XYMer's Home away from Home

When we are out and about in Japan I always think of the iPhone 6s as a backup if a camera fails. We travel with 3 big cameras for this very reason. We seem to be at end-of-life for our favorite cameras (of which we bought many. They are 13 years old now and we are going through them. We each take about 7,000 photos per trip - so the cameras get quite a workout)

Last trip when a big camera died and I used the iPhone for the rest of the day until we got back to the hotel and I could get another camera for the next day. I kept watching the battery level as I tried to be economical so I wouldn't run out of battery.

I've been thinking something like one of these from Anker might be useful.
https://www.anker.com/products/variant/ ... 0/A1104041
OR
https://www.anker.com/products/variant/ ... 0/A1109011

I could charge the phone on the run if the battery runs out, but could I also take photos whilst the charger was connected?

Has anyone had any experience with this sort of item? Is it a reasonable plan?

I don't want to spend a ton since I hope this is something I won't actually have to use.

NB: I'm still on AppleCare through November 28 (a black Friday purchase) - but I do plan to get the iPhone's battery replaced in December since I've read that Apple (and for us Best Buy authorized Apple dealer) replaces battery even if the 80% charge hold isn't showing.

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Mrs H

They work great, although the bigger ones take a long time to charge.

The last one I owned was an older version of this model:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id= ... 1&format=2

It stopped working because over time I dropped it enough times to break it. Do be careful about dropping them, charged batteries can explode or catch on fire if they get the wrong kind of physical abuse.

They make a slightly less compact model that's got some water & abuse protection:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id= ... 1&format=2

Those look quite OK, I use this that'd probably run a phone for 6 to 12 months, but it's too much money just for the purposes... it jump starts cars & several other things besides, chargeable via AC or DC/12V.

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/schu ... 16/5565337

I've been looking at some other Anker devices - more capacity or different, stonger, cases.

Then I wondered further - can I use the phone whilst it is attached to the powerbank.
A phone call to Anker should solve this, but until Monday comes I saw this:
https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/h ... 973694.cms
Seems like it's not a good idea.

I wonder how long it takes for a powerbank to give me some charge while on the road - 2A or 1A output seems to be the issue. I don't know if the iPhone is unhappy with 2. I read that iPhone 6 charges at about 1.6 - I don't know what controls that (the phone?)
http://thetechnologyman.com/anker-astro ... e-charger/

I wonder if the routine is going to have to be if I run out of battery on the phone a quick connection to a powerbank for 15 minutes or so will give me some more photo shooting power with the bank disconnected and then reconnect to the powerbank when I run out again.

Any thoughts to keep me going until I can call them tomorrow?

Edit to add: maybe I 'm thinking too much here
Wait... what??? Apple says iPhone chargers are rated at 1A - so it seems like I should forget about speed and find a powerbank that has output of 1A or else risk overheating. That takes me back to the first lipstick tube thingie.

This put me on to that thought:
https://www.apple.com/shop/question/ans ... TJ7KADKF9Y

BUT then I found this;
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/c ... a-adapters
which seems to say 2.1A is OK.
How do they know????

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Mrs H

OK, Apple says the 12W charger which it sells is compatible with the iPhone 6s.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD83 ... r?fnode=3c

This has 2.4A output I believe.

That said, further study seems to say it's the phone that determines how much juice goes in - as long as it's using the Apple lightening/USB cable.

Does that mean I could get the 2A output powerbank???

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Mrs H

I would take third party sites talking about what you can and can't do with a grain of salt. Provided the pack is going to provide you with the appropriate level juice for your phone it doesn't matter WHAT you do on your phone when its connected to the bank - it just won't charge the internal battery if its using the juice as fast as it's coming in. On 4th gen iPads it was possible to run a process CPU intensive enough to drain the battery while being it was being charged - it drained more slowly than when it wasn't plugged in at all, but it could still be drained.

Provided the battery pack is compatible with the phone in use then the phone will determine how much juice to draw. There are battery packs for iPhones and there are battery packs for Qualcomm phones and never the two shall meet.

I definitely think you're overthinking this. You need a unit that's compatible with your phone and provides the amount of amps it needs to charge. If it wants to draw 2.1 or 2.4 amps there's no point in spending money on a unit that only provides 2 amps, get one that provides 2.1 or 2.4.

I've used RavPower external batteries for years without issue. The ones I have can power two devices at the same time. They adapt to the phone they are connected to to provide the best charge.

You have to buy the charger separately and you can opt for a higher power option to charge the pack a little faster but it will still take a while depending on the size you purchase.

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VILA: They missed us! Avon's gadget works!
BLAKE: [to Avon] Is something wrong?
AVON: It just occurred to me, that as the description of a highly sophisticated technological achievement, 'Avon's gadget works' seems to lack a certain style.

I should have thought of this too when I brought an iPhone 4s to Japan with me. I used it mainly for offline use with Maps.me which was really, really helpful in Kyoto or even just anywhere. The problem was I could get maybe an hour's use out of the ancient and fading battery and I kept having to turn the thing on and off, make sure there weren't any apps such as Safari I had forgotten in the background.

Oh, I too traveled with about 4 excess pounds in the form of two backup cameras (one did better photos and one did better videos), plus the iPhone I used mostly for navigation and painful typing of emails (iOS9 is designed for bigger screens than a 4S). I really want to find an inexpensive backup camera that is better than both my old ones which required their own types of batteries, their own chargers, etc. The problem is nobody makes modest price P&S anymore with everybody basically having cellphones. I digress.

I really like siri translations to bad so few languages are covered. I found my iPhone indispensable when in Vietnam just make sure to charge it fully every night.

The Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro have excellent batteries and very good cameras. They are Android phones though and expensive. In a squeeze, they can even reverse charge other devices, if necessary. The problem is that Huawei will probably announce a new phone (from a different series - the P series) on the 27th of March and there are rumours of a new battery charging technology that could get the battery charged to 48% in just five minutes.

While not point and shoot, the Lumix G series is very good. I have a G1 and a G6. I would love a G7 but cannot justify the purchase to my wife even though, with the release of the G9, prices of the G7 have become very tempting. I don't know how stringent your video requirements are but the G7 should be no slouch.

_________________
VILA: They missed us! Avon's gadget works!
BLAKE: [to Avon] Is something wrong?
AVON: It just occurred to me, that as the description of a highly sophisticated technological achievement, 'Avon's gadget works' seems to lack a certain style.

Allow me one last bit of overthinking/stupid questioning here.

Thanks all for your help, suggestions, and thoughts.

As many of you remember, our iPhone is rarely used as a phone, but often as a translator, and not likely to run out of battery except for the circumstances described - when we are out and about and one of our cameras fails for the day.

I’m not worried about how long it takes to recharge the backup battery powerbank at night at the hotel - (by plugging it into my iPod USB charger I’m guessing).

What I am wondering/worrying about is -
1. Say the phone charge falls to around 10%. If I connect the phone to the powerbank and continue to use the camera to take photos will the phone battery overheat? (I know from what you, MB, say, it won't charge - but the charger powerbank I'm looking at should hold 2.5 iPhone 6s charges (or so they say)

2. My iPhone 6s came with a 5W charger. The iPad charger -12V - shows on the Apple store that it’s compatible with the iPhone 6s.
12V I believe is 2.1A output.
The Anker PowerBank I’m looking at is rated at 5V/2A output.

If I understand you, MonkeyBoy, and what I’m reading - it’s the phone that limits what it can use and controls the input and regulates things.

So - if I get a powerbank with a 5V/2A output, I won’t damage the phone, but it may charge faster. Anker has lots of words about safety, but not all of it makes clear sense to me. They seem to do a lot with Apple stuff.

3. Then there are cables - lightning>USB. I’ll want/need a short one for charging - Anker has a 4” cable - which I could pop onto the phone in my pocket to let it charge when not needed for photos.

BUT - I remember reading somewhere, only use Apple cables.
Is that still the case?
Anker says about their cables: "Apple MFi Certified 
Each cable contains a unique authorization chip issued by Apple to ensure 100% sync & charge compatibility with any Lightning device"
which sounds pretty good but what do I know? 

I hope this is my last question and I can call the co and do the deal tomorrow.

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Mrs H

I seem to remember at one time there were some bad cables on the market that caused some fires.

Thanks BDA for the info.
How do these look to you?
https://www.anker.com/products/110/197/Lightning-Cables

Do you know anything about my questions in the previous post?

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Mrs H

The Ankers look good, I don't really know enough on the other questions.

Thanks!

btw - did you manage to replace your phone?

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Mrs H

Generally the quality cable manufacturers like Anker are a safe bet, the strange offbrand ones you find in drug stores or gas stations are not. Especially when they've become frayed. Damn you, physics! (shakes imaginary fist)

iPad 3 chargers were 10W, iPad 4 chargers were 12W, 10W is 2.1A @ 5V, 12W is 2.4A @ 5V. Whoever at Apple approved putting light grey text on a white unit needs to be fired.

5V @ 2A is under 10W but probably will charge your iPhone fine. I have noticed 12W iPad chargers providing noticeably faster charging than 5W iPhone chargers but that's not based on any actual metric and just a gut feeling based on students approval of how much juice they got off a 5 minute charge (anything more than 5 minutes and they start going into withdrawal).

Nope, bigger problems at hand.

I forgot to mention that the Mate 10 also has neural network offline translation capabilities.

I haven't tested these though.

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/translation/2017/10/19/microsoft-huawei-nmt-ondevice/

You have to filter out the marketing tendencies from that entry.

On the battery side, Apple had its own case come battery solution but I think it didn't get rave reviews.

Sorry to hear about the new problems, BD.

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VILA: They missed us! Avon's gadget works!
BLAKE: [to Avon] Is something wrong?
AVON: It just occurred to me, that as the description of a highly sophisticated technological achievement, 'Avon's gadget works' seems to lack a certain style.

Argh! Don't tempt me! You just made me spend the past 2 hours reading camera reviews on Amazon. I have a Lumix ZS40 (or something like that -- I have a cat on my lap so no getting up to check the model). It's a very convenient size being at the large end of a point and shoot but will still easily fit into my trouser pocket. It has an EVF, shoots RAW, 1080pAVCHD and has 30x zoom. I'm not super impressed with the JPEG color rendition (I guess I could do everything in RAW and then spend time processing). Movies are pretty good. Poor in low light seems common to Panasonic cameras, though made worse by this one's tiny sensor. 18MP is overkill for what I'm getting off the tiny sensor.

The G7 looks great if you want video (which I do) but not so much for photos, but the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II looks good if you want photos (which I also want) but not so much video. I haven't convinced myself to spring $500 for a computer yet, much less a camera (then there'd be the extra lenses unless I dig my old Zuikos ca. 1979 out of a box.

I had the first EM-5 and absolutely loved that little wonder. It was stolen and now I have the Olympus Pen F. Waiting for the EM-5 mark 3 or whatever they end up calling it. That and the Pen F will make a really good two camera travel kit.

is this the cat in your profile pic?