Just finished work, and I thought I will find a bargain.
Be quick on this one because as usual Coupons don't last for long (unknown number of Coupons)
RRP $47.99
40% off Deal $28.99
Apply 40% Coupon
Pay $17.39 at Checkout
I think one coupon per account.
CamelCamelCamel.
It's a good price. I have 3 power banks I said no more. But if anyone needs/wants one, I think this is the second best price recorded on OZB.
Where's your + for Scrooge..
Maybe you should leave some for others. I've been missing out on these constantly and I was in the market for it for months.
Finally bought one.
Is this ok to take on an international flight?
I would think so. Someone said before, without being 100% sure that most airlines are ok with up to 20000mah. So this one should be fine. If I am wrong please someone correct me.
It doesn't depend on mah but depends on the Watt Hour (Wh) rating. Power banks greater than 100Wh are not allowed generally (Need prior permission for power banks between 100Wh to 160Wh).
USB Type C, USB Type A (Output), Micro USB (Intput)
If it's just micro USB input that would be a pain.
I have one and charge with usb c
That’s good to know. The description makes it seem like it can’t.
It's been only posted on OZB 5 times. Second best price recorded on OZB.
I like these posts, especially since most of the prior ones were so short lived.
I also like your Fenvi network card reposts…
@UncleRico: The difference is I don't post them a day apart. That's why I'm saying it's easy votes because the sellers have them on sale all the time. It's good for us. I have heaps.
@UncleRico: Oh yeah I'm not 100% against these reposts. Just if it gets too spammy you can expect the mods to stop it.
FYI, that isn't a "mini" powerbank like on this post or this https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/836749
@Gronkmaster69: Let's check the revision history shall we? First post and second post.
It's the same product. Different title.
@Gronkmaster69: If it's not the same product then how come both deals link to the same product? Did you even check the links? Obviously not.
@Clear: I did not see your original comment. Only your second comment which you have now deleted. Thought it was relevant to this post.
@Gronkmaster69: Agreed, not even close. If you check the specs, other brands claiming to be credit card size are also nonsense, despite the misleading images. Weight is a concern for me with this pb, ie very light for the stated capacity.
@Clear: These power banks from INIU and similar brands (like this) are the new reposts of OzBargain for easy votes. For example $13.49 on 18/03 and a day later for $3 more.
Gotta get them retirement upvotes
Or that $150 reward from Scotty 😜
I’ll never win one of those 😭
@Jimothy Wongingtons: Repost this everytime it goes up in price and all the rest. Then you'll get there ;)
@Clear: I only posted that deal because there are lots of people that missed on the previous deal. I am not trying to repost stuff.
@Scrooge McDeal: Not having a go specifically at you. Just saying that's the direction these brands are going with the posts. Whoever is running their Amazon storefronts would be bringing in a lot of profit.
@Clear: I didn't think of it that way. So you think it's a strategy that this brands do knowing it will bring more sales?
Good point. Might be true.
@Scrooge McDeal: When I was the Romoss rep the strategy was lots of sales to get the number 1 position under power banks and it worked. After that they didn't need regular sales to get a heap purchases. In the end they shifted their attention to other markets where there was more money to be made.
These brands would be doing the same and they'd all be competing for the number 1 spot. INIU are the most aggressive.
@Clear: There is definitely a trend im seeing in Chinese suppliers on not just Amazon but at all levels of the supply chain.
New Chinese mob comes in with actually a decent product in most cases, but prices it to just destroy and saturate the market. Once brand name recognition all set up, break away from Amazon and set up their own site direct to end user.
@Jimothy Wongingtons: Yep in a nutshell. Since fake Amazon reviews will get them banned this is the only other way.
@Clear: Tbh I reckon not enough is done about fake or heavily incentivised reviews even now. Rip OG taotronics though lol I think some of their stuff was actually ok back in the day prior to mass Ali express domination.
My number 1 thing to do when looking at reviews is just to go straight to the negative reviews.
@Jimothy Wongingtons: TaoTronics parent company was in the neighbouring tower to GeekBuying so I heard a lot of stories around the time of the ban. All these banned stores had some amazing fire sales. Choetech were doing $50, $100, $200 mystery boxes that contained heaps of chargers, cables, power banks, wireless chargers and even solar panels. I wish I bought more!
It'll only take a prominent YouTuber to get another store banned for dodgy reviews.
A lot of 5 star reviews on AliExpress are literally unopened packages. "Received the package but I haven't opened it yet" 5 stars.
Shudders at the thought of Micro USB. Those were the dark ages.
Well I appreciate these deals, whether it's being posted here or in limited qty. particularly by Scrooge, I Smell Pennies and Hamza23. Keep up the great work!
Everyone it's doing a great job in the insufficient quantity thread. Too many people to name. Blessed to have so many awesome people dedicating their time for us to save money.
Just finished work, and I thought I will find a bargain.
That's dedication OP. Hats off to you! And thank you
I dont see an "Apply Coupon" button on PC?
neither, coupon allocation probably used up
Clicked on the link 30 minutes ago and never saw it :/
cheers op, managed to get one this time
Damn I keep missing these…
Cheap but not 10,000 mAh.
It's actually about 7,500 mAh, but not very efficient, so you get about 5,800 mAh real world.
It also runs quite hot, so I doubt the longevity will be great.
It is physically a bit smaller than most 10,000 mAh power banks. 117 cubic cm. 186 Wh per liter volume.
As a comparison, the excellent INIU B6 is about 143 cubic cm. 235 Wh per liter volume.
The B6 has decent efficiency, so has about 9,000mAh available real world.
Dr Gough flags this too.
https://goughlui.com/2023/08/31/quick-review-teardown-veekto…
Pretty much all power banks won't be the capacity they state due to the voltage difference. Of course it's worth mentioning as not enough know it.
So in this case I mean less capacity than what is expected even after conversion losses.
The VEEKTOMX Mini is rated at 38.5Wh. It outputs 21.75Wh. It takes 33.2 Wh to fully charge. (33.2Wh to charge a 38.5Wh power bank is a key sign of an issue!)
That puts the actual battery capacity at about 27.5Wh. And the efficiency at about 80%.
So it has about 28.5% less capacity than advertised.
As a comparison, the INIU B6 is rated at the exact same 38.5Wh. It outputs 33.6Wh. It takes 43.7Wh to charge.
This means the actual capacity is bang on 38.5Wh, as advertised. The efficiency is around 87%.
The VEEKTOMX Mini is physically smaller (18% or so) than the B6 so likely just has a smaller capacity battery, and they label it as 38.5Wh and figure no one will notice the difference.
So I bought a new Veektomx VT103 and tested it.
77.7% of the rated capacity is available at 20W (9V, 2.22A). (Up from 56.5% from the one I bought last year)
In comparison, the INIU gives about 83% of the rated capacity at 20W.
The VT103 is probably 37Wh, rather than the 38.5Wh it claims. And the cells are not quite good enough for sustained 20W fast charging.
But at a 12W average charge rate (which is around what most phones do over an entire charge) about 80% of the rated capacity is available. If we assume 38.5Wh is a marketing lie, and it is 37Wh, then 83% of the rated capacity is available. Which is not a terrible result, but not great either.
As a comparison, at 12W, the INIU outputs around 86% of the rated capacity, and that rated capacity appears to be accurate.
I suspect the earlier VT103s had much worse quality cells, and the new ones are better, but still not amazing. But considering the VT103 is more compact than many of the alternatives and cheap, it's not a terrible option anymore.
Don't fall VEEKTOM to a dead battery…
FOMO, I ended up paying $1.50 more. Not sure when it will ever get used.
Fake picture, not that small, much larger than a credit card size.
Outdated products without 18650 or 21700 cells inside, probably swell and broken within 12 months.
Bought one on a previous sale and left it on the SIN-LHR plane without ever having used it.
now has a 35% off coupon instead, priced at $18.84
Not sure about the bad reviews for this Powerbank today. Got mine today and was able to charge my Pixel 6 pro from 10 to 90 percent in 1 hour 20mins with 43% charge still remaining.
For comparison it's almost same time taken to charge using INIU 100W Powerbank.
Also no heating issues. Not sure about durability but for now it has been excellent.
Re: charging your Pixel 6 Pro.
I would be interested in the result if you could run a further test. Charge again tomorrow, and see what phone battery percentage increase that 43% remaining in the power bank gives. That way you can see the total Pixel 6 Pro battery percentage increase it gives.
(Or if you have charged the power bank already, do two phone charges without charging it)
As it happens, I have my partners not in use Pixel 6 Pro, so will run the same test and compare. And log the Pixel 6 Pro charge efficiency.
And to be fair, my power bank was 6 months back, so the newer ones may be different.
The other factor here is that while phones are good at giving quite accurate remaining percentage figures, the electronics in cheaper power banks are usually not very accurate. So it may be that the 43% remaining is not actually 43%, and does not give as much charge as expected. (Or it could be as expected)
Yes good point. But given that I have recharged my Powerbank now, will charge 2 times and test tomorrow.
Also I have got the INIU 10000mah Powerbank so planning to do the same test in that as well to compare.
phones are good at giving quite accurate remaining percentage figures
@Prong Question if I may. Is that phone measurement a % of the current battery capacity (which may be significantly less than the original stated capacity depending on battery age/use etc) or always a % of the stated capacity when new (which might already be an overstatement as we know, but that's by the by)?
Eg Pixel 7 stated capacity is 4355mAh when new. Remaining % when half depleted when new is theoretically 4355/2=2178mAh approx. After numerous fast charges (and other environmental factors etc) the real phone battery capacity may have dropped by let's say ~9% to 4000mAh. When the phone shows 50% remaining does it mean ~2178mAh left or 2000mAh left - ie is the phone measuring actual or nominal capacity?
Phone percentage is a measurement of the current capacity. So includes any degradation. This is also mostly true for power banks.
It gets a bit more complex because there are a few ways the capacity is calculated. The main complication stems from the fact that just measuring the voltage of a lithium ion battery is not a very accurate way to tell remaining charge, unless you let the battery sit disconnected for a period of time.
So phones track how much power enters or leaves the battery. I use Wh in my example, but the phone is tracking both the voltage and the current. So if the battery is 10Wh, the phone knows that after it has tracked 1Wh leaving the battery, then there is 9Wh remaining, so capacity is at 90%.
The problem with this (as you suspect) is wear reduces the battery capacity over time. So the phone also has to account for this. It knows the expected wear rate for the battery based on the Wh in and out it has tracked, so can make an educated guess.
There are two main ways it can more accurately adjust the expected capacity for wear. It tracks the voltage, accounting for the load. And it tracks Wh needed for a charge. For the latter, the cut off for the phone when fully charged is based on reaching a specific voltage and current. So it can track how many Wh it takes to reach full charge, vs how many it expects it will take. The same is true at 0% - this is the point the battery has reached a specific voltage. If charging from 0% to 100%, it measures the Wh it takes, which gives it an accurate idea of the current battery capacity, including any wear.
Which is effectively what I do when testing the power banks. It says it should have 38.5Wh, so I measure how many Wh to drain the battery fully. Then how many Wh to fully charge it. The number halfway between the two gives me an idea of actual battery capacity.
Phones do this much more accurately, as they have more data on the battery and circuitry efficiencies. But over time, and at high levels of battery wear, the phone may start to report the capacity inaccurately. This is often helped by running the phone to 0% capacity, then charging to 100% capacity, as it lets the phone get an updated idea of the Wh needed for a full charge.
Power banks mostly use the same system. Just some do it much more accurately than others. For example, the Anker 737 even shows you the total number of cycles, Wh in and out, and battery wear.
I don't have any particular insight into the capacity tracking circuitry of power banks beyond observations of testing, and a few bits and pieces I can find online. But generally it seems that cheap power banks use relatively basic systems to track capacity, and can often give unreliable indications.
For example, many appear to track Wh in and out, but then adjust based on voltage when not in use. They don't always seem to display the update right away, or sometimes not at all. This can mean the remaining charge can seem to vary. Or it cuts out before reaching 0%, or keeps running longer than expected after reaching 0%. Most of the power banks I have tested also seem to indicate 100% when charging when the voltage hits a certain point, but before the slower absorption phase of the charge is finished. This means they say 100%, but the actual charge level is more like 90%, and they keep slow charging for up to an hour after reaching 100%.
At some point I plan to do some specific capacity display accuracy testing to try and catalogue these behaviors. Generally though it seems to be becoming less of an issue over time, as the newer cheap power banks have better capacity tracking circuitry.
I will do a remaining capacity vs display capacity comparison on this Veektomx power bank though, as I am curious.
Was able to test this using both Powerbanks.
INIU 22.5W 10000mAh (Not mini) :
10% to 90% battery in 1 hr 26 mins with 49% charge still remaining
Again when the phone was at 10% , plugged in to continue and it was able to charge to 74% before it was dead, in 1 hour approx.
Veektomx 22.5w 10000mah (mini) :
10% to 90% battery in 1 hr 23 mins with 43% charge still remaining
Again when the phone was at 10% , plugged in to continue and it was able to charge to 82% before it was dead, in 1 hour 8 min approx.
Last 10% battery in Powerbank worked like a magic to charge almost 20% of phone battery.
In Summary , Yes Veektomx performed better despite being smaller and thinner compared to INIU. Need to test it out again to confirm it is not a fluke.
Note : I am not a professional or anything. I am only testing this of my own interest to keep one Powerbank which is good and sell another in marketplace , as I have too many Powerbanks now :D
Yeah interesting result!
Are you using a USB-C to USB-C cable, or USB-A to USB-C ?
It certainly seems to indicate my VT103 is giving a worse result. Mine was bought in May last year, so newer ones might have better quality cells or even different voltage conversion electronics. Dr Goughs review from August 31 gives slightly better capacity than mine.
Out of interesting, I will grab another next time they go on sale. And then do a teardown on mine.
As a comparison, after charging a Pixel 6 Pro from 10% to 90%, my VT103 had 35% left. I tested with my power meter, and that 35% left was 4.6Wh. Which is about 21% of the remaining power bank capacity. (for my power bank that is)
I am logging the charge Wh of the Pixel 6 Pro currently, and running a few more tests on the VT103 at lower wattages.
@Prong: I used USBC - USBC cable that I got from this post
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/753525
Also suggested charging again to test when your veektomx is 35%. Mine did charge a lot after it turned 10% in the Powerbank.
@Yogi555: Thanks for the cable info. (saves me worrying about testing USB-A cables for now)
And so I mean from 35%, my VT103 had 4.6Wh remaining when drained to empty. I didn't charge the phone as I wanted to log the remaining power. I will do some more logging of the power bank charging the phone after some other tests.
My Pixel 6 Pro charge log finished (22.42Wh total, turned off while charging, battery health 94%) so the 4.6Wh would have taken the phone from 10% charge to about 31%.
Yours would have done more as it appears to be higher capacity overall.
While I suspect mine has a lower capacity in general, a key factor here seems to be charge rate. My VT103 seems quite sensitive to voltage droop at low capacity levels meaning it reaches cut off voltage earlier than expected.
For example, while my Pixel 6 Pro fast charged at 18W peak, the average was 9W, and a significant chunk of the charge was less than this. Your charges had the power bank hitting 0 at the point in the phone charge cycle where wattage was very low, so the power bank will experience little voltage droop and avoid low voltage cut off for longer. This is ideal, in terms of getting the most from the power bank.
I am currently putting my VT103 through some 9V, 5W slow discharge / charge cycles to see what sort of total capacity I can get at very low wattage. (Previous 15W and 10W tests didn't fare much better than 20W)
It may be that capacity is not the entire problem - the battery (in mine anyway) may not have the C rating for 20W charging.
@Yogi555: So, an update.
Thanks for your info on this, as your testing flagged something I didn't see on my tests. (For my uses I was checking capacity at max output)
I ran some extra VT103 tests. (all at 9V)
5W = 31.9Wh (82.9% rated capacity)
10W = 30.1Wh (78.2% rated capacity)
15W = 24.3Wh (63.12% rated capacity)
20W = 21.75Wh (56.5% rated capacity)
The capacity at a 5W load is comparable to what the the INIU B6 gets at 20W. At 5W, 10W, 15W, the INIU B6 real world capacity doesn't change much because it uses cells that can handle the 20W output. The B6 peaks at 87.5% efficiency.
After the VT103 5W discharge it took 38Wh to charge back to 100% (which is less than the 38.5Wh capacity)
This means the real world capacity is under the rated 38.5Wh, but not hugely.
The main issue here is the cells are clearly not rated for the 20W output. We are talking about 0.6C so only a low rating is needed. But they have perhaps a 0.15 rating. This means they do ok under low load, and at high load voltage droop means they hit the 0% cut off voltage much sooner than expected.
The result is a power bank that may actually do a reasonable job of charging a phone, as long as the phones peak charge rate does not correspond with the power bank getting to low capacity. EG, partial charges, or one charge before charging the power bank.
If the C rating of the power bank cells is the issue, then longevity probably won't be great. But again, that may not matter much to people who use it occasionally, and thus never reach a higher number of cycles.
I suspect the issue here might be that the power bank is using low C rated, and perhaps 3.7V 126280 cells. The 38.5Wh rating suggests the power bank uses higher voltage (3.85V rated, 4.4V max) lipo cells, but looking up the specs for these cells, they weigh more for each cell than the entire power bank.
So it may be that they are lower spec 126280 cells, which could include 3.7V cells with low C ratings. At some point I will open up the power bank and test the cells directly, and log the cell max discharge and charge voltages to find out more.
@Prong: Thank you !!! Saw your comment at other INIU post as well. Helps a lot.
However just to continue my tests, I did check on INIU mini powerbank as well and below was the result.
10% to 90% battery in 1 hr 28 mins with 45% charge still remaining
Again when the phone was at 10% , plugged in to continue and it was able to charge to only 66% before it was dead.
Again am not an expert and only measuring performances so trust your comment on this. Wanted to check with you if you are using the latest Veektomx for testing as it may be degraded over time if using old one?
@Yogi555: No new VT103 yet, as I will wait for it to be on sale cheap again or risk losing my OzBargain badge :P
The newer ones could well have higher C rated cells.
As to your specific results, they could be the result of updated cells in the VT103 giving great results. If you happen to have a set of accurate kitchen scales, you could try weighing yours. A higher weight than mine (163 grams) may indicate a better cells.
In theory your INIU B6 may be underperforming. My original one was from almost a year ago, so picked up another one (and a B61) when they were extra cheap recently, for comparison testing. My old and new B6 give almost identical real world capacities, so I tend to think the new ones are ok.
You are getting about 10% more charge from the VT103 (and have gotten this more than once) so it is a good data point.
There are some factors that could influence the results but they are hard to eliminate. If your phone is on during charging, it will be using some amount of power, and that may be variable and a bit random, depending on what is going on the in background.
I also notice sometimes the power banks seem to cut of charge slightly early, or say 100% but still slow charge for a few hours. So you could try leaving the power bank plugged in for a few hours even after at 100%.
Sometimes USB-C PD does weird stuff, and negotiates a different voltage than normal, which may be less efficient.
If you are interesting messing around with this stuff, then I highly recommend a cheap USB-C power meter.
This one is $10.87 (+GST) on Aliexpress currently. I don't have this exact model - I ordered it very recently but it has not arrived yet. I have other ATORCH gear and it is decent quality.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006548239520.html
If you have this plugged between your phone and the power bank, it can be used to log exactly how many Wh flows.
And then if you reset it (take a photo of the result first!) then plug it between your wall charger and the power bank, you can log how many Wh it takes to charge. That will give you a pretty accurate idea of the exact real world capacity of each power bank.
The little meter also means you can see what voltage the power and phone negotiate, and even get a graph of the voltage vs current over time.
@Prong: That's great. Will do some more checks probably using the device and get back. Thanks a lot !!
@Yogi555: My tester arrived. It seems pretty good. Accuracy seems pretty close to fancier testers I have.
I also did some more testing with the Pixel 6 Pro. Just charging the Pro from the VT103 (then running the Pro down and doing a second partial charge), the power bank gives 27.8Wh. Which is about 72% of the rated capacity. Not a great result, but mine may be under capacity compared to newer ones.
The capacity when charging the Pixel 6 Pro is almost identical to the capacity I get when testing at 12.5W.
@Prong: Thanks for the update. I do recommend checking with latest version of veetomax whenever it's on sale next time as I am getting consistent result with that similar to or sometimes better than INIU.
@Yogi555: Ok, I picked up a new VT103 during the week when I saw it on sale (30% off).
The new one is much improved compared to the one I bought last year. It still doesn't quite meet the listed spec, but it's close enough that if buying it cheap, then it's a minor downside compared to the upside of it being quite compact.
In 12W / Pixel 6 Pro charging tests, then 80% (30.8Wh) of the rated 38.5Wh is available.
It takes around 42.5Wh to charge (+10% over the rated capacity), which suggests the actual capacity is more like 37Wh. Which is no surprise, the 38.5Wh and 10,000mAh rating mean that they rate it at a nominal voltage of 3.85V, which requires special cells that are unlikely to be used here.
At 20W (9V, 2.22A) then 77.7% (30Wh) of the rated capacity is available. This is much better than the 56.49% (21.75Wh) of the first VT103 I tested.
It still seems the cells used are not quite up to the task of supplying 20W continuously. But they are not too bad, so for phone charging, where the 20W peak is only for part of the charge cycle, it does ok.
If we assume the 38.5Wh rating is a marketing lie, and it is 37Wh, then about 83% of the rated capacity is available at an average of 12W (phone charging) and 81% at 20W.
This is a bit below average, and depending on exact use case, you get about 10% less capacity than say the INIU B6. Based on my tests (I also ran some at low wattages at 12V and 5V) the power conversion efficiency is about the same as the B6, and the comparatively lower efficiency is likely from the cells in the new VT103 having higher internal resistance, so turning a bit more power to heat as they are discharged.
This is not entirely surprising, considering the VT103 is about 15% smaller (in volume) and 23% lighter than the INIU B6.
I tend to think the VT103 cells probably also won't last as many cycles as cells with ratings better suited to fast charging. But for $20 or less, the newer VT103 is no longer a bad buy. It's a shame they feel the need to inflate the capacity rating.
At some point I will crack both of these open and compare the internals, but that will have to wait for now.
And thanks for doing your testing, and flagging that the new ones are much better than the older ones!
@Prong: Thanks for testing with new version. Was wondering how you are getting so much difference in performance 😀 This comment explains a lot
@Yogi555: I suspect Veektomx (or whoever makes the power bank they then put their brand on) has gone through a few stages of sourcing better quality cells over time, as my original one (bought almost a year ago) is noticeably worse than the Dr Gough review bought three months later.
I note that the VT103 Amazon ad now says "2024 Upgraded Version".
It's frustrating that they sold poor quality power versions of the power banks. And I have tested the Veektomx 30,000mAh power bank (VT301, which is no longer sold) and the 5000mAh Nano (VT052L) and both are significantly under spec. So while the VT103 is no longer terrible, I certainly wouldn't recommend the brand in general.
@Prong: Understand. Saw your comment on other post about INIU 65w Powerbank. So as of now INIU seems to be a reliable company with their Powerbanks atleast
Been buying powerbank, still have about 3 new ones. Bought this one too. Cannot resist