Anker 25K / 165W Power Bank Review: Why We Carry Two

A recent Hawaii outage turned our hotel lobby into a charging station. Power strips were stacked on power strips, white cords were everywhere, and people were waiting on open wall outlets. We walked past it because two of these Anker banks were already in our bags. Phones were covered, iPads were covered, and nobody in our crew had to hover around an outlet that was not ours. That was the trip where these stopped being nice-to-have gear and became something we pack without debating.

What This Big Black Brick Actually Does

This is Anker's model A1695: a 25,000mAh / 90Wh bank with up to 165W total output, three USB-C connections, one USB-A port, a retractable USB-C cable, and a second built-in USB-C lanyard cable. Any USB-C connection can deliver up to 100W on its own. There is a real-time screen showing battery level, input, and output, which is more useful than it sounds when you are trying to figure out whether your laptop is actually charging. It weighs 595 grams, or about 21 ounces, so nobody is going to confuse it with pocket candy.

The Built-In Cables Are the Whole Point

The capacity matters, but the reason this one gets used is simpler: the cables are already on it. Pull the retractable USB-C cable, grab the short lanyard cable, plug in, and keep moving. On travel days, that means we leave the loose-cable pouch at home more often than not. One less thing to dig through while everybody is looking for a phone charger.

It is also useful on the classic hotel-room problem: one decent outlet behind a nightstand and another one that only seems to power a lamp. Anker says the bank supports pass-through charging when the wall charger can provide more power than the devices are using. In real life, that gives us a simple one-outlet setup: a strong wall charger into the bank, then a laptop and phone charging from the bank. It is not magic, and a weak wall charger will not run a whole laptop party, but it works well for the normal overnight travel setup.

Phones, a Fold, and a MacBook

Our lived numbers are better than a spec-sheet promise. A regular phone gets roughly four full tops from one bank. My Z Fold 7 lands closer to three and a half because that bigger screen eats more battery. That is more than enough for a long travel day where outlets are either occupied, inconvenient, or nowhere close to the gate you just got moved to.

The MacBook use is where the 165W rating starts to matter. Laptop on a USB-C connection and a phone on one of the built-in cables is the sweet spot for us. Anker specifies up to 165W across two USB-C devices, while three or four devices share a lower 130W total. In normal language: it will handle a laptop and phone at the same time just fine, but do not expect every port to stay in a hurry once you start piling on more hungry devices.

Starlink Mini: A Bind Window, Not an All-Day Plan

We also used it with our Starlink Mini when cell service was not helping us. On our setup, the Mini pulled around 31–32 watts. That gives us a useful one-to-two-hour window for maps, a call, or a quick upload — not an all-day livestream. With an open enough view of the sky, our speed tests landed in the 179–195 Mbps range. Those are our results in those conditions, not a promise for every campsite or sky view, but they were plenty good for the kind of travel bind we were trying to solve.

The Honest Nicks

You feel the weight. This is a tall brick, about the weight of a full water bottle, and it belongs in a day bag or laptop bag — not a pocket. The built-in cables are convenient, but they deserve a little respect. We keep the bank in a soft pouch so the screen and cables do not grind against keys, and we do not use the lanyard cable as a suitcase handle. Under a hard load it can get warm, so we leave it on a table or in an open pocket instead of burying it under clothes.

What We Carry and How We Use It

• —One bank in the day bag and a second in the larger travel bag for longer trips, island travel, or outage-prone days.
• —Phone or Fold on the short lanyard cable; laptop on a USB-C port when we need a real work session away from a wall.
• —Starlink Mini only for the short, useful window — maps, a call, or an upload — not for running all day.
• —Earbuds, tablets, and the occasional USB-A holdout get whatever power is left after the priority devices are covered.
• —Carry it in your carry-on, not a checked bag, and confirm your airline's current 90Wh power-bank rules before travel.

Bottom Line

Would we go back to traveling without a couple of these? No. The weight is the tax, and the built-in cables are the refund. After Hawaii, I am comfortable calling this one amazing. It is not a tiny everyday carry bank and it will not run Starlink forever, but for travel days, one-outlet hotels, family phones, a laptop, and the occasional connectivity bind, it has earned a permanent seat in our bags.