What's a good portable phone charger?

September 16, 2024 12:30 PM

My partner is using my old Google Pixel 2XL. When he goes out in to the world and listens to an audio book for an hour, it totally loses its charge. He's not going to get a new phone now. Is there a portable phone charger that he can take with it to extend the charge?
posted by DMelanogaster to Technology (13 answers total)

If he wants to keep using it for a while, why not just get the battery replaced? It shouldn't be hugely expensive. If you're reasonably handy, you can even do it yourself.

There are thousands of portable battery packs available, but all of them are going to be more awkward to use than a phone with a battery that lasts for a reasonable length of time.
posted by ssg at 12:41 PM on September 16, 2024 [5 favorites]

You might want to specify whether you're talking about a wall charger or a portable battery bank, as I'm not 100% clear on that from your question.

Another consideration would be whether you could find a phone repair place near you that can replace the battery with a newer one. It might be worth a call to one to ask, though the multiplicity of vendors and parts in the Android ecosystem makes it a little bit more complicated than the Apple world.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:42 PM on September 16, 2024

You can probably find a local phone repair shop to put in an aftermarket battery.

I own one of these Anker battery packs. It has a built in USB-C cable which means one fewer thing to lose.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:44 PM on September 16, 2024

Also if it's dying after an hour it is probably on its very last legs and when the battery eventually totally dies it will suddenly be a huge pain to use at all.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:46 PM on September 16, 2024

Response by poster: great idea to replace the battery, but UBreakIFix says they can't even find a battery for that old a model. Ugh. Any suggestions to obtain the right battery?
posted by DMelanogaster at 12:58 PM on September 16, 2024

Response by poster: oh, and I was talking about a power bank, not an in-the-wall charger. this would be for on-the-go when the battery's about to run out.
posted by DMelanogaster at 12:59 PM on September 16, 2024

I think you can pick any Anker battery bank and it'll be fine for his purposes -- there will be a tradeoff between size and battery capacity. For reference, my 13000mAh battery bank fully charges my new-ish iPhone a few times, and while it won't fit in a women's pant pocket, I routinely toss it in my purse.

(I'm sure that other brands are fine, but I've had good luck with Anker. I just looked it up, and I bought my current battery bank 7 years ago, and it's still working well!)
posted by Metasyntactic at 1:22 PM on September 16, 2024

That phone has a 3500 mAh battery, so you need a powerbank of at least three times that. Anker's always good, so are Baseus and Ugreen. The tradeoff is between capacity and weight, personally I find the 10500 mAh powerbanks at half a pound the sweet spot but if he can easily carry the one-pound weight of a the brick that is a 20000 mAh powerbank, that'll give him nearly six full charges.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:22 PM on September 16, 2024 [1 favorite]

Also if it's dying after an hour it is probably on its very last legs and when the battery eventually totally dies it will suddenly be a huge pain to use at all.

Having used a past phone to the point where it basically couldn't hold a charge anymore or even turn on at all when connected to a charger... this is correct and your partner should (a) make sure to constantly back up anything important that might be on the phone, and (b) start thinking seriously about their next steps.
posted by trig at 1:31 PM on September 16, 2024 [1 favorite]

If you really want to use this specific phone, you could get a phone case with a built in battery (like this, though I have no idea if that specific model is any good). But for around the price of that battery case, you could get a decent used phone.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:37 PM on September 16, 2024

great idea to replace the battery, but UBreakIFix says they can't even find a battery for that old a model. Ugh. Any suggestions to obtain the right battery?

UBreakIFix isn't even trying. if you want to do it yourself. iFixit has a kit
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:38 PM on September 16, 2024 [3 favorites]

From personal experience:
* iFixit is great, both the instructions and the hardware they sell
* I've gotten a cheaper battery from Amazon, and it lasted about a day
posted by Pronoiac at 3:08 PM on September 16, 2024

ifixit says the batteries they sell are genuine Google batteries for that model, so if you're thinking of buying one I might try asking them how old they are - is Google still producing them (not likely) or has this been sitting unused for years. In which case it may still last for a good while, but possibly nowhere near as long as the original.
posted by trig at 3:31 PM on September 16, 2024 [2 favorites]