Are you tired of your phone’s battery dying during the middle of the day, and finding an outlet can possibly be a chore? Does your tablet need some extra juice to get through the day? Well, Anker is at it again; releasing their newest slim line power bank, named the Astro Slim2. This slim power bank boasts a cool 4500mAh Li-Ion battery, which will help you recharge your gadgets throughout the day, should you need a little jump.
This lightweight, very slim, seemingly easy to use power bank can be had on Amazon for $27.99 shipped. That sounds like one great deal for a convenient way to give your gadgets a little more power during the day.
Taking a quick look at the outside of the packaging, the front and sides don’t really show you much.
When you look at the rear, you’ll notice plenty of information in regards to the power bank’s features. We’ll get into those features in a bit, but you can find the tech specs about this power bank below.
Anker Astro Slim2 Specifications:
Capacity: 4500mAhOutput: 2x DC 5V / 1AInput: DC 5V / 1AWeight: 113g (3.9oz)Size: 4.88 x 1.34 x 0.39inUnit Recharge Time: 4-5 hours (via USB)MTBF: 500+ chargesWarranty: 18 monthsWhen I popped open the box, everything was in there all nice and neat. I was actually quite deceived by the wording “Accessory Bag” on one of the small boxes, so I feel it necessary to point out. I thought there would have been a small pouch inside with the cables and adapters, but they were all just loosely fitting in the small box. No big deal, but it was a poor choice of words on the box.
The accessories that are included are the Micro USB cable, Mini USB adapter, and a 30-pin Apple connector.
With an 18 month warranty, this should help with your buying decisions, as you know you are getting a quality product.
Anker states the finish is a grippy surface, but in all honesty it doesn't really do that. It’s a matte plastic that has a slight grip to it, but it isn’t rubberized. If it were rubberized, I would say this power bank would be darn near perfect! The finish on it may or may not mess with the finish on whatever you rest it against. In my case, I did not notice any new scratches on my Galaxy S3 after having the power bank and it in my pocket for a couple days.
A quick tour around the Anker Astro Slim2 Power Bank, up top you’ll see four LEDs (left hand side of the below picture). These LEDs are a white in color and represent 25% increments for the battery charge. When you're down to the last 5%, the last LED will begin to blink. While charging this power bank, the appropriate LED will blink, indicating where it is at in its cycle. I would strongly recommend putting this face down if you charge this in your bedroom at night, as the LEDs are pretty bright, but not "ultra bright LED" bright.
On the flip side, you won’t see much more than the labeling for input and output.
Taking a look at one of the sides, you’ll battery specifications, letting you know that there are dual 1 amp outputs. The object on the right hand side is something that I’ll get to in a moment.
The opposite side houses the full sized USB output. In all honesty, this is the only other flaw that I could find with the design of this power bank. This should have been placed on an end, not on a side. Now when you want to charge via this port, you have to contend with the width of the power bank plus the USB end sticking out beyond it a couple inches. Talk about not cool!
Alright, remember that mystery object that I mentioned just a moment ago? Well, when you pull this out, this is the integrated Micro USB cable. Yes, this too is rated at 1 amp output, which is ideal for quickly charging your device.
When you pair it up with a device like the Samsung Galaxy S3, you will indeed see how nicely they hold hands and play nice. The short integrated Micro USB cable is very nice, so you know you won’t have a huge cable sticking out of your pocket.
Fortunately if you don’t have a device that has a Micro USB charging port, you've always got the full sized USB port to plug in a cable of your choice.
Read on to check out what I found in my brief testing and just a recap of what was said here.
The Anker Astro Series were your clear favorite, and they took the top spot with over 40% of the overall vote. The affordable, slim, and power-packed 3E, E4, and Astro Pro were just a few of your favorites, and a number of you called out other Astro models in the call for contenders that were just as powerful and just as portable. In second place with 22% of the vote was the Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation, a metal-bodied, sturdy power pack with a ton of juice for its size. Right behind it in third were MonoPrice's external battery packs, which brought in close to 16% of the vote and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Their universal qualifier however is that they're generally cheap and get the job done. In fourth place were the New Trent iCarrier and iGeek external battery packs, both of which are affordable, portable, and offer easy-to-read displays to show you how much juice is left. Bringing up the rear in fifth place was a big name in battery technology: Energizer's XP Series brought home just shy of 8% of the votes cast, and offer a wide array of battery packs from the super-affordable and portable (but low on power) to the power-packed and pricey models that can power netbooks and laptops if need be. The bright spot here is that any of these external battery packs will serve you well on the go, and they're all portable enough to fit into either your pocket or a small laptop bag or backpack, so you can't really go wrong here. There were some other nominations in the call for contenders thread and the full post, so if these don't strike your fancy, make sure to check there for more suggestions. The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!