Power up your life with the Mi 50W powerbank
View(s):By Mahesh de Andrado
Having a reliable powerbank with you can be a lifesaver (sometimes, literally). I found myself in need of a powerbank as my old one died. I had a few key requirements. It had to be a large capacity, and it also had to be able to charge my phone within the time that it would take my wired charger to (which is 33W), and it had to have a Type C port for charging both the powerbank and my phone. With these objectives, I set out to scout around and found the perfect candidate: The Xiaomi Mi 20000mAh 50W PowerBank.
The name pretty much gives away everything you need to know about the powerbank, with a few caveats. For starters, it has a Lithium-ion polymer battery clocking in at 74Wh (watt/hours), which is well under the 100Wh limit on commercial airlines. The rated capacity of the powerbank is actually 12000mAh at 5V/4A (once you take into account conversion). Safe to say, with modern powerbanks, the available capacity is about 2/3 that is noted on the box. So for my 20,000mAh powerbank, that would be around 12,000mAh. So I should be able to fully charge my phone twice and then some, which was perfectly fine for me.
The body of the Mi 20000mAh 50W PowerBank is made up of anodised metal with a UV paint treatment, giving it a somewhat matte texture, with glossy textures on the top and bottom of the device. The top houses dual USB-A ports and a USB Type-C port (which can be used to charge the powerbank as well), along with a button on the left side to show the battery percentage via 4 LEDs. Double tapping the button also enables the low current mode to charge things like your earbuds, smartwatch etc. While not exactly heavy, the powerbank weighs around 440g which is roughly twice the weight of my phone.
The Mi 20000mAh 50W PowerBank comes in a nice white box complete with reading materials (User guide and warranty/safety information) as well as a USB Type-C to Type-C cable. One thing I found cool was that the cable has an embedded E Marker chip, supporting a current of up to 5A. The chip ensures safe data and power delivery to and from the power source and the connected device.
The USB Type-A port has various output levels: 5V3A, 9V2.23A, 12V1.67A, and 10V2.25A. Using both USB Type-A ports simultaneously reduces the output to 5V3A. The USB Type-C port supports multiple output levels: 5V=3A, 9V=3A, 10V=5A, 12V=3A, 15V=3A, and 20V=2A. If all three ports are utilized, the combined output becomes 5V=4A, 9V⎓3A, 10V=5A, 12V=3A, 15V=3A, and 20V=2A.
Since I mainly utilize the Type-C port, this hasn’t posed any issues. As the name suggests, the power bank can deliver up to 50W of power to a device (using the provided USB Type-C to Type-C cable). Nonetheless, it’s important to highlight that the full 50W will only be supplied if your device can handle it. For instance, if your smartphone’s optimal charging rate is 25W, the power bank will charge the device at 25W. That being said, I encountered no problems while charging my Poco X3 Pro, Poco F1, earbuds, and smartwatch all in one go using a single charge from the power bank. The charging speeds matched expectations.
The power bank also incorporates various circuit protections, including temperature protection, short circuit protection, reset protection, input/output overvoltage protection, input/output overcurrent protection, overcharge and over-discharge protection, as well as hardware-level overcurrent short circuit protection.
Charging the powerbank takes around 4 hours with my 65W GaN charger and according to Xiaomi, will take approximately 11 hours on a 5V/2A charger, around 6.5 hours on a 18W charger and around 4.5 hours on a 45W charger, using the included charging cable. There is also a chance that the powerbank may not charge again if it is below 10% battery. This is probably because most regular chargers might not be able to deliver the required power to kickstart the charging on the powerbank, so you should either not let it drop below 10%, or invest in a 65W or faster charger.
For LKR 15,000, the Xiaomi Mi 20000mAh 50W PowerBank has a lot going for it. It packs a sizable battery, has multiple outputs, and can used to charge a plethora of devices such as Smartphones, Tablets, earbuds, smartwatches/fitness trackers, consoles such as the Nintendo Switch and even Macbooks, and laptops from Dell, HP, Lenovo and other brands that support charging over USB Type-C. It’s available at SimplyTek and you can even use Koko to make 3 monthly payments if you don’t want to make a one-time payment.
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