RAVPower 23000mAh Portable Charger Review

As you may or may not know we have yet to review a power bank that’s capable of charging laptops. However, lately we’ve gotten a lot of requests for a review on the RAVPower 23000mAh Portable Charger. Which is one of RAVPower’s most popular big battery packs with laptop charging capabilities, so let’s take a look at how it holds up in this review.

Design and Portability

To cut to the chase immediately, the RAVPower 23000mAh is one of the most premium looking power banks I’ve seen to date. The top has a metallic brushed finish and feels great to the touch, and even though the underside is made of plastic, it feels high quality made and very sturdy as well. On top we also find a nice LED display that shows several metrics like battery percentage and voltage. It makes sense for the power bank to look and feel as good as it does. After all, it is one of the higher end power banks we’ve come across and is priced accordingly.

The RAVPower Xtreme definitely packs some good size on it. It’s about the size of an Asus Nexus 7 tablet and has a larger and wider footprint than the RAVPower 2600mAh power bank, but is slightly thinner. Measuring at 7.3 inches in length, 4.9 inches in width and 0.8 inch thick, it’s one of the few power banks that don’t pass the ‘pocket test’. Meaning it does not fit in a jeans pocket as it is simply too wide. It’s also quite heavy, weighing in at 20.8oz (1.3 lbs). However, for a power bank of this capacity that’s quite a normal range and it’s definitely not heavy enough to be a nuisance in your backpack or purse.

As with most RAVPower power banks, the device comes with a carry pouch—which usually consist of a mesh fabric with elastic closure. This time however, we find RAVPower has included a large soft fabric pouch with an additional compartment for cables or adapters. To be perfectly honest, it does not look and feel like a high quality pouch and for a $100 power bank, you’d expect a bit more.

Features

Like mentioned above we find an LED display on the RAVPower 23000mAh, which is the first time we’ve come across a RAVPower device with battery percentage display. It’s an incredibly convenient feature. Instead of having to guess how much power there’s still left in the device with one or two blinking LED lights, now you can just read exactly how much power it has left in the tank.

The RAVPower 23000mAh Power Bank features two USB slots and a multi-voltage DC port. Since this is one of RAVpower’s older power banks, the charging ports are not fitted with RAVpower’s signature iSmart charging technology. Meaning it does not automatically charge devices at their most efficient output amperage. The two USB ports are rated at 1A and 2.5A respectively. The first port is meant for phones, while the second port is meant to charge tablets. You could theoretically charge your phone in the 2.5A port so it’ll charge faster, but this is not recommended as it will shorten the lifespan of your phone’s battery. So make sure you check in which port you’re connecting a device before charging it.

What’s most interesting about this power bank is of course its ability to charge in several different voltages, making it a great device to charge small laptops with as well. RAVPower decided to make it even more convenient for you by including a whopping ten different adapters for varying devices, so you don’t have to buy any additional accessories. However, since Apple uses proprietary connectors with patent on them, there’s no Apple adapters for lightning or MagSafe. For your iPhone you can just use the cable you already have and connect it to the USB charging slot, but to charge a Macbook Air Pro you’ll have to get an adapter like this one. And for a Macbook with USB-C input you’ll have to get an adapter like this.

Nonetheless, for small MSI, Acer and Asus laptops it’s perfectly suitable. Once you connect the right adapter to the charging cable and connect it to your laptop, you get to choose the voltage on the display screen of the power bank with the tactile power button. It works very well and the convenient LED screen gives you a good overview of how much juice is left in the power bank. Also, make sure you choose the right voltage specific to your laptop’s battery. Picking the wrong voltage will result in extremely slow charging speeds or no charging at all.

Power

Packing a monstrous 23000mAh of battery capacity, the RAVpower 23000 power bank will last you with about a week of charges, depending on how often you charge of course. The power bank will give a Samsung Note 3 six charges, which is pretty impressive if we think about the fact that a Note 3 has a 3200mAh battery. It will charge an iPhone 6 almost ten times, and a Galaxy S7 six times. Comparing it to the RAVPower 26800mAh, this 23000mAh seems to have a similar efficiency, since they both have about ten charges for an iPhone 6.

It manages to charge a Macbook Air Pro from 0 to 100% and still has some power left, which is very impressive. Granted, a new Macbook pro 15″ has just about 6690 mAh of battery capacity, but we have to keep in mind that a lot of energy is lost when charging at higher voltages. So this was definitely unexpected in a good way.

Conclusion

Not the most compact power bank, but only because it packs a punch. The RAVPower 23000mAh provides you with a week’s worth of charges for all your varying devices, ranging from smartphones, tablets, laptops, and even certain CPAP devices. The battery percentage display and whopping ten included adapters make charging even easier and although it’s not a cheap power bank, it’s definitely worth its price.

Technical Specifications