What power bank would you recommend for traveling and charging phone and iPad?

Power banks on a plane

When you travel it makes sense to have a decent power bank with you. The best power bank to go on holiday with depends primarily on the battery capacity of your phone and iPad or other mobile gadgets you many want to charge on-the-go. The iPad has battery capacity of either about 7000mAh or circa 12000 mAh. What does your phone have?

What you need depends on whether or not you are a heavy gadget user i.e., do you access multiple email and social media accounts from your gadgets? Do you stream videos a lot? Downloading movies and doing live streaming can suck up your battery power.

A further consideration is where you are travelling to. Are you likely to have easy access to charging ports and be able to recharge your phone and iPad?

If on a flight, note that the FAA recommends - batteries are limited to a rating of 100 watt hours (Wh) per battery on a plane and the terminals must be protected from short circuit - that's equivalent to 20000 - 27000 mAh power bank.

Assuming you are a heavy user and not likely to have easy access to charging ports, I suggest you get a power bank that can charge your gadgets at least twice daily, all things being equal. But things aren’t always equal.

For example, the average smartphone has a battery capacity of 1500 to 2500 mAh, but some are a bit more. Assuming your iPad is 7000mAh, that means you have about 9500 mAh for both gadgets. So its best you buy double that capacity. I suggest you get  2 x 10000 mAh - 12000mAh or a high capacity table top portable power bank that is designed for laptops. 

Reasons for best power bank to travel with

1. Most smartphones will need to be recharged by mid afternoon. So, if you are out and about, you want to be able to do that easily.
2. Power banks lose some energy when re-charging mobile gadgets, mostly due to heat generated, resistance, size & length of USB cable and other climatic conditions. The average loss is 15% to 20%. As a result, if you have a 10,000 mAh power bank, you should only expect to get 8000 to 8500mAh from it. So it makes sense to have double that amount for your gadgets.

I would also suggest you get a solar power bank with a USB input charging port. This ensures you have two options to easily top up your power banks whenever and wherever.