Powerful multi-port power banks are becoming increasingly popular to keep our ever-growing array of gadgets charged up, and Alogic's new Ark Pro power bank brings some nice versatility to the table.
I've spent a few weeks testing out the Ark Pro, and I've found that it packs a nice punch with 27,600 mAh of juice and a trio of USB ports and the ability to charge a laptop at up to 140 watts.
You'll find a lot of beefy power banks coming in at around this same mAh rating, and that's because 27,600 mAh translates to 99.36 Wh in this battery, which is just under the 100 Wh limit for carrying it on an airplane without needing to get approval from the airline. Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro similarly comes in just below this limit at 99.6 Wh, but due to inherent inefficiencies in energy transfer you won't be able to fully charge a completely depleted 16-inch MacBook Pro from empty with the Ark Pro. A 14-inch MacBook Pro with its 72.4 Wh battery will fare better, as will MacBook Air models that come in even lower.
In my testing, I was able to get around 70% of a full charge for a 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro out of a topped-off Ark Pro, which is pretty solid but also a sign of how much energy is lost from power banks in heat and other inefficiencies when charging up other devices.
My 2021 MacBook Pro requires a MagSafe connection for fast charging, and I was able to pull up to 125 watts or so from the Ark Pro over MagSafe for relatively speedy charging, though the wattage does vary significantly depending on the charge states and temperatures of both devices, with the Ark Pro regulating its output to help prevent overheating. Charging the laptop with a USB-C to USB-C cable topped out at around 84 watts, though you should be able to do better with newer MacBook Pro models that support fast charging directly over USB-C.
The Ark Pro features two USB-C ports and a USB-A port, providing some good flexibility to keep both modern and legacy devices charged up. You'll only be able to use one of the two USB-C ports if you want to charge at the maximum of 140 watts, though it can simultaneously charge another device through the USB-A port at up to 22.5 watts. If you use both USB-C ports, output will drop to 65 watts for each of them.
Passthrough charging is supported, so you can plug a USB-C cable from another power source such as a wall outlet into one of the USB-C ports on the Ark Pro and another cable from a second Ark Pro USB port to a device, and the power bank will handle both input and output power simultaneously.
One clever design feature of the Ark Pro is an included USB-C cable that doubles as a lanyard for the power bank. While other companies like Anker offer some smaller power banks with integrated cables that can also serve as lanyards, the Ark Pro's cable is entirely removable to provide more flexibility for various charging needs.
The cable includes a sliding clip that locks into a channel in the body of the power bank, with the clip and the USB-C connectors leveraging the weight of the power bank to stay in place. I was a bit skeptical of this setup at first, hesitant to risk carrying a fairly hefty power bank by only the cable secured in this way, but it's worked just fine in my testing.
Another handy feature that's been making its way into more and more power banks is a digital display, and the Ark Pro has a nice color one that helps you keep tabs on charging status for both input and output.
The display background turns green when the power bank is being recharged, and it displays the current battery level down to a hundredth of a percentage point, as well as the current input wattage for the USB port in use and an estimate of how long it will take to fully charge the power bank at the current rate.
When you're using the Ark Pro to charge other items, the display backgrounds turn blue and you can similarly see the current output wattage per port, updating several times per second depending on how rapidly the power draw is changing, as well as an estimate of how long the power bank will last given its current charge level and power draw.
Pressing the silver button below the display wakes up the display when nothing is connected, allowing you to quickly check the Ark Pro's power level. While charging with the display active, pressing the button again brings up some interesting statistics for the power bank including battery health (what percentage of the original capacity is currently the maximum charge level), the number of cycles the battery has gone through, the current battery temperature, the length of the current charging session, and more.
The button can be pressed again to access the one setting option for the Ark Pro, and that's whether the display remains active at all times during charging in either direction or if it turns off after 30 seconds. The 30-second setting will obviously preserve more battery life for actual charging, and you can always wake up the display with a press of the button to check on things, but at least during my testing for this review I left it on the Always setting so I could watch what was happening with the power bank more closely.
Given the nearly 100 Wh capacity of the Ark Pro, it definitely has some heft to it, weighing around 680 grams (1.5 pounds). It is fairly compact in its sleek aluminum shell, however, measuring 155 mm (6.1 in) by 65 mm (2.6 in) by 60 mm (2.4 in) without accounting for the USB-C cable lanyard. It's plenty small enough to toss in a backpack or bag, though it will definitely add some weight, and this definitely isn't something to carry around in a pocket unless we're talking about a large-pocketed coat or similar item.
All of this portable power doesn't necessarily come cheaply, wit... Click here to read rest of article
Article Link: Review: Alogic's Ark Pro Packs a Punch With Portable Power
