Anker Astro E1 5200mAh Candy bar-Sized Ultra Compact Portable Charger (External Battery Power Bank) with High-Speed Charging PowerIQ Technology

OK...So Anker was kind enough to let me test out this little Power Packed pistol, and this review is based on my opinion and that of a couple people in my house hold.First off all lemme say. Im a dad with an ideal situation for testing. 3 kids and a wife. So I let them use it also and pretty much condensed their opinions into this review.OK so now here we go. First of all the battery arrived in its typical Anker packaging. Which i might say is nice compared to many other Chargers I have owned, which tend to show up in a plastic bag, or plastic packaging. The only real negative to this(Really not a big deal), is the fact you have to tear the outer cover to get to the directions. I personally like having it there as it allows me to see right away whats in the box and its one less piece of loose paper. Included in the Box is a Micro cable (Always a bonus), and a pamphlet with some contact numbers.The 18 month warranty is a welcome perk, and though i have yet to have an issue with any of my Anker products, its good to know they trust their products durability and construction.So how did this lil Power bank hold up? Personally I own a Samsung Note 4 and I use it for emails, invoicing, phone calls, video conferencing, and a multitude of other things. If I drained my phone to just short of 4% i get a good one time charge to 100%, leaving very little for anything else. So if you are a heavy data user and do a lot of muti-tasking you might need something with a lil more juice to last you the day. However my girls own Samsung S5's and my Son an S4. They were able to get about a good 1 and Half charges from the Anker from just short of 4% also. However with a heavy user it might not last the day. And thats not the fault of charger, just the fact with HD streaming now and data demand its asking A Lot from what is still a lil work horse.My Oldest is in college and really liked the idea of trying out this charger. Mostly i believe to avoid sitting on a wall and trying to charge her phone. She got really good use from it and was able to get a full days use out of it. The IQ charging capability was a plus, since she was going form 2% to almost 100% in the 2 hours of class while she let her phone sit. She did however get concerned as she said the charger heated up and she was worried that something was wrong. But that was a minimal issue.My 2nd Daughter spends the day running around with my grandson and busy using taking photos and videos of him. Her biggest comment was, "I love how compact and sleek it is". She spend a couple days with it, in her purse, and was elated that she had it on day 2. As they had spent the day at the Zoo and as dawn came realized that her phone was almost dead. No worries tho, she just pulled out her Anker and it went right to work. Within 15 mins she was at 20 percent and it kept on working. I can only assume the IQ technology is true to its claim of giving a great charge. The one negative to this story, was that i had to ask for it back. She didnt want to give it up!!Now last but not least is my 16y/o son, whom spends a rediculous amount of time on his phone, and between apps, music, streaming video and only God knows what else the 5200 had its work cut out for itself. Now it performed well, mind you he is in school almost 12 hours a day with after school activities. So the charger wasn't able to make it thru the evening, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Considering how much juice he uses, and it still got him thru till the last couple hours That is saying A LOT, about this lil beast. Again his only concern was how warm it got. However the demand on the charger and its ability to keep a consistent charge still give it an A+ in my book.So overall this lil beast performed very very well. I didnt bother testing it on any of my tablets since the demand on the Charger would have been asking a little bit too much. But with the Phones just recharging and letting them sit a good 90 to 120 mins you are gonna have 100 percent charge on everything from the Galaxy family and With the Iphone6. Charging while using the phone will greatly depend on the type of browsing you are doing. Streaming videos, or movies might not get you thru the day. However the casual user will love this charger, not just for its capabilities, but its construction and feel.

I spent a lot of time trying to decide between all the different sizes of portable chargers offered by Anker and so far I am really glad I chose this one. For my purposes I wanted to be able to keep the charger in my purse all the time and I feel that anything bigger than this model would take up too much room. The smallest model (the Astro mini 3350mAh) would have worked in this regard but it's charging capacity seemed a little limiting to me. I also think it's really useful that this charger gives you an indication of how much battery it has left, whereas the smallest model does not.I have been carrying the charger around since I purchased it a few weeks ago and have only had to use it once. I forgot to charge my phone at work like I usually do and it was about to die when I was in the car on my way to a couple errands. I plugged it in and left in my purse. It charged really fast! I didn't measure the charging time exactly but I believe it was around an hour and a half. With the charger starting at full capacity (4 lit lights), fully charging my Galaxy S6 brought it down to around 50% (2 lit lights).The peace of mind this thing gives you is just fantastic. Not only is it nice to know if I have an emergency or a really important call to make I never have to worry about my phone being dead, but it's really great just not having to even think about battery life as you use your phone. You can take all those photos, send all those Snapchats, map all those routes, etc. No more worrying about battery life. There's a lot of value in that. Car chargers work sometimes but you aren't always sitting in your car when you need to charge your phone. And with the S6 there's no way to swap out the battery. So a portable charger was the only way to go. I'm glad to have it for those times I forget to charge but also for those times I may just not have access to a wall charger for a whole day. When my husband and I go on day trips we should both be able to get at least close to a full charge out of this thing (he also has an S6). I love it!EDIT: I just used the charger for the second time, without having charged it after my first use. It was only able to get my phone from 20% to 40%. So my initial assumption that it is good for 2 full charges is not the case. Still, 120% is not bad and quite a bit more than you'd get with the smallest model. And it got from 20 to 40% really quickly!