daily maintenance charge because it *is* faster and I don't have to wait as long as the wall charger. I've got places to be! Anker was interested in how else I use the Mini; I use it mounted on my mountain bike stem to power my handle bar-mounted GPS because I often ride longer than my GPS' 6-hour battery life. I have a 24-hour mountain bike race in February and the Mini will be mounted as a necessary piece of equipment on my bike for the race to let me track and log the entire 250 or so miles. So Anker supplied me this 2nd Mini to mount on my bike and sample for test and evaluation, and I promised that my review is fair and honest. For the price, you can't go wrong, a car charger is almost as much as the Mini 3000 and nowhere near as convenient. Get one. Or two or three. Great stocking stuffers too!

This super portable charger is a handy thing to have if you're a heavy phone user, and you need assurance that your phone won't die in the middle of the day. It's small enough to store in any pocket or bag, and light enough that you won't even notice it. I bring it with me every day, and I gotta say, on sunny days when I need to turn my screen to 100% brightness, this little guy has saved my butt a couple of times. It has at least 1 full charge for my iPhone 6, and I would even say it has enough juice to charge it to 30 or 40% if it ran out of battery AGAIN, which basically means it amounts to 130% worth of iPhone 6 battery. That's not a lot, but it's enough if you're just carrying it with you for the day. I charge mine at night whenever I need to use it, and it doesn't charge lightning fast but I don't need it to, so that's fine. The power button initiates the charging, so even if you plug your iphone into it, it won't start charging until you turn it on. The light changes from green to yellow to red depending on how much charge is left. But I also found that there was no way to turn OFF the charger once I was done using it. Pressing the power button when it's already on doesn't do anything. That's not a huge deal, though. Usually I just unplug it from my phone and put it back in a pouch so it can turn off by itself. All in all, it's a great thing to have. It's convenient, and helps a lot. I'd recommend it for anyone who uses their phone constantly throughout the day, and have to hold their breath when they're on 7% until they get home.

*** Update #2 *** No change in rating but I do want to offer a few points of clarification. Anker reached out to me regarding my review and offered a clarification and a chance to review another of their products. First the clarification: the Anker PowerCore + mini is a 1A device, whereas the RAVPower 3350 is a 2.4A device. Therefore, it makes sense that the RAVPower will offer the benefits discussed below. However, my review was based upon similar sized and priced devices and comparing the two I would still recommend the RAVPower over this Anker device. However, I don't recommend either now. Anker also provided me a free device, the Anker Astro E1 6700mAh ( [Upgraded to 6700mAh] Anker Astro E1 Candy-Bar Sized Ultra Compact Portable Charger, External Battery Power Bank, with High-Speed Charging PowerIQ Technology (Black) ). It is similarly priced (slightly higher price, but in the same range) and similarly sized (slightly larger, but in the same range) and offers more charge (6700 vs. 3350). The trade-off on price and size charge are worth it. Also, the Anker E1 does not get hot, even during fast charge. I really liked the E1 device and recommend that device over both the RAVPower and Powercore+ mini. *** Updated #1 *** Dropping to 3 star (from 5 star) after using the RAVPower Luster Mini 3350mA ( RAVPower Luster Mini 3350mAh Portable Charger External Battery Pack Battery Bank Most Compact Power Bank with iSmart 2.0 Technology (2.4A Output, 2A Input) for Smartphones and More (Black) . The RAV has more capacity (effectively) and a much faster power charge (with very similar heat generated). No downside to the RAV as compared to the Anker. *** Original Review *** I purchased the Anker power bank for a recent trip. My aging phone has been overheating and burning through battery life and needed to have back-up power for my trip through various amusement parks. The Anker worked great in providing daily charge to my phone. No overheating (wish I could say that for the phone) and still provided very fast recharging. It was a great, small profile. At times I forgot I had it in my pocket.

Well, hard to know what brought you to this item, but assume it to be a wall charger for your device without the wall :-). It isn't simply like an extra battery or battery pack (although it could do that too), it is designed as a portable battery charger. Right now I use my Android phone for two serious power hungry applications. Both applications require GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi to be enabled all the time. One is a Golf app (GolfPadGPS) that gives you every geo function imaginable from distance to pin to Google Maps of the hole, including location, club and distance of every shot hit to a database recording everything forever. The other app is a Garmin GPS for flying airplanes and it communicates, GPS, Bluetooth and wireless and talks to several connected devices from music, to tower audio to WASS GPS and ADS-B connectivity. They all use a lot of power and my Android note has an 1600 ma battery. That makes this last about 2 hours and it dies. I can do a lot with the gold app by turning off functions, but it's still hard to get 4-5 hours of "on" time. When I get the "Battery low, plug device into a charger" warning, I plug this in, push the on button and everything goes back to full power *AND* it has enough juice left over to recharge my device. I can usually finish my flight or my round of gold and have a 100% recharged phone. It provides twice the power of my phone battery and can discharge at a very high rate, which is why it can charge my phone while running everything on board. It's light, easy to use and appear fairly rugged. I added a Velcro strip to keep it attached to my phone when in use, but it comes with a little carry bag, cable that can be used for charging it and discharging to a phone. As a guess, I'd say I can get eight or nine hours of high energy usage. I have not tried watching high def movies with it, but I am 100% certain you could watch 2 3-hour hi def movies during a flight. If you were going to be downloading them wirelessly while watching, I'm certain you could watch at least 2 2-hour movies and probably three, but that's nine hours at full power with wireless and video and that may use up more than this device offers. The good news is you could have two with you if you were doing overseas flights that required 9-12 hours of video time. Excellent product, excellent service.

I must preface my review of this product by explaining my purpose in purchasing it. After traveling to Asia for over 50 years, I can no longer carry tons of luggage. In celebration of my seniority of 70 years, I am making my next two-month trip with just a small Marmot backpack and an Eagle Creek Load Hauler Expandable duffel. Both packs qualify as carry-ons, which also means no waiting at baggage carousels and no lost bags! Packing weight and compactness is my primary motivation for anything I take on the next trip. I have a three-year-old Anker Astro E7 26,800 mAh charger, which works great but weighs a tenth of an ounce under one pound. One extra pound is too much for this trip, so I chose the Anker PowerCore+ Mini 3350 mAh lipstick charger, which weighs around three ounces. I started charging my iPhone X at 9 AM, which was indicating the handset was down to 14% charge. I used a genuine Apple USB - Lightning cable. Two hours later, the iPhone X was up to 86% charge and the PowerCore+ went from solid red lights to flashing red lights, indicating the PowerCore+ was about dead at 5%. At 11:03 AM the PowerCore+ Mini 3350 indicator lights stopped, indicating that charging had stopped. The PowerCore+ Mini 3350 was depleted and the iPhone X was at 89% charge. By my calculations, the PowerCore+ Mini 3350 was overrated by a considerable amount of power. I only got 2,417 mAh of power from an Anker product rated at 3,350 mAh! Hmmm, 75% charge. This was only the second full charge on the phone X and the first time the PowerCore+ Mini 3350 was used to charge anything. But wait! Perhaps my test was flawed. Is it possible from the time the PowerCore+ Mini 3350 was manufactured, initially charged and shipped, it had lost considerable power before I used it? Did the manufacturer fully charge the PowerCore+ ? I pulled out my iPhone 6S Plus that has a battery rating of 2,915 mAh. After charging my PowerCore+ Mini 3350 back up to 100%, I then connected it to the iPhone 6S Plus at 4:13 PM. Two hours later, at 6:15 PM the handset was at 88% charge, and the indicator light on the PowerCore+ was still yellow. 6:29 PM 91%. 6:46 PM 94%. At 7:01 PM, the red indicator light on the PowerCore+ came on with the charge on the iPhone 6S Plus registering 96%. At 7:45 PM, the handset was fully charged. About the same time, the PowerCore+ red light turned off, indicating its internal battery was depleted. I think I can say that you will get at least one full charge from a handset that has at least 14% charge left. More important, many people on Amazon ​and other sites leave poor reviews based on flawed testing. I was looking for a charger that would provide me with one full charge after my handset’s battery was almost depleted. The PowerCore+ delivered, so it gets full marks. Lessons learned; pack light and fully charge!