What you need to know
- Charge ASAP has launched a new Indiegogo compaign for its latest power bank.
- Flash claims to be "The World's Fastest Charging Powerbank" with 150W combined output.
- The 20,000mAh portable battery supports 100W PD charging for laptops like the MacBook Pro.
- It also supports fast charging protocols for Apple, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, Huawei, and Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0.
- The campaign runs for the next month, with the Flash starting at $139 for Early Bird backers.
I'm always on the hunt for a better, sleeker power bank to stuff in my gear bag. For my co-workers who are hibernating between CES and MWC, a power bank that can keep a MacBook Pro alive while burning up the battery with Premiere projects is an exercise in futility: they're either super expensive, super heavy, or often both. Power Delivery's wide adoption and advances in graphene batteries have helped things along, but these things take time to develop, test, and produce, which is why we saw very few power banks using the technology in 2019.
2020 is here, though, and with it come new crowdfunding campaigns for graphene power banks like the Flash from Charge ASAP This power bank has a combined output of 150W split between:
- 100W Power Delivery USB-C charging, which also supports fast charging for Apple Fast Charge and Samsung Adaptive Fast Charge
- 40W USB-A port supporting Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo, and Huawei fast charging protocols
- 18W USB-A port supporting Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0
- 10W Qi wireless charging pad that supports 2.5W Apple Watch charging
That's a lot of ways to charge a laptop, phone, tablet, wearable, or basically anything else you might throw at the Flash, and weighing 470g, this is a power bank that won't weigh down your power bank as much and as 20,000mAh chargers around today that only charge at 18 or 30W. The power bank uses four Tesla Lithium Polymer Graphene Composite Battery Cells, which have been designed with and manufactured by Panasonic, with a two year warranty and a potential 5-year lifespan of up to 2000 charge cycles.
When you need to keep your MacBook Pro and your two phones alive during an all-day marathon of a technology conference — or on a weekend in the woods — the Flash is a great option if you can wait til summer to receive it.
There's a lot to like here, and I'm very much happy to see more batteries that are big in adaptability without being too big to comfortably fit in a daypack — especially when it starts at $139, well under the price Goal Zero charges for the bigger and heavier Sherpa 100 PD Qi (opens in new tab). The only real drawbacks here are it's a crowdfunding campaign, so you can't be sure when a Flash will actually show up at your door — Charge ASAP has done enough that I'm not terribly worried about ridiculous delays, but you never know — and that there's only one USB-C port, so you'll have to carry some USB-C to USB-A cables if you're using this with your laptop and phone consistently.
If you want to charge a laptop and have a Huawei, OnePlus, or Oppo phone, though, the Flash is right up your alley, and I'd recommend snagging one of those early birds before the price jumps up to $149 or $169.
