How Long Will It Last? - Anker 737 Power Bank

We're on vacation and now it's broken. The display is black and doesn't do anything anymore. It was only charged with an Anker 45W charger. I love the display on the Anker 737 but will probably never buy such an expensive power bank again. And Anker's service is absolutely bad. They have a list of questions where the back and forth takes a week.

6 x 26650s actually

Depending on the specific duty cycle, results will vary. The trickle setting or only running the pack down to 50% before a recharge. It will last significantly longer. It comes down to stress and dendrite growth between the anodes and cathodes.

I have been using 18650 battery's for 6 years now, still working great, all of them have no problems, They have been heavily used..... And i have old anker power banks from 5 years ago, still working well....

It’s normal for any battery that it will lose capacity over time while being used. I‘ve a 125 Ah LiFePo solar battery with detailed stats readable via Bluetooth and it started losing capacity ever so slightly over time. After 40+ cycles it has approximately 124,3 Ah left.
To reach 80 % SoC will take a while. Same with the Anker powerbank. And if some of the safety features will kick in, it would actually be a good thing! Does it have a hard lock at 80 %? Can‘t say yet, but I doubt it. Anker would need very good safety reasons to do something like that. In the EU there are regulations against deliberate obsolescence of products - and the fines are high for companies that disregard this. Anker as a renown brand probably don‘t want to risk it.

Great video with great information. I just got 2 of these batteries recently myself with a Black Friday deal. I've already got almost 1000wh on them because I mainly use them to power my laptop during peak rates here in California (about 30wh/hr). I am trying to extend their lifespan by utilizing 80-40% (because it is convenient for me to do so). Tempted to get the next generation of this battery that allows control with bluetooth but I'm going to hold onto these for a few years at the very least. I've been using Anker batteries for years and years, usually donating them to family/friends who then use them for many more years.

Anker power bank has limited recharge cycles is really true. My power bank which i bought in 2020 is holding low charge now. Avoid Chinese brands

I mean, even if it was only 300 cycles then it just stops, you still get alot out of that for the price imo. Its 24 000 mAh, which means if you exclusively use it to charge your phone every day you get about a week worth of it, meaning 300 cycles = 6 years of life. If you use it to fully recharge a laptop once a day, its going to last about a year before you run into issues, but realistically noone does that every single day. If you were to completely empty it out and recharge it every single day, you obviously must have access to a wall outlet right? And of course, if you are such a heavy user that you use your power bank THIS much, chances are you have several and likely replace them more often than every 6 years anyway.

Now of course this isnt even the case, its just the worst case scenario which isnt even unreasonable. The standard for lifetime of batteries like this is the amount of cycles it can take before the cells are at 80% health. So even after you 300 cycles and 6 years of every day use, you still have 80% of the capacity left. It doesnt just stop working unless theres a catastrophic failure, it just degrades over time. And hey, thats if you are unlucky. Maybe you get lucky and you get 500 cycles before it reaches that point instead? Thats well over 9 years!

Yeah no this is a silly complaint imo. The only thing I hate about this power bank is that its very misleading that they plaster "140W" all over it since thats the rate it can take a charge, not its output and at least to me its the output that matters. The 18w this pumps out isnt nearly enough to charge my laptop while using it, which is what I mainly use power banks for.

That’s good enough for me

I just got this off Amazon. Arrived DEAD flat. Wouldn’t turn on at all. Not impressed. Exactly how not to store a battery! For who knows how long it’s been like this…. Was yours dead flat on arrival?!?

Don’t store it at 100% and try to not discharge it below 10%. Try to store it at 80%. Tesla know how to look after 18650 cells and they do this. Their warranty on these packs is 8 years. If you can’t get 10 years from this which is not working nearly as hard as a car…. Then there’s an issue.

300 to 500 cycles? That’s pitiful.
I have two 18650 powered devices that have well over 1000 cycles in 6 years and they’re still going fairly strong.

Can this work on iPhone 12?

I mean... your typical li-ion cell has a rated life of about 500 cycles, though that's usually quite conservative (80% of original capacity) compared to what most people will be OK with (closer to 50%, probably). Unless you reverse-charge them, they don't just quit on you, rather they gradually become useless.

Given the rated continuous load on that thing (which equates to over 6A per cell, if their marketing diagrams are to be believed), a reduced rated cycle life is not surprising in the least. I'm not sure what type of li-ion cell they're using, but it'd make sense if they're high-drain IMR cells, which would also have the 300 cycle rated life. That's the price we pay for being able to draw 140W from the thing. Probably best to stick to smaller loads, if longevity is a concern.

i just orderd one, got a black week deal

Is this power bank allowed on any airlines traveling abroad?

i have a power bank with 10000mah from like 7 years ago still runs good. really thinking of getting this one.

I just carry 2 phones ☎️.

My 737 just fried my 45w samsung charger and my anker charger, luckily anker is replacing both chargers and my 737 but still kinda scary that it suddenly started killing my wall chargers

This is intresting. My powerbank shows 95% battery health after 27 cycles. I use Anker Nano II 65W for charging. What could be wrong?

Mine stopped working at just 1 Cycle. Yeah, 1. I used it at over 100W power discharge for my laptop and charged it at 65W. and it just started failing to take a charge. It triggered Undervoltage alarm and would not charge, but kept discharging fine until it completely drained. Now it is completely dead and useless. So... I think we should be more worried about the circuit design than the cells lifespan here. I am blown away from the fact that this kind of failure came from a +120€ powerbank.

Very informative. Thanks mate! 👍

That’s good knowledge and it should be shared. Ty 😊

Lifepo batteries have 3500 cycle lifespans. 10x lithium ion. This is the way to go

Me watching this video on my 2500+ battery cycle iPhone plugged into my anker + 500 cycles no issues 😶

mine died just into the summer 3 months after I bought it.... Dont Buy Anker 737 Power bank.

I'm only at 13 cycles but I'm down down to 98% battery health

Thanks a lot

That is why I dont buy Anker products 😅😅😅

Mine is at 84 cycles right now and still rock solid at 100% battery health

Have 70 cycles and it's been fluctuating between 98 and 100% health

Also there is an option to open the unit and have the cells replaced new. Whether it’s done on your own accord or by a reputable repair facility

For everyday use that’s kinda true. For users who use it to charge laptops at 100W the scenario isn’t that nice(and also temperatures). Plus if you re using even 60W charger it still gets a little bit hot. And it causes to charge it every day. By that speculation, for a heavy user it won’t have even 80% SoC after one year

I doubt it's hard limited. I doubt it would go wrong after 300 cycles, other than it won't perform as rated anymore. That's why they say not to use it after 300 cycles are up.

You get 300 full cycles from Panasonic or Samsung premium Li-Ion cells, if their temperature never exceeds 25 °C.
I doubt Anker uses premium cells. They spend way too much on advertising...

I wish people will actually get a course in batteries and technology or something. Because 80% of the people out there or 85% of the people don't really know what they're talking about. This guy has a great.
Understanding of understanding of batteries. I've worked in cellular for 10 years. Dealing with the battery's reconditioning batteries. Sell on cell phones and working in wireless and being a trade engineer. This guy explains it quite well. I don't mean to be rude to people, but Jesus, come on. People stop panicking most of you will never even getting or meet, reach a full potential and using this device, you probably would drop and break it, or you'll lose it or something like that before you have even reached 300 cycles.

Just do slow charge instead of pd when fast charging not needed should extend.

hello, I have this powerbank and a macbook pro 16 from 2021 and an asus rog strix g15 and now the question is why this powerbank charges these laptops with me up to 50w if this powerbank has 140 of them?

I have upgraded with a pair of these after many years (very pre covid) with a pair of "dumb" Anker powerbanks. I am not a power user and also do not need to charge the powerbanks at anywhere near the maximum capacity stated. My existing powerbanks have been passed on to grateful family kembers.

I charge an android tablet, an android phone and a Garmin smartwatch using the powerbank. I only bought these because 1, I am very happy with my Anker products (I have a larger pack with 2 240v sockets built in for camping with a solar panel, and two pocketable lipstick style packs too) and 2, having state of charge and charge rate info on the screen is incredibly useful.

The internet is definitely the place for stupid peopke to make ridiculous claims and hatch incredulous conspiracy theories. The tiring bit is that it takes longer and longer to filter out the chaff.

I prefer to buy quality. It tends to be better at what it is supposed to do and is usually far more reliable. And if it breaks the companies are generally better at dealing with these issues.

Espero que esta powerbank sea mejor que la basura del anker 737 26k que tenia una falla en las baterias LG. Fue buena bateria pero con un error fatal, fuera de que no estaba bien aseguradas las baterias y se desconectaban.

My 2017 20100mah anker is still working well!

Things are not made to last anymore. They are made to not work sooner and sooner so they will always profit of people.

I got the 250 watt it’s a wonderful addition to the power bank collection

I used Anker 737 only 56 cycles and now battery is dead... i don't think so this battery is good or not but I only used 5 months

I bought one a year ago and use it for EVERYTHING and charge it a lot yet I’ve only used 10 KWHs and 113 charge cycles

Mine had 75 cycles before showing battery health of 5%. Although anker is honoring its warranty on the device

I just bought one myself and realized myself the 300 cycles. I knew of how the cycles worked on a battery but still was a little concerned. After watching your video it made me realize the biggest reason I got mine. And that was as a battery backup for my ROG Ally. (I've got plenty of lower power delivery battery banks for my other devices). But the use would be: if I'm ever a passenger going on a long trip and won't have access to a inverter in a car (not very often), a power outage (which happens more often then long trips but still not very often.) A camping trip (which is about as likely to happen as will). So the use will probably last me years. I still have an old Anker 20k mah 3x a-port with power iq bank that charges but the display is dead and another Anker 13k mah 2-a port with power iq that works fine for my other devices. I'm excited to get this battery bank and after watching your video it made me sit and realize that I, like others where probably zeroing in on that 300 cycle part just a little too much. There's nothing to worry about. :)

I use the belkin 20,000mAh portable charger compatible with 20w input and output. If I had a 5w charger to charge it with, it could probably last about 6 years given that it goes through 1 charge cycle a week

how many cycles have you used to date?