5 Power Banks That Do More Than Just Charging

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There are several scenarios where a power bank that offers more than just charging comes in handy. For instance, if you're traveling to a different country, you can consider a power bank that connects to the internet via an eSIM and helps you with communication, navigation, translation, and social media posting.

Another scenario is if you're a coffee lover who usually goes for a morning run, but sometimes has to leave your beverage behind for a power bank because you forgot to charge your phone overnight. To that end, there's a travel mug whose lid is also a power bank. You can top up your phone when you stop for a coffee break, ensuring it doesn't die on you before you get home.

When purchasing a power bank, most people just want something they can rely on to charge their phone in a pinch. But next time you're looking for a power bank, consider getting one that can align with your other needs besides being a useful backup charging method.

In a way, pagers or beepers can be considered the original notification system. For a person to beep you, they would have to dial the number assigned to the beeper, leave a short message or phone number, and it would be sent to you via radio signals. When mobile phones and SMS messages became a thing, the beeper became obsolete. Today, we have several products inspired by the beeper design, and the Trozk Beeper Power Bank is one of them. It's got a design similar to the NEC beepers from the 80s and 90s, which were black and rectangular and could fit in the palm.

The Trozk power bank has some beeper functionality, too, but you can only send and receive messages from others within range who are using the same device. It's meant to be a fun way to communicate with friends using pre-programmed messages rather than something you should rely on in an emergency, like a real beeper. The power bank costs $48 and comes in a range of colors, including transparent, purple, orange, and that classic black look.

It has a 10,000mAh battery capacity and supports fast charging up to 30W using the Power Delivery (PD) protocol. This means it can communicate with smartphones and other devices that support PD charging to negotiate safe charging levels. Just be aware that fast charging can generate extra heat compared to regular charging.

The Trozk Floppy Magnetic Power Bank with Storage is another portable charger inspired by a retro device. It looks like a floppy disk, which was the first successful portable storage medium that gained widespread use in the 1970s and remained popular for three more decades. The 3.5-inch version was the most common, offering up to 1.44MB of storage. It's laughable by modern standards, but back then, a floppy disk was essential storage for documents and small applications before it was eventually replaced by flash drives and rewritable CDs and DVDs. Unlike the Beeper Power Bank, this one has some utility beyond just being fun, as it's also a storage device with 64GB of space.

The Floppy Magnetic Power Bank's storage is made up of Samsung flash memory chips. This makes it the equivalent of a high-capacity flash drive; only it's bulkier due to being a portable charger with a 10,000mAh battery. It's intended to be an emergency storage device with read and write speeds of up to 158MB/s and 48MB/s, respectively.

It has a charging speed of up to 22.5W when wired, but it also supports MagSafe wireless charging. This is more convenient than wired charging but less efficient and generates more heat. It costs $56, but if you just love the aesthetic, you can get the Floppy Magnetic Power Bank without Storage for $48.

One of the biggest problems people have with taking a photo or video using a phone's camera is the ergonomics of holding it horizontally and the lack of tactile feedback from the on-screen shutter button. Camera grips like the ProGrip Mobile Battery Grip aim to solve that by helping you keep the phone stable while offering a hardware button for the shooting action. They bring the experience of shooting on your phone closer to a DSLR camera, in the ergonomic sense, thanks to the handle. It also has a pivoting system that allows you to switch between landscape and portrait modes.

The ProGrip Mobile Battery Grip has a 6,400mAh battery that offers 18W of fast charging and is also a Qi wireless charger. The grip features slots that allow you to mount it to a quarter-inch tripod and a cold shoe mount. The grip also doubles as a vertical and horizontal stand, which is great for taking a Zoom call or recording a video hands-free. You can get this grip for $150 on Amazon.

The Appesso AmpMug First Gen charges both your smartphone and your energy. The mug costs $58 and was a Kickstarter project supported by people who loved the idea of making such a niche product a reality. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary travel coffee mug, but the lid is a 6,000mAh power bank. It's also a MagSafe charger, which allows modern iPhones to snap onto it and charge wirelessly. Android phones can also use the charger, but they will require a MagSafe adapter or a compatible case to take advantage of the magnetic alignment. Also, the cup's 30cm detachable sling doubles as a USB charging cable.

The Appesso AmpMug can hold up to 450 ml of your favorite caffeinated beverage. It has a double-walled and vacuum-sealed construction, meaning there's an empty pocket of space with no air between the two walls. This prevents heat and cold from entering or leaving the mug, providing enough insulation to keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold for hours.

Power banks are an essential tool for traveling and are helpful in scenarios where wall outlets are scarce. What is also important when traveling is a portable hotspot like the Linklan LA8 eSIM Hotspot Classic – another Kickstarter project that brought a niche product to life. You can find several mobile hotspots with power bank functionality on Amazon, but many of them offer no SIM card options, meaning you have to rely on the manufacturer's data plans, which can be limiting and expensive. A good option was the NETGEAR Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot. It supports both physical SIM and eSIMs, but it's quite expensive, coming in at $500.

This 4G LTE hotspot costs $269 (it is on sale at $149 at the time of writing) and allows you to connect to over 500 eSIM data plans in over 180 countries. If you're traveling solo, it can be easier to just get a travel SIM card and use your phone's dual SIM functionality to avoid swapping out your regular SIM card. But when traveling with a group, a mobile hotspot can reduce the need for everyone to get their very own travel SIM, as well as eliminate the frustration of frequently turning on your phone's hotspot so others can tether.

You can connect up to 16 devices to this hotspot, and it has an app that allows you to track data usage. With its 10,000mAh battery, it can support up to 48 hours of continuous use, and it's a fast charger with an output of 22.5W.

We considered a wide range of scenarios when picking these power banks, without excluding the fun novelty options. However, we wanted power banks to have a minimum battery capacity of 5,000mAh, so that they would be able to give a smartphone a full charge. We also didn't want to pick options that were too expensive for the extra utility they provide, so we figured a good price would be anything under $300.

Another important factor was user ratings. For every product that is available on Amazon, we required it to have a minimum of four out of five stars, which is typically the baseline for products to be considered great. It also needed to have hundreds of ratings instead of dozens to ensure that a good enough number of people have purchased it and are satisfied. For the products without publicly available ratings, we checked for public support elsewhere, such as Kickstarter, to ensure there's enough backing for the project.