Compact power station

[Lindacon]

Hi! What’s the best compact power station to keep a laptop running an extra 4–5 hours? My laptop charges over USB-C, and I’d like something small enough to take on trips. What do you use?
I’d really appreciate your recommendation.

 

[CyklonDX]

You can start with figuring out how much wattage you laptop is using - the power profile you plan on using, and applications that will be open; from that point you should be able to figure out what capacity you need.

 

[Lindacon]

My laptop uses about 45W, so I’d need a power station with at least 250–300Wh to get around 5 extra hours. I’ve looked at options like the EcoFlow RIVER 3, but it’s a bit large to take on trips. I’m looking for something more compact.

 

[CyklonDX]

There is no magical compact battery yet; anything close to 300Wh is going to be thick/heavy.

Take a look at anker solix c300, there are plenty of different brands if you just look for power bank 300Wh on amazon.

 

[nexox]

My laptop uses about 45W

Most laptops don't use that much power continuously, unless you're doing something fairly intensive, in which case you're going to need to plug it in, but built in laptop batteries aren't large enough to sustain 45W for very long in most cases. Rather than try to estimate or measure actual power consumption you can look up the capacity of the laptop battery in Wh, figure out how long that lasts under your intended workload, then scale the capacity to your desired runtime and add 10-15% overhead for losses.

If you intend to fly with a battery look up the regulations on size and quantity you're allowed to bring and just get that.

 

[beatle]

Reference for battery capacity on airlines:

https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries#:~:text=Size%20limits:%20Lithium%20metal%20(non,160%20watt%20hours%20per%20battery)

.

tl;dr: You can take a 100wh with you. Some planes are starting to come with USB-C PD ports which will make the need for most battery packs obsolete.