The 100W PD power bank that fills a gap in my process

With everything I have on my plate, I work some pretty odd hours and odd locations. I have most bases covered for power to my devices when I am not at my desk, but there has been a gaping hole that I have been looking to address for a while. This is where the Laser 100W PD Power Bank 20000mAh with LED Display comes into play.

This name is a bit of a mouthful so I will be referring to it as the Power Bank from hereon.

 

The Brief

Most modern laptops have pretty decent battery life, capable of lasting a few hours, if not a full work day without needing to be tethered to charge. That basic expectation is not the case with my work issued laptop.

When new and on a Windows 10 corporate image, it was a pretty middling two and a half hours max of battery power. It’s now about two years old, upgraded to Windows 11 and battery life is a dismal hour and a smidgen. Not to mention the power drain in “standby mode” can only be described as a horror show.

While I have fast chargers for the wall point and in the car, there are days where I simply have very limited access to either option to keep the show on the road.

 

First Impressions

The Power Bank is a matte black aluminium cuboid with rounded edges on three of the lengthwise edges, and an angled corner on the fourth. It feels solid and weighty in hand.

On one end a small LED display provides all the vital stats, as well as two USB-C and two USB-A ports.

The LED displays not just on the battery level left, at a glance it provides the voltage, amperes as well as if the USB-C ports are in PD mode.

That fourth corner that is not rounded? On the front face it has a power button to trigger the LED display and to kick start the charging to your devices. With the way the Power Bank is designed, you can feel for this without having to look.

Also at 20,000 mAh, it is well below the cut off threshold for airline safety guidelines.

 

In Use

The Power Bank is rated for up to 100W of power delivery, which makes it compatible with even the top of the range power draw of the current generation of laptops.

There is a caveat to this, which is detailed in the operating manual of the Power Bank. The power delivery is limited in the following combination of ports and wattage.

Port(s)	Wattage
C1 or C2	100W
A1 or A2	18W
C1+C2	40W + 40W
C1+A1 or C2+A2	40W + 15W
C1+A2 or C2+A1	40W + 18W
C1+C2+A2 or C2+C1+A4	40W + 15W
C1+ C2+A1+A2	30W

As can be seen in the table, if you need to take full advantage of the 100W output then you are stuck with just that one device. Hardly a surprise when you are maxing out device capability. And while you are at it, you do want to use the provided USB cable, or another 100W rated USB cable for this. That el cheapo emergency cable you grabbed from the bargain store is not going to cut it here.

Going back to my work Dell Latitude with it’s abysmal battery life, the Power Bank indicates it is connected at 20V and the amperes goes between 1.6-1.9A with the occasional spikes to low 2.xA and down to 1.5A as the lowest I have seen. If you need to work out the wattage, just do the maths for voltage times amperes.

With the laptop screen on fairly low levels of brightness (I do still have to be able to read it with my aging eyes!), I am trading roughly 10% of the 20000 mAh capacity for 10% charge on the laptop at a rate of about 1% a minute.

So extrapolating this, I would gain around an hour and a half of power through the power bank depending on the level of stress I throw at my laptop. No that does not include me yelling at in frustration.

If I need to go longer, I can always recharge it via one of my other portable power banks, such as the Laser ChargeCore Transparent Power Bank just to keep things going for a little longer.

The process I go through is to run down the laptop battery first, then continue working with the Power Bank plugged in to recharge and continue working. This would buy me an estimate 1.5 hours. When the Power Bank is low again, I revert back to laptop battery and plug in the Power Bank to recharge it whilst I run off the laptop battery again.

Depending on your power source, recharging the Power Bank can take a while. Using a 100W PD car charger, I was able give it about 30% charge in around forty minutes. This was a good test for me as I carry a 100W multi-port PD charger with my work bag.

What is very handy is that the Power Bank support power pass through, meaning you can charge the unit, whilst at the same time provide power to your devices simultaneously.

 

Other Thoughts

The Laser 100W PD Power Bank 20000mAh with LED Display just works. It came out of the box with the unit already charged up to around 95% so it is ready to hit the ground running.

The LED screen is just enough to give you the key stats at a glance. It’s constant on when the Power Bank is discharging and you get to watch the march of draining percentage.

As a cuboid, the design is not really geared to put in your pocket. Unless you really want to run the “is that a Laser 100W PD Power Bank 20000mAh with LED Display in your pocket or are you just happy to see me” line. It works fine for my cargo pants where the pockets are like Doraemon’s dimensional pocket.

I have not notice any significant heat when the unit is discharging. It does get a little warm when being charged but not to an uncomfortable level. The metal chassis helps heat to dissipate any build up.

 

Conclusions

When I first looked at the Laser 100W PD Power Bank 20000mAh with LED Display, I had quite a specific use case in my mind. It certainly did not disappoint in that area.

The Power Bank is solidly built, and with the 100W output is versatile enough to handle anything thrown at it in the current generation of battery operated devices. It is also well under the airline limits, with the mAh capacity clearly printed on the unit (I had to squint a little to see it but it is there).

The Laser 100W PD Power Bank 20000mAh with LED Display has a RRP of AUD $149.95 but at time of publishing is down to $99.95.

It is a handy unit to have in the kit bag for me. And just a reminder that you will need 100W rated USB cables to use with this.

DRN would like to thank Laser for providing the review unit.

 

Specifications

Weight: 380 gms
Battery Capacity: 20,000 mAh (73Wh)
Dimensions : 47.3×101×47.3 mm
Battery: Li-ion
USB-C Output: 5A/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/5A (100W max.)
USB-A Output: 5V/3A, 9V/2A, 12V/1.5A (18W max.)
USB-C Input: 5V/2A, 9V/2A, 12V/2.22A, 15V/1.67A, 20V/3.25A (65W max.)

Supported Charging Protocols
USB-C: QC2.0/QC3.0/FCP/AFC/SCP/PD2.0/PD3.0
USB-A: QC2.0/QC3.0/AFC/FCP/SCP/Apple