This RAVPower battery bank is the first on the market with Quick Charge 3.0 (Review)

The market is saturated with portable battery chargers. It makes sense since we’re constantly on our phones. We’re a generation that demands instant gratification, and that’s pretty hard to pull off with a dead phone. Studies have even shown that people get anxiety when their phone dies!

Phone manufacturers keep trying to make their phones as thin as possible instead of adding bigger batteries. So what are your options? Many phones don’t have swappable batteries, so that leaves the vast majority of us with portable batteries as our only backup.

When checking out portable batteries, I look for two things first: speed and capacity. That’s why when RAVPower offered me the chance to take a look at its 20100 mAh Quick Charge 3.0 Portable Charger, I jumped at the chance.

Design

The RAVPower QC 3.0 Portable Charger is not a fashion accessory. It doesn’t try to be. It’s simple, and I like that. The body is made out of a scratch-resistant, matte black hard plastic that feels like it will hold up to drops just fine. There’s a definite weight to it due to all of the hardware inside, but it isn’t so heavy it becomes burdensome.

You won’t be carrying this around in your pocket. That’s not only due to the weight, but also because it’s about 6.5 inches long. Add in that it’s three inches wide, and that’s a recipe for discomfort if you’re trying to fit this in a pocket. This is definitely better suited to be carried in a bag and set on a table for use.

The top of the battery has LEDs and a corresponding button at the bottom left. A simple press will light up the LEDs indicating how much battery you have left. If this were a smaller battery, I may be looking for a more precise measurement, but it has such a large capacity that even if I only have one LED lit up, that’s more than likely still going to be enough to fill up my phone. A RAVPower logo is printed on the right, providing a nice offset design. Nothing too gaudy here.

On the bottom of the battery, the only thing we find are the specs and certifications. Every side of the battery is bare, except one which houses ports for a Micro USB in to charge the battery, and a USB Type-C port, and two USB Type-A ports.

Function

• Model: RP-PB043
• Capacity: 20100 mAh/74.3Wh
• QC 3.0 Input: DC 5V~12V 2AMax
• Type C-Input: DC 5V 3A Max
• iSmart Output: DC 5V 2.4A Max
• QC 3.0 Output: DC 5V 2.4A/6.5V~9V 1.5A/ 9V~12V 1.2A Max
• Type-C Output: DC 5V 3A Max

These four ports all serve different functions. You normally see only two ports on a battery, one going in and one going out, but those batteries don’t hold a candle to the RAVPower Portable Charger. Let’s start with the lone Micro USB port. The Micro USB port has quick charging IN. I honestly haven’t seen many batteries that have the ability to use Quick Charge to recharge the batteries. That’s pretty cool and useful.

The three other ports all serve different purposes. First off, we have the USB Type-C port. As a Nexus 6P owner, this is one of my favorite things out there. I don’t need to carry two different cables or one of these with multiple extensions anymore. I can just carry my one USB Type-C cable and use my battery anywhere. Super convenient. The USB Type-C port pushes 3A and it maxes out around 1300 mA in real world scenarios. Not only can the USB Type-C port connects to your Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, or LG G5, but it can also receive power from a wall charger or phone too.

We have one “iSmart” 2.4A USB port for your iFriends to recharge their devices. But, the port that makes this battery special is the USB Type-A QC 3.0/2.0 port. RAVPower claims this is the first portable battery on the market to support Quick Charge 3.0. The technology is so new that there almost no phones out that support QC 3.0! The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and LG G5 will be a couple of the first on the market to support it.

Quick Charge 3.0 is a very nice upgrade over Quick Charge 2.0 The new standard is said to be 15% more efficient, 27% faster, and reduces power consumption by up to 45%. That’s pretty impressive.

Usage

I travel a lot. My wife has family on the east coast (we live in Ohio), and the beach is like a second home to us. I can’t tell you how annoyed I get every time I have to pack a bag with four wall bricks, four cables, and two backup batteries. What a mess.

The RAVPower Portable Charger is going to replace all of that. I know I’m not going to get all 20,100 mAh out of this battery. Yes, some is lost through inefficiencies, but it’s big enough to get the job done. Multiple times. And, when it’s getting low, I’ll throw it on a family member’s charger for a while to charge it back up.

I’ve kept this in my bag since I got it. It bangs around in there with all of my crap and still looks and functions flawlessly. I keep it in the carrying bag that RAVPower includes, and that seems to do a pretty good job keeping it look clean and new. Even if I didn’t have a bag to protect it, it has scratch resistance due to the construction materials. This thing is a tank.

What I like:

• The fastest charging technology available
• Huge capacity
• Scratch resistance
• Matte black casing
• Well built

What I didn’t like:

• Heavy for a battery (13.3 ounces)
• The body is pretty big to accommodate all of the batteries inside
• A bit pricey at $69.99

Summary

Portable batteries are a dime a dozen. If you shop long enough, you’ll run into some pretty decent deals here and there. They’ve gotten cheaper as time as gone on, but I feel like RAVPower has taken a big leap forward with this Portable Charger. I can’t overstate enough just how convenient quick charging is. No more sitting around for three hours waiting for your phone to charge up. Who has time for that? Now you can be on the go and keep your phone charged, and charge it quickly.

Product Link: RAVPower Portable Charger with QuickCharge 3.0