Dell Power Companion 12000 Mah Pw7015m Notebook Power Bank 43wh Review

External Batteries for PCs Practise Non Work every bit Expected

by Paul Teich, Principal Analyst

Dell demonstrated its house-branded laptop power bank at CES in January and recently sent me an XPS 13 with their production 43Wh / 12,000 mAh Power Companion (model PW7015M) for evaluation. I am in the process of reviewing the XPS xiii user experience (UX) and usability, I will publish that in the next few weeks. While I've been abusing the XPS 13 and its Power Companion, I've noticed a few behaviors that don't vest in a review of these products; they are more general challenges with recharging PCs using external power banks instead of alternating electric current (AC) power converters.

Nigh of united states recharge our smartphones on-the-become with portable "power bank" external USB batteries. Nigh of these USB batteries are not designed to recharge laptops and productivity tablets such as Microsoft's Surface Pro iii (SP3) and Surface Pro iv (SP4) models. A scattering of third-parties, such as Lizone, take designed specialty USB power banks that also output power specifically for laptops and x86-based tablets. Dell's Power Companion is one of these specialty power banks.

Dell XPS13 with Dell Power Companion battery (left) and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with Lizone QC 24,000 mAh battery (right) [photos: TIRIAS Research]

Power banks are designed to deliver the same power spec that Air-conditioning ability converters evangelize. Smartphones, tablets and laptops cannot make up one's mind the deviation betwixt an AC power supply and an external bombardment based on volts, amps, or the blazon of ability connector.

I similar Dell's Ability Companion. It enables me to partially recharge my XPS 13 without having to find a wall socket. Merely, I expected the Power Companion to bear like my smartphone power banks. I forgot one cardinal fact: Android does not have an Ac-powered loftier performance mode and Windows does. Android always runs in the aforementioned mobile power profile (iOS has the same behavior). Not so with Microsoft Windows. That is a challenge for benchmarking and using power banks for Windows based devices.

Recent versions of Windows (including Windows eight and 10) offer 2 "Ability Options" control panel menus that affect power usage when plugged into a wall and when on battery power:

• "Create a power plan" defaults to a "balanced" profile that weighs ability consumption confronting operation. This setting automatically changes between AC and battery only modes. Users can choose from other modes or create their own, just most practise non.
• "Cull when to plow off the display" allows users to gear up unlike profile settings for "on battery" and "AC" use. These settings include brandish brightness and time-out settings, also every bit a computer sleep time-out setting.

Both of these configurations alter the way a Windows based mobile device uses power, and Windows automatically sets these two configurations differently. Windows will use more ability to get more operation and offering a better user experience when plugged in than when it is operating on bombardment only.

At that place are 3 situations for which I wanted to examination my XPS 13 and Power Companion that are normal for smartphone owners, and so I'll depict them generically:

1. Run the device's battery down, close off the device, connect an external battery, bleed the external battery completely or charge the device's battery completely (whichever comes beginning) and then kick the device again.
2. Run the device's battery downwardly to a warning (say 10% or vii%), connect an external battery and so recharge while working, all without shutting downwardly.
3. Connect the battery while the device notwithstanding has plenty of bombardment power and proceed the internal bombardment topped off until the external battery is drained completely.

Smartphone owners try to avoid the first situation, because then the smartphone is of no utilize at all, it is an inert "brick" that cannot fifty-fifty place or receive calls. For Android and iOS devices there doesn't seem to exist a noticeable deviation in battery life betwixt the second and third situations, because there are no alternating power modes on a smartphone until the internal bombardment is tuckered very low and "power save mode" kicks-in. But Android's power usage configuration reverts to normal when an external battery or AC charger is connected.

Here'due south my claiming for Windows-based devices in situations two and iii — as soon equally an external battery is plugged into the power socket, the device bumps upward into a college power consumption model, which drains the battery power at a faster rate than when information technology is not plugged in. The obvious winning situation for the all-time bombardment power usage is the first situation — shut off the device, recharge it, unplug the external battery and reboot the PC. Note that depending on the Power Options settings a Windows device might wake from sleep when plugged into an external battery.

I would like to automate testing the Power Companion, but every battery rundown app available but shuts off when I connect the external battery, because the battery looks just similar AC power to the app. There is no way for the app to tell the divergence between AC power and battery power. I am effectively stuck trying to document my usage and ability consumption the tedious way, as it happens.

Dell says that the XPS xiii can be recharged via its USB-C port, but that recharging beliefs will mirror recharging the XPS 13 through its standard coaxial power port. This is because the commencement generation of USB-C power management does not provide whatever hints that the recharging source is infinite (plugged into a wall) or finite (drains a battery). I'k singling USB-C out because information technology is a new spec and is guaranteed to evolve over the next few years. USB-C also spans vendors and is the single most probable replacement for all of those proprietary power supply bricks and cables in the laptop marketplace today.

My USB-C specification request to the folks at the USB-IF: please enable USB-C rechargers to report what blazon of recharger they are — wall-powered or battery-powered — and then enable batteries to study their instantaneous charge remaining to a device being recharged. With this elementary add-on to the USB-C ability delivery spec, a Microsoft and/or a laptop manufacturer tin can brand intelligent decisions nigh how to best use an external battery.

Every USB battery that has a accuse status indicator already contains a minor microcontroller, even uncomplicated LED lights. The USB-C specification includes depression-speed signal wires dissever from the loftier-speed data transfer lanes, and they can already report that a "weak battery" threshold has been reached and the remaining accuse time (in minutes). Adding an Ac/battery accuse source descriptor requires a piffling additional lawmaking in the laptop's power management organisation (and in Windows), just should not add any cost to USB-C batteries (likewise for reporting instantaneous bombardment charge remaining).

Over time, I believe that smart loftier-voltage power delivery over USB-C will enable more efficient battery recharging and device independent docking stations that span smartphones to Windows laptops and volition exist a win for long flights and power users.

— Disclaimer: We are not a testing lab — we occasionally evaluate products past using them in our high tech road warrior lifestyles. Dell sent me a demo unit to evaluate.

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Source: https://medium.com/@TIRIAS_Research/external-batteries-for-pcs-do-not-work-as-expected-9b50edd23beb