FEBRUARY 2021 PCWorld 97which is the side where “On” is, the outlet is
actually off. And when the switch is moved to
the right, where “Off” is located, the outlet is
turned on. The label is only there to let you
know what the switch does—turn the outlet
on or off—but the positioning of it is
confusing. Thankfully, there’s a small indicator
light that turns green when the outlet is on,
and red as the battery gets low. To use one of
the USB outlets, you simply plug something
in. The pack will recognize it and start
charging on its own. You can even charge the
pack and another device at the same time.
As we do with all of our battery pack tests,
we used the AVHzY USB Power Meter to
verify the output of all three ports on the
Portable Power Outlet. Both USB-A ports
triggered the Apple 2.4A charging standard,
and that’s it. We suspect ChargeTech didn’t
include support for other standards, like QC
2.0 or QC 3.0, because there’s an outlet you
can use with your smartphone’s standard wall
adapter to get fast charging. We also verified
that the USB-C supports Power Delivery at up
to 20V/3A, or 60W.
Charging the Portable Power Outlet is
done via the USB-C port, which can accept
up to 60W. Included in the box is a wall
adapter and USB-C cable, but the adapter
maxes out at 30W. While it’s a nice bonus to
have an adapter that will charge the device, it
would have been nice to have a 60W adapter
to ensure it charges at full speed.
It took a total of one hour and 48 minutes
to fully charge the device at the full 60W
speed. You can assume it’ll take roughly twice
that long when using the included 30W
adapter. Either way, it’s nice that the pack
charges so fast. I’ve tested packs with a third
of this capacity that have taken as long or
longer to charge. Support for 60W is no joke.
I fully depleted the 96.48Wh capacity pack
using the same adapter to record how much
power was used before the pack turned off. The
end result was 81.49Wh of output, giving the
Portal Power Outlet an 84.15 percent efficiency
rating. That’s the highest out of similar battery
packs I’ve tested, like the Sherpa100AC (go.
pcworld.com/shpa), which tested at 78.78%.
To test the outlet, I connected a desk
lamp to the fully charged battery and used a
camera to monitor how long the light stayed
on. This is a new lamp, so I don’t have
numbers to compare it to, but the battery
pack lasted seven hours and 42 minutes
before the light turned off. That’s more than
enough to light up a room during a power
outage while also charging your phone.ChargeTech Portable Power
Outlet AM 27K 4.0BOTTOM LINE
ChargeTech’s Portable Power Outlet AM 27K 4.0 is
the first power bank we’ve tested that’s pandem-
ic-ready—meaning it comes sheathed in an
antimicrobial film. It’s also well equipped to serve in
an emergency.
$399