For some, standards are driven into the framework, and for some, life is seriously made easier. At one time. The introduction of microUSB as a single port for charging. Power Bank Price in Pakistan and data transfer in phones and many smartphones made life easier. Now the victorious march of the “symmetrical” USB TypeC has begun. I had a laptop and a smartphone with a TypeC interface for charging and a regular Powerbank in my hands. And since I often work on the road, it was decided to test it “in the fields”. Under the cut, New Year’s test.
Laptop test
My workplace is a laptop that travels with me not only in cities, but sometimes in different countries. A mobile office is a laptop and a smartphone that provides communication. Not always and not everywhere is easy access to the outlet, so battery life and charging gadgets become a problem. I already have an unnamed Power bank, which I equipped with reliable elements from the “dead” batteries for old laptops. The honest capacity of this battery is about 20,000 mAh, converted to 3.7 Volts.
The laptop adapter, in turn, gives out 5/9/12V and I wondered if it was possible to charge a laptop with a regular power bank. So I went on an experiment and decided to connect the laptop to an external battery. By connecting an external battery to the laptop. I saw consumption at the level of largest output power. And the device showed consumption through the USB port of 1.93A at 4.45V.
After that, it was decided to conduct a test with different parameters. The task was to find out how much an external battery can extend the battery life of a laptop. The Huawei MateBook 13 laptop was chosen for the experiments . Battery mode: power saving, Wi-Fi off, medium brightness. For the load, the Godfather trilogy was included in FullHD quality with a good bitrate. Monitoring was carried out using the Battery Eater utility.
Since it became clear that the laptop has a DC-DC converter on board. It was interesting to find out how its efficiency depends on the residual capacity and voltage of its own battery. So, it was decided to connect the Powerbank at the very beginning, with half the residual charge and at 30%.
Test 1:
the laptop runs only on its battery
In this mode, the laptop worked for 5 hours 48 minutes 22 seconds and turned off when it reached 2% of the battery charge. The battery discharge profile is linear.
Test 2:
Powerbank is connected immediately. And the laptop works in parallel from its own battery and from an external battery.
The operating time was 9 hours 13 minutes 45 seconds. That is, the external battery added 3 hours 25 minutes and increased autonomy by 58%. The graph clearly shows when the charge of the external battery is over.
Test 3:
In the next test, the external battery was connected after reaching 50% discharge of the laptop’s own battery.
Curiously, on the graph, the discharge line only slightly changed the angle. And did not significantly reduce the fit of the laptop’s own battery. As it was when connected from the very beginning. Yet, the battery life was 8 hours 58 minutes 43 seconds. The increase in autonomy relative to the independent operation of the laptop was 56%.
Test 4:
In this mode, the Powerbank was connected to the laptop when the discharge of its own battery reached 30%.
It can be seen that after connecting an external battery. The laptop battery discharge rate slightly decreased from 30 to 20%. And after that it practically “stood up”, losing charge by a percentage per hour. This suggests that the efficiency of the built-in DC-DC converter in the laptop was greatest. The battery life was 10 hours 27 minutes 53 seconds, that is, autonomy has been increased by 80 percent!
From this we can conclude that to increase the duration of battery life. It is much more profitable to connect an external battery with a largest decrease in the residual charge of the laptop battery.
The internal battery capacity of the laptop is 55 Wh, and the charger consumes up to 68 W. Compare that to the 8.5 watts my Power Bank put out.
Smartphone test
But that’s not all tests! Since a laptop without an external connection turns into a “typewriter”, it is extremely important that there is a network. Here I turn to the second test. My mobile office suite includes a Vsmart Live smartphone . I will not do reviews of this smartphone, since they are already on the network, but the autonomy is worth checking. Moreover, it also has a USB TypeC port for recharging and data transfer. Including OTG is supported, which makes it easier to download fresh music to a USB flash drive in the car radio. It is not always convenient to use the built-in Bluetooth function to transfer music from a smartphone.
In my test, the smartphone will act as a mobile hotspot. Internet distribution will be carried out via Wi-Fi. Communication with an external network according to the LTE standard, Megafon operator. It is clear that the profiles of using a smartphone are different for everyone. During the test, several calls were made, there was periodic communication via messengers. A couple of times the game was launched for a period of up to 10 minutes. I was wondering if it is possible to work all day with such a combination of laptop and smartphone? It should be clarified that the capacity of the smartphone’s own battery is 4000 mAh. Amoled screen with a diagonal of 6.2 inches. Two sim cards have been installed. The hotspot was launched at 2.4 GHz, although the smartphone can create a hotspot at 5 GHz, which can be useful in noisy radio conditions.
Test 1:
exploitation profile – downloading torrents. Thus, in addition to the usual operation of the smartphone. A high load of data transfer via Wi-Fi and frequent data exchange with the base station were added.
Test 2:
operation profile – office and entertainment. To the usual operation of the smartphone, watching videos from Youtube. Watching movies online, sending files and ordinary surfing the net were added.
The operating time in the first test was 5 hours 10 minutes, and in the second – 8 hours 50 minutes.
During the first test, when the torrents were downloaded, 36.9 GB were downloaded. The speed jumped around the 20 Mbps mark and. I suspect that the heavy network load and the not very good location relative to the BS during the test affected. Since earlier on the smartphone I saw speeds up to 70 Mbps for receiving and up to 53 Mbps for return. The second test with the “office” work profile showed a longer life of the smartphone, but the data downloaded was noticeably less – 14.5 GB.
Conclusion
A good laptop’s battery life and medium load capabilities. Confirmed my assumptions: it’s quite possible to work all day away from the outlet. Especially with a spare external battery. If you work at the minimum display brightness and maximum energy saving. Then you can live an 8-hour working day on a single battery charge, but your eyes will not be very comfortable. Most importantly. The test showed the highest efficiency of connecting an external battery with a minimum remaining battery level. I do not claim that this will work for all laptops, but if the power scheme is similar. Then it is likely to get similar measurement results.
As for the operation of a smartphone in access point mode, in parallel with the normal operation of the device. You can safely count on a full working day if you do not download large amounts of data. The smartphone proved to be worthy if you need to work on the road. The available 3 cameras work very well not only for artistic shooting, but also as a scanner for photographing documents. The built-in battery has sufficient capacity. And the radio supports LTE Cat.12, 3-carrier aggregation, and download speeds up to 600Mbps. But to see such numbers, your operator’s base station must support this mode of operation.
In general, in this combination of mobile technology. You can safely go for a whole day to work away from the outlet, especially if you take a Power bank with you.
