Some of us tend to spend time at places like a café to get our work done using a laptop. More often than not, public places hardly provide enough access to a power socket. To make matters worse, there may be a faulty plug right where we sit and the struggle to continue working on our laptops gets real.
We all know the existence of power banks which many of us find it very useful to charge up our dying phones. However, hardly anyone would know that there’s a power bank that could charge up a laptop in an event where there’s no access to power. Dell is well known for their computers but now, they are also emerging in the power bank sector. They are more focused on powering laptops rather than mobile phones on-the-go. With many laptops these days having support for USB-C, Dell’s PW7018LC power bank lets you take advantage of USB-C to charge up your laptop.
Design
The PW7018LC has a minimalistic design with a really premium touch to it. It has a silver metal body with curved edges to give it a slim aesthetic look. There’s a USB-C non-removable power cord which is connected to the power bank itself used to charge laptops. In addition to that, there’s an additional USB-A port on the power bank to allow you to charge up other devices like your phone. With your phone connected to the USB-A port, not only does it charge but it also allows data transfer.
A USB-C port on the power bank can only be used as power input to charge up the power bank itself. There is a button which has five white LED indicators to show the battery status of the power bank.
Charge Up
If you do own a laptop which has a USB-C port, then you could make use of the power bank. It is important to highlight the fact that not all laptops with USB-C can be charged. For instance, if the USB-C port only supports data transfer, there’s no use in getting this power bank. Although Dell claims that the power bank supports wide variety of laptops with USB-C. Bear in mind the USB-C port has to have support for power input, specifically Thunderbolt 3.
Power output of the USB-C cord is rated at 5V, 9V, 15V, 20V with a maximum of 65W. The same is rated for the USB-C port which is used to charge the power bank. As for the USB-A, it is rated at 5V/2A only with a maximum of 10W.
Throughout my usage, I did try to charge up my phone using the USB-C cord from the power bank. I’m happy to say that it does fast charge my Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus and this is because of the high power output rating. If your laptop supports a power rating higher than 65W, you can expect it to charge slowly than using the regular adapter which came with your laptop.
Conclusion
The Dell Notebook Power Bank Plus PW7018LC is a nice to have equipment for a heavy laptop user. Only downfall is not everyone, including those with a USB-C port in their laptop, can take advantage of this power bank. On the bright side, it is one of the most quality and reliable power bank for laptops. Moreover, the 65Wh battery pack is pretty big to provide a full charge for your laptop and charging other devices at the same time. The PW7018LC retails for RM686 in silver only.
