The LIGHTEST power banks in the WORLD (or that I could find…) || One FAILED on my thru hike 

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I appreciate a product review where real measurements are taken. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing words like “lightweight” or “it’s great” thrown around.

Good to see your stance on free gear, given the cost of branded gear its going to be an expensive choice but worth it for the viewers. Seeing other channels its pretty clear they are tainted by the free stuff they get, even if just subconsciously. I don't have the funds to support your work but am very grateful for the videos, keep it up, thank you!

Well done. As an electrical engineer it's always good to get a dose of reality and hard specs to quantify claims. Thank you!

Great review, I have one Anker and one Nitecore. I do prefer the Nitecore due to not having to carry a micro USB cable and having two outputs. Having a USB-C output allows me to only carry one cable to charge and recharge everything I carry. For weight, yeah, it's not appreciable by itself. The only thing is that if I have 20 items in my pack and they all weigh 30 grams more, I'm almost a pound and a half heavier. That said, $35 to save 30 grams isn't the best bang for the buck and if that was the only difference I would probably stick with the Anker.

Excellent video. I really enjoy your style; you're level-headed, detail-driven, firm-but-fair, and an overall down-to-earth guy. That's what makes me want to help out all the more with the evil mAh misconception that plagues any kind of discussion concerning battery banks. I really did try to do this with as few words as I could... Power (measured in Watts, with the symbol W) = Volts (V) x Amps (A). mAh (the common but misleading measure of a battery bank's capacity) is a measure of (thousandths of) Amps over a number of hours, i.e. mAh = 0.001 x A x h. However, Work (Wh) = W x h = V x A x h = V x 0.001 x mA x h. You can see how the work a battery can do is only partly represented by the Ah, but completely represented when you also specify the voltage. In other words, a battery bank's capacity is meaningless unless you also know the voltage at which it operates. When these awesome battery bank companies (and they ALL do it) quote their bank's capacity of 10,000 (or whatever) mAh, they neglect to tell you that that is with respect to the voltage of the cells within the bank (typically cylindrical 18650's, hence the shape of the Anker bank) which operate at 3.7 V. However, as the Nitecore bank instead uses pouches operating at 3.85 V, that's why you see a 38.5 Wh rating on the Nitecore bank = 3.85 x 0.001 x 10000 x 1. This actually goes a long way to explaining the difference in weight between the banks. Using the lower-voltage steel-encased 18650's makes the Anker slightly heavier, but they're much more readily available, hence much cheaper. No criticism here, just two different ways to build a battery bank. When charging the banks, you will always see more juice is required than this rating (to fully charge them) because of the losses (to the environment in the form of heat) incurred during charging (and also, in fact, during discharging). Why then do we see (at the 9:50 mark in your video) that the Nitcore only took 8926 mAh to charge it fully? That's less than 10000 mAh, right? Yes, but it took (in the same shot in the video) 44.67 Wh to charge it, which is 16% more than it actually holds. How does one explain this? Well, I truly expect the Klein numbers to be very accurate, and when you appreciate that that the charging voltage was actually ~5.14 V (that was just the final voltage-the voltage would actually have varied slightly over the course of the charging process) then you can see that you come out to ~45.88 Wh, almost exactly what was shown on the display. Does this tell us how much the bank holds? No, it really only tells us how much it took to charge it, but it is a good indicator (at least we were in the ballpark). BTW, losses anywhere from 10% to 20% are normal (less being better). So, what does that mean when comparing your charging results? Well, they're really pretty comparable. The fact that the Nitecore bank took a little more juice to fully charge it COULD mean it actually holds more (but necessarily). The fact that the Nitcore charged markedly faster, though, that is a positive takeaway for me. I think you made a very meaningful and useful comparison video. You really could choose either bank and be happy with your decision methinks! I hope this helps you and some of your viewers! Keep those videos coming!

The peanut butter made me 😂😂😂. So hyped that you're doing Patreon! I'm sure people can do honest reviews of gear they've gotten for free, but to me it feels more legit when people buy it just like everyone else would have to. It's not just ethics, I think having to actually hand over the cash makes estimating the value of an item easier. Like, of course I'd use all the super fancy stuff if it was free lol.

The VEEKTOMX Mini Power Bank 10000mAh weighs only 6.07oz (verified weight) and includes 22.5 watt fast charging

A Great feature to have is "pass through", so it allows you to carry an even lighter PowerBank, such as a 5.000mah, but along with a 130grams cheap semi-flexible solar panel of 9W, will give you endless hours of electricity. Since with pass through, you charge or devices while your micro powerbank charges from the sun! It works. Give it a try!

Great topic thank you!

I have the Anker. I was planning to buy the Nitecore until I realized the Anker was practically the same weight. No reason to spend $60 then.

Seeing as I could buy 3 anker powerbanks for the price of 1 nitecore, I am sure for the same money, I would have tons more charging capacity. Although, it would come at a significant weight penalty. I would still choose the anker. I have heard of others having issues with the nitecore. I would rather carry a tiny but of extra weight knowing something was going to work vs. Something that may not be reliable.

Aoguerbe 10000 mAh. Weighs 180g, has a MagSafe wireless charging option, and is available for about 18 USD if you search for the cheapest option.

I was just shopping for power banks and comparing weights, and realized how insignificant the savings are with the nitecore. Theyre negligible as well compared to my iniu powerbank pound for pound with the 25000 mah powerbank. Even size wise its not that niticably smaller if you were. To stack them up

I would pick the Anker

The usb-c charging is a big plus for me... ive only used the nightcore, I've had great luck with mine. I like that it's a lot slimmer so I can stick in any pocket I basically want. I've had to use the lock on feature for charging my headphones alone.

It's not that the actual number of mAh it holds is less than advertised - its the actual amount it can deliver to your device as it depletes due to loss in conversion when you pull power from it. The power bank for sure holds exactly the advertised amount - as do all legitimate and non-fake power banks.

I've had a 20k mAh Anker for like 6 years, some how still going strong no lack. I bought a 10k mAh Anker about 2 years ago and it's going just as hard as my first. That alone has made me an Anker fan. Nightcore is for lightweight heavy hitting headlamps. I own both the old and new nu-25 and love them forever, best lightweight headlamps.

well-timed video. I was just about to buy a new power bank, and now I'm going to use your link for the Anker. I trust Anker and I've used a heavier 8 oz 10k anker in the past, so I'll stick with the name I know and get the lighter one. Ounces are pounds!

I prefer to buy a power bank box and flashlight that both use a 26650 rechargeable battery. That way I get to purchase the features I want and the best quality of battery possible and maintain both devices over the years, instead of throw them out when the batteries don’t work well any longer. Two of those batteries are 10,000 Milliamps 😊 Thank you!

I tried the NB10000 and after it left me stranded with no power I quickly returned it. If the power button is pressed for 10 sec it will shutdown, requiring external power source to power up. The button was pressed in my pack while hiking and was very frustrated to find I had no power for the remainder of the trip. Nitecore also knows about this flaw, I mean hidden feature and has no plans to fix it. I replaced this with the Anker Nano, a little over 7oz, but has a built in USB-C cable along with an additional USB-C and USB-A and still cheaper than Nitecore. Anker for the win.

I will not tell your wife you did that to her kitchen scale!😁

💪

The best choice is the nite core carbo 10,000 :) it doesn’t have sharp corners that this other nite core power bank has!

If the Anker was USB C at roughly 180 grams I’d be sold

I have a different perspective. If you receive a piece of gear for free, and you haven't promised anything other than an objective review, I think that is the optimal situation. If you buy something with your own hard-earned money, we may subconsciously prop up that gear so we don't feel like we wasted our money. What are we more likely to toss? Something we got for free, or something we researched tenaciously, and developed some feelings about it even before we used it?

garmin watches need the low current mode

Mmmm... Peanut butter.

Anker is a well known name in power storage.

in the UL community you can't just say 30g is almost nothing. it is more than a third of the weight of my backpack (86g, a Salewa Vector 25) ;-)

Isn't 30g 20% heavier? Most people carry about a hundred items backpacking. If each one weighed 30g more, that's 3kg = 6..6lbs. Otoh, paying $40 to lower the weight of each of those hundred items by those 30g would be $4,000, so the comparison might not be perfect? But it's not just the weight that makes Nitecore better, it's that its USB-c is "PD" (Power-Delivery), meaning it can figure-out the optimal voltage and current to utilize both when charging and when being charged. Fact is, if DoD had a better wall-charger, he should be able to charge the Nitecore from zero to full in 1hr and 36min. With similar advantages charging other devices. Where this author loves the Nitecore is when accepting power from a solar-panel, because unlike lesser power-banks, Nitecore recognizes it's being charged and sucks-in every electron being fed by the solar-panel. Have walked-out of the wilderness after 9-days and into town carrying a tiny 2W solar-panel with every device and the Nitecore fully charged. Attribute that (essentially) infinite trail-power capability to the Nitecore. May run out of food, but will never run out of power. ______________ Regarding the trickle-charge function, Nitecore shuts off automatically when a phone or other larger device is full, in order to save the power of feeding an already full device. However, some small devices can appear to be full when they won't accept much current. If you find your small devices weren't being fully charged, trickle-charge will ensure full-charging. User has to look for it, because everything appears normal upon initial plug-in and even when charging ends, but the small device may not be fully charged. Maybe it's only half-charged? It's worth checking. Otoh, leaving a device on a lesser power-bank may unduly deplete the power-bank? If say, someone were to leave a watch or earbuds on that Anker when they went to bed, they might find they'd lost a portion of the small device's capacity in the morning, and without even noticing. Leaving a larger device loses even more power. It's bad for the device and the user wonders why he's not getting as much out of his battery-bank as he expected.