With its 533 PowerCore, Anker offers an exciting and compact power bank. This offers 10,000 mAh capacity and a maximum output power of 30W via the USB Power Delivery ports.
This sounds very good at first! Especially if you are looking for a portable smartphone power bank.
However, Anker also wants a slim €50 for the PowerCore 533 A1256. Quite a bit for a power bank with these technical data.
Let’s take a look at whether the power bank is convincing in the test!
Test: Anker 533 PowerCore Powerbank 10.000mAh mit 30W Power Delivery
I think the Anker 533 is a really nice power bank! It is made entirely of plastic, but the front has a reflective, three-dimensional surface, which I really like!
There is also a small LCD display hidden under the cover on the front, but more on this later.
At 98.5 x 52 x 25.6 mm and a weight of 212g, the Anker 533 PowerCore is sufficiently compact for a 10,000 mAh power bank, but certainly not tiny either.
If you are looking for the absolutely smallest 10,000 mAh power bank, then take a look at my article on the best lightweight power banks, ideal for hiking.
But in general I am more than satisfied with the dimensions and the case.
The connections of the Anker A1256 533 PowerCore
The power bank has 2x USB C and 1x USB A on the front.
2x USB C Power Deliver 30W – 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 10V/2,5A, 12V/2,25A, 15V/2A, 20V/1,5A
1x USB A Quick Charge 18W – 5V/3A, 9V/2A, 10V/2,25A, 12V/1,5A
Basically we have a good combination of USB Power Delivery ports and a USB A Quick Charge port.
With up to 30W output power, the USB C ports are also quite powerful. The Anker 533 PowerCore is not or only partially suitable for larger devices such as notebooks, but 30W is good performance for smartphones, tablets and the Nintendo Switch, for example!
Important, you can only use one power port if you want to fast charge! If you use several ports at the same time, they will be throttled to 5V and fast charging will not be available.
The power bank is also charged via the USB C ports, but with a maximum of 18W.
The display, a little disappointment!
The Anker 533 PowerCore has a small LCD color display on the front. I assumed that this would be functionally comparable to Anker’s Prime power banks.
And at first glance this is true. So we have a % display for the charge level, as well as a display of the remaining charging/usage time.
The latter shows me that the power bank must have power-measuring electronics.
Unfortunately, the power bank can’t display anything other than the charge level and usage time, or I’m too stupid to switch this.
Overheating at 30W power!?
I noticed something interesting about the Anker 533. Apparently the power bank cannot consistently deliver the power of 30W!
So after a very short time (approx. 40% discharged) my power bank simply throttled down from 20V/1.5A (on an electronic load) to 9V/1.5A.
This process can be reproduced 100% for me. For this I use an electronic load, which should actually constantly draw power from the power bank.
But of course there is a possibility that this is a “bug” with my electronic load and the power bank. However, I did two more tests here.
Once I pointed a fan at the power bank, which meant that the throttling occurred significantly later.
On the other hand, I hooked my MacBook Pro 13 M1 to the power bank.
So we can see here that even when charging the MacBook, the voltage dropped from 20V to 9V after about 33 minutes. That’s ok for the MacBook, it can also charge with 9V, but there are devices that need 20V to charge.
This is not a problem for smartphones.
As usual with such discoveries, it could be a fault with my power bank or with my testing method, but I think Anker is asking a bit too much from the small power bank at 30W.
Mit PPS
Fortunately, the power bank supports the PPS standard!
3.3-11V at up to 2.7A
Very nice! This means that the power bank can charge Samsung smartphones with up to 25W, which would not be possible without PPS.
“No 10,000 mAh capacity!!!!” The capacity measurement
I noticed a few comments on Amazon complaining about the capacity of the power bank.
I’m always a bit cautious here, because many people believe that if you buy a 10,000 mAh power bank, they can charge their 5000 mAh smartphone twice. But it doesn’t work that way.
The manufacturer’s information always refers to the capacity of the battery cells installed inside, here 2x 5000 mAh. However, discharging is not 100% efficient due to internal voltage conversions. In practice, you can expect 80-90% “real” usable capacity. Your smartphone doesn’t charge 100% efficiently either! So you can expect that if your smartphone has a 5000 mAh battery, it will need +- 6000 mAh for a full charge.
This can make it appear as if a power bank has much less capacity than it actually does, which can explain such comments.
But let’s take a look at the measurements of the Anker 533 PowerCore Powerbank 10,000mAh.
Anker advertises here with 10,000 mAh or 36 Wh, the latter being the more precise specification.
Wh
mAh @3,6V
5V/1A
29.629
8230
82%
9V/2A
29.388
8163
82%
12V/1A
28.931
8036
80%
12V/1,5A
29.358
8155
82%
20V/1,5A
28.2889
7858
79%
So the capacity of the power bank is okay, but is definitely at the lower end of acceptable.
At best I got 26.629 Wh or 8230 mAh @3.6V. That’s not a great value, but this is around 80%, which is within limits.
So yes, the “usable” capacity of the power bank is not absolutely fantastic and there are definitely power banks that can do more, but the capacity is not completely wrong either.
Charging time
According to the manufacturer, you can charge the Anker 533 PowerCore power bank with up to 18W using a corresponding USB Power Delivery charger (with 18W or more).
And yes, that fits! The power bank charges with 17-18W at its peak. A full charge on a USB Power Delivery charger takes around 2:35 hours.
You can also charge the power bank using a classic USB A charger, but charging takes around 4:35 hours.
Basically, the power bank charges quite quickly.
Conclusion
To be honest, I’m having a bit of a hard time with the Anker 533 PowerCore power bank. Personally, I simply wouldn’t buy it, even though it does have very positive points!
So we basically have a 30W output power as well as a relatively large PPS level! For example, this power bank can generally charge Samsung Galaxy smartphones with up to 25W, thanks to the PPS level.
This is not a given for a 10,000 mAh power bank! In general, I know of few 10,000 mAh power banks that are compact and have more than 20W of power!
Therefore, if these are points that are important to you, especially the 30W and PPS, then there are simply few alternatives.
However, there are also some points that I don’t like.
The capacity is OK at a maximum of 26.629 Wh or 8230 mAh @3.6V, but not outstanding either. The display looks nice at first glance, but in practice it doesn’t do much more than a simple % display. Anker can do this better, see the Prime power banks. During the test I had problems getting a constant 30W from the power bank, I suspect temperature problems with this! The price is high at €50.
The bottom line is that I cannot universally recommend the power bank! I would choose the INIU 10000mAh power bank. This only has a 20W USB C output, but it only costs half as much, has more capacity and essentially does everything that the Anker 533 PowerCore does.