Portable Charger Recommendations?

[melifeld]

Thanks. It looks like there is a Tiger Direct near my office. I'm going to try there at lunchtime. If they don't have one I'll try your suggestions.

 

[dawnhaze]

I've had good luck with Anker and Jackery products, and they come in a ton of different sizes and capacities. I currently have an Anker battery pack with a built-in micro-USB cable, which is a bit flimsy but comes in handy at times. I also really like Mophie battery cases, but as separate chargers go, theirs are overpriced compared to the perfectly good alternatives.

Personally, I keep a Mophie case on my phone all the time, because I use it a lot when I'm out running around. But when I go on trips, especially to Disney or on long bus/train rides, I bring my Anker battery pack to use in addition to the Mophie case. The external pack will charge the case and the phone just like plugging into a wall outlet would.

I did once drain all three batteries (Phone battery, Mophie case battery, Anker external battery) in a LONG day at Magic Kingdom. Left Pop at 6:30am for an 8am EMH, stayed through MNSSHP that evening, got back to Pop at about 1:30am. The phone was at 4% when I plugged it in that night.

 

[MichaelaF]

I actually ordered mine the day before we left too, and had it delivered to our resort (Fort Wilderness). I know all the Disney resorts allow it, and I'd imagine many off-sites do as well. We have Amazon Prime so we got it the day we arrived (we drove). Just in case nothing else works out! I'm surprised that Best Buy doesn't have anything. I'd maybe call them to check...

 

[Skywise]

Thanks. It looks like there is a Tiger Direct near my office. I'm going to try there at lunchtime. If they don't have one I'll try your suggestions.

I would think Tiger Direct would have it in stock. (I've got a Fry's near me that I would've suggested too but I wasn't sure what's in your area!)

Also the Orlando airport shopping is a bit better than my airport (yours may be the same) so if yours doesn't have it then you can pick it up on arrival.

Actually... anyone know if the resort shoppes at Disney carry them?

 

[shyjade]

I picked up the Anker 6000mAh charger about a year ago and have been happy.

I was initially tempted to get the 12000mAh or 15000mAh version just for that 'extra power' bit. Then it dawned on me: This is for backup power, not main power. I'll be using it for when I enter the parks, have heavy use on my phone and it just doesn't quite make it until the end of the day. I don't need a huge brick so I can charge it 10 times during the day, just enough to charge 2-3 phones (like if my daughter's phone goes dead on the same day).

We have the Anker 10,000 mAh and LOVE it. DD16 and I can both use it to recharge our phones quickly at Disney (simultaneously). I bought a cheaper, lower mAh charger initially and it's useless at Disney.

 

[MiaSRN62]

I purchased the Jackery Giant for our June trip. It can charge 2 phones at once, and we will have 6 IPhones, so I wanted the extra port.

Just to mention, my Halo also charges 2 devices at one time too.

 

[UncleMike101]

I can recommend the Anker brand. This is the one we got and it works great:
Anker® 2nd Gen Astro3 12000mAh (4A Output) Portable Charger Triple USB External Battery Pack with PowerIQ™ Technology


Keep in mind the mAh associated with the chargers, in relation to the mAh of your phone (or other devices) battery, determines how many charges you will get out of the device. So say you have a 12000mAh portable charger and your phones battery is 2100mAh. To figure out how many charges you can get out of it you'd want to deduct 20% of the original mAh and then divide by your phones battery; in this case (12000 * 0.8) / 2100 ~= 4.5 full charges. This gives you a rough idea of how many full charges you can get out of a portable charger; if your phone isn't full drained, obviously you can get more charges out of it.

Also, watch for how many amps each USB port on the device is. More and more smart phones are moving to use 2A charging ports. In the device I purchased, it has 3 ports and will charge at 4A between them; this means I can charge two 2A phones, or I could charge 1 2A device and 2 1A devices at the same time.

Finally, the larger device (mAh wise) you get the longer it takes to charge. I made sure the device I chose would be able to fully charge during the hours I typically sleep.

Yup^^^^^^^^^^^
We're taking an Astro 3 and an Astro Mini to WDW this month.
We have two Droid 4's and two Motorola Barrage's to keep fed while in the parks.

 

[CAS239]

After taking frequent trips to Disney, I've been interested in looking into getting a portable charger. It seems like most of the charging cases don't offer full phone protection, so I'd rather keep my otterbox on. So have been looking for just a portable charger that the gf and I can use (iphone 5 and 5C)

Groupon has "Urge Basics 4000mAh Portable Battery Charger" for $15.99 instead of $39.99. So I think I'm going to pick that up

 

[tink18]

I bought a Tedim Rapid 2200mAh from Amazon not too expensive and works great

 

[RysMomma]

Thanks everyone for your advice! I think at the moment I'm going towards the Anker 10,000 mAh. You were all very helpful!