ASUS ZenPower Ultra 20100 mAh

In the review, we will look at the styl­ish ASUS Zen­Pow­er Ultra 20100 pow­er bank in an alu­minum shell. The num­ber in the name indi­cates the capac­i­ty of the bat­ter­ies, and the name hints at great pos­si­bil­i­ties. Does the device live up to the Ultra pre­fix? Read on.

Content

Information about ASUS ZenPower Ultra 20100

Specifications

Anodized aluminum with rounded edges

The com­plete set of the ASUS Zen­Pow­er Ultra 20100 pow­er bank is quite usu­al for such devices. The elon­gat­ed box is made of thin card­board. Inside is a case, a short USB to micro-USB cable (30 cm) and instruc­tions. No case includ­ed, sor­ry.

On the forums, vis­i­tors com­plain about the length of the cable, unrea­son­ably demand a longer one.

Accord­ing to Ohm’s law, at a volt­age of 5 V and a cur­rent of 2 A, the volt­age drop on a wire with a cross sec­tion of 1 mm² and a length of 1 m will be almost 0.4 V.

For some smart­phones, this may be enough to stop charg­ing, so the adapter is spe­cial­ly made short to reduce loss­es.

The case is drawn from alu­minum, treat­ed with anodiz­ing, there are options for pink, gold and black. The box is com­pa­ra­ble in width to a cred­it card, in length — with two, thick­ness — 22 mm. The pow­er bank is com­pact, but quite weighty — 420 g, a notice­able increase in the weight of a hand­bag or back­pack, it fits in your hand, but you can’t call it pock­et.

The paint coat­ing is eas­i­ly scratched, so it is not rec­om­mend­ed to car­ry the device along with the keys, it is a good idea to put it in a case (ASUS sells them sep­a­rate­ly).

One input and two outputs

The plas­tic end of the device is marked only with a large inscrip­tion “20100 mAh” and oth­er details in small print. On the oth­er hand, the con­trols are cov­ered by an alu­minum pan­el with iri­des­cent cir­cles (imi­ta­tion of pol­ish­ing). Here are:

• Pow­er but­ton;
• Micro USB input;
• Two USB‑A out­put sock­ets;
• Torch.

The bat­tery lev­el is shown by four white-moon dots: when the tank is full, they all light up.

The device is pro­tect­ed against short cir­cuit, over­charg­ing and over­heat­ing (ASUS itself speaks of 11 dif­fer­ent pro­tec­tions). The input cur­rent is 2 A, the first port gives up to 2.4 A at the out­put — this is enough even for such a capri­cious tablet as the iPad. The sec­ond port pro­vides a cur­rent of up to 2 A. With­out prob­lems, a smart­phone and a tablet are charged at the same time.

Exter­nal bat­tery ASUS Zen­Pow­er Ultra 20100 sup­ports Qual­comm Quick Charge 2.0 tech­nol­o­gy with auto­mat­ic con­sumer detec­tion, and in both direc­tions. That is, if you have, for exam­ple, Huawei P10, you can pump up a pow­er bank with its pow­er sup­ply in just 7.5 hours, while the Zen­Pow­er Ultra smart­phone itself will also charge quick­ly.

Undoubt­ed­ly, a pow­er bank is need­ed where there is no elec­tric­i­ty, includ­ing on a hike. A use­ful addi­tion to ASUS Zen­Pow­er Ultra is a flash­light — its bright­ness is 70 lm, about the same as a 1 W light bulb. Enough pow­er to find the way to the tent through the dark for­est. Turn on by long press­ing the but­ton, dou­ble click to adjust the bright­ness.

Honest battery capacity considering conversion efficiency

Man­u­fac­tur­ers always indi­cate the total bat­tery capac­i­ty on pow­er banks, but this does not mean at all that so much charge will be out­put. The effi­cien­cy of pow­er elec­tron­ic cir­cuits is nev­er 100%, it is reduced by loss­es. ASUS Zen­Pow­er 20100 achieves a con­ver­sion effi­cien­cy of around 73%, which is con­sid­ered good.

If we eval­u­ate the prac­ti­cal capac­i­ty of ASUS Zen­Pow­er 20100 Li-Ion bat­ter­ies, it turns out about 13000 mAh (20100) or 65 W*h (72). These fig­ures are in line with expec­ta­tions, pass­port val­ues ​​are giv­en in brack­ets. The aver­age smart­phone with a 3000 mAh bat­tery will charge four full times.

Conclusion

The ASUS Zen­Pow­er 20100 exter­nal bat­tery turned out to be very wor­thy, it jus­ti­fies the Ultra pre­fix in the name. A com­pact and pow­er­ful device to rein­force any vora­cious gad­gets, with sup­port for fast charg­ing. It has an attrac­tive appear­ance, has two out­put ports and a flash­light.

The device is not ashamed to put on the office table and show to friends, suit­able as a sol­id busi­ness gift. Rec­om­mend­ed for all fans of mobile devices who are away from the out­let: on a hike, on a busi­ness trip, on a long flight.

pros

• Beau­ti­ful appear­ance in an alu­minum case
• Fast charg­ing in and out saves time
• Hon­est bat­tery capac­i­ty con­sid­er­ing con­ver­sion loss­es
• Bright flash­light illu­mi­nates dark cor­ners

Minuses

• The case is scratched, a cov­er is need­ed
• The device is quite heavy, the pock­et pulls