Anker 737 Power Bank Review: PowerCore 24K

The Anker 737 is a power bank built around a single idea: carry enough electricity to stop worrying about it. Shaped like a very thick chocolate bar, it holds a nominal 24,000 mAh, pushes up to 140 W from a single port and will recharge a laptop rather than just a phone. It finished second out of twenty-eight power banks tested. The price of all that capacity is bulk, and it is considerable.

This is emphatically not a pocket power bank. The 737 measures 156 x 55 x 50 mm and weighs 621 g — enough that you notice it in a bag, though not enough to make carrying it impractical. Anker includes a carry pouch, which helps organise it but does little to disguise the mass.

The size buys capacity. Anker states 24,000 mAh, or 86.4 Wh. Measured, the usable figure came out at 20,307 mAh and 73.1 Wh. That gap is normal — no cell delivers its nominal rating at the output stage — and what remains is still enough to refill a smartphone several times over, or a small tablet more than once. Energy density works out at 118 mWh/g.

The two USB-C ports are what separate this from ordinary power banks: each can deliver up to 140 W. That is enough to charge most laptops at close to full speed rather than merely slowing their battery drain, and it is the single strongest argument for buying the 737 over something smaller. A conventional USB-A port sits alongside them, giving three outputs in total.

USB Power Delivery is supported. Quick Charge is not, though that standard matters far less than it once did.

Recharging the 737 itself takes 1 hour 49 minutes — an genuinely good figure, particularly against similarly sized units that routinely take two or three times as long. A large battery that takes all evening to refill is a real inconvenience, and this one avoids that trap. No mains charger is supplied, which is increasingly standard and defensible on environmental grounds, but it does mean you need a sufficiently powerful charger of your own to see that 1 hour 49 minute figure.

Pass-through charging works, with one caveat worth knowing before you rely on it: the 737 will charge a connected device while itself plugged in, but only over USB-C. Connect something to the USB-A port in that situation and it will not draw power.

The standout feature is a small LC colour display, and it is more useful than that description suggests. It shows the power bank's own remaining charge, the live output of each individual port, and the unit's temperature. When the 737 is charging, it also predicts how long remains until it is full.

Most power banks communicate their state through four ambiguous LEDs. Knowing the actual percentage remaining, and what each port is currently drawing, removes most of the guesswork from using one.

Beyond that display, the 737 is conventionally equipped. There is no inductive charging and no MagSafe, no solar panel, no Lightning input and no integrated torch — the last being a small omission that many cheaper rivals include. Nothing here is a serious failing, but nobody should buy this expecting extras beyond raw capacity, high output and good information.

Set against the rest of the test field, the 737's position becomes clearer. The category winner was the Anker Prime 27650 (A1340), a larger sibling holding 27,650 mAh nominally and 22,014 mAh measured, pushing up to 250 W and recharging in 1 hour 51 minutes — but at 668 g and 162 x 57 x 50 mm it is bigger and heavier still, and its charging dock is an extra purchase.

At the other end, the budget pick was the Verico PowerPro PD V2, with 20,000 mAh stated and 19,567 mAh measured at just 417 g. The catch is output and patience: 22.5 W maximum, and 5 hours 36 minutes to recharge itself. The cheapest pick, the Epico Aluminium PD 100W, measured 16,365 mAh at only 374 g and 101 x 47 x 47 mm, with 100 W output and the quickest refill of the group at 1 hour 43 minutes.

One figure is worth dwelling on. The 737's energy density is 118 mWh/g, against 169 mWh/g for the Verico and 162 mWh/g for the Epico. It is not merely large because it holds a lot — it carries comparatively less energy per gram than lighter rivals do. You are paying a weight penalty for the 140 W output and the display, not purely for capacity.

In the UK the Anker 737 Power Bank is listed on Amazon UK under model number A1289 — the same model code as the unit tested. The current verified price is shown in the buying panel above. The listing confirms the 24,000 mAh capacity, three ports and 140 W output described above.

The Anker 737 earns its second place out of twenty-eight on substance. Measured capacity is high, 140 W output genuinely covers laptops rather than just phones, the self-charge time of under two hours is excellent for a battery this size, and the display makes it far easier to live with than the LED-blob approach most competitors take.

Its drawbacks are entirely predictable and entirely physical. At 621 g and 156 mm long it is large and heavy, and no amount of engineering changes what 24,000 mAh weighs. This is a power bank for a rucksack, a long-haul flight or a working trip where a laptop needs topping up away from a socket — not something to carry daily on the off-chance.

Judged as what it is, rather than as a general-purpose accessory, it is very good indeed. If you want something for a jacket pocket, buy something a quarter of the size and accept a quarter of the capacity.