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Anker is pretty well-known for its battery and other smartphone accessories. And the company has gotten into doing some really cool battery packs as of late, with GaN technology and adding displays to their batteries. Now the Anker Nano Power Bank is the latest in that lineup.
This power bank was announced back at IFA in August, and is a really useful battery pack. It has an embedded USB-C cable, which is really useful now that the iPhone 15 series has USB-C. It does also have USB-C and USB-A ports available, and can charge at up to 30W. So it’s not a super powerful battery pack, but for its size, that’s okay.
All of Anker’s most recent battery packs and chargers have been using Gallium Nitride inside, instead of silicon. Gallium Nitride or GaN for short, is able to keep the battery cooler with less space. Allowing the battery pack to be pretty small. You might not believe it, but this is a 10,000mAh capacity battery. A few years ago, this would have been the size of a 5,000mAh capacity battery.
It does come in a slew of colors, like black and Ice Lake Blue. This green color that I have is apparently not available just yet. But it does look pretty cool and is similar in color to the iPhone 15 green.
Adding a display to a power bank is genius
There are some things that companies do that really just feel like they are gimmicks. At first, I thought adding a screen to a power bank was one of those things. But it’s quite the opposite. This battery pack has a screen on the front, which is hard to see since it blends in so well, until you press the button on the top.
This screen will show you the current charge of the battery pack. So no more guesstimating the charge level from a handful of LED lights. It also shows you how long it can charge whatever it’s charging, or how long until it is fully charged. Two metrics that are also very useful.
And that’s about it. That’s really all that it needs to do though. This is already super useful. But the one downside is that it is pretty slow to turn on. Pressing the button on the top, it sometimes takes up to 30 seconds for the screen to actually turn on. So keep that in mind here.
Embedded USB-C port means packing fewer cables
Having an embedded USB-C cable on this power bank is really nice, as it means that you can pack just this, and not another cable. You will need to bring a wall charger though, to recharge it. That’s because that USB-C cable is able to do input and output. Talk about convenience. So you can pack this and a wall wart, and be good to go.
And because it is using USB-C, it means it can charge any Android phone and the new iPhone 15 models. So you can share your battery pack with your friends, with ease.
Should you buy the Anker Nano Power Bank?
For iPhone users, I’d recommend getting Anker’s MagSafe battery pack, or another brands as well. Those are even easier to take on the go with you, and no wires needed. But something that is super versatile, this is what you want. Since this can charge my iPhone, my MacBook and even my Pixel Fold.
Sure the charging speed is a bit on the slow side, but I’d take the capacity over faster charging here. You can pick up the Anker Nano Power Bank from Amazon using the link below.
Anker Nano Power Bank - Amazon
