An old friend got married in Wales last weekend, and the venue was a nice lodge attached to a camp site. Which meant I dusted off my tent for the first time since Covid.

The old faithful DBPower car jump starter got me out of trouble in terms of keeping my phone charged for the 48 hours I was tent-based, but it lacks USB-C outputs, meaning it’s no good for charging laptops. One shouldn’t really need a laptop while out enjoying the countryside, of course, but I was checking in on a few things on the journey back. No great hardship to find a cafe with a nice view and plug sockets, but I did decide to treat myself to a nice modern power bank with enough grunt to charge laptops:

Power bank

First impressions are good (has anyone ever had a bad experience with Anker?); I particularly like the display and the way it estimates both remaining runtime and how long it will take to charge up. You can only realistically fill a laptop from 0 to 100% once (and maybe top up phone and earphones at the same time), but that should be enough for the scenarios I had in mind.

Hopefully it’s just small enough that taking it on planes won’t be an issue, as I can see it coming in handy for that sort of travel as well.