Charging HP Elitebok from USB-C Power Bank/Battery

[joerg1970]

Hi,

I have an HP Elitebook 840 G5 and I wonder about the minimum requirements for charging it from a Power Bank.

Before, I had a HP Elitebook Folio 9480m with additional slice battery. That was great. Unfortunately this extra battery option is not available any more with the new models.

For this reason I am looking for another external battery. There are several options in the market. I am looking for something that has as high capacity as possible while still being allowed to carry onto a plane. That should be the case, if it has less then 100 Wh or 27000 mAh capacity. It should also be able to charge phones and other devices with a good variety of ports and standards. A typical use case for me would be working with the Elitebook on a flight and power it from the addtional external battery.

This is s what i found:

1. HP offers the 2XF31AA product with 20100 mAh capacity. It should work due to the 65W power output over USB-C. But it  has not the best capacity and port variety. Also, it appears to be bulky and expensive for what it offers.

2. The Batpower PDE 2 P26B seems to have all I need for a more reasonable price, but it is not well available in my region (Sweden) except for very high delivery costs and potentially additional customs fees.

3. The RAVPower 26800 mAh Powerbank with USB-C and 30W also looks good, but it only supports 30W / 1.5A at 20V Power Delivery. It is cheaper than the other two. Will the Elitebook 840 G5 accept that? I understand of course that it can not charge it with full speed. But will it charge at all?

4. The Anker Powercore+ 26,800 mAh seems to be similar to the RAVPower.

Does anybody have experiences with these or other power banks in combination with HP laptops and in particular with the Elitebook 840 G5?

What would be the minimum power delivery setting the 840 G5 model accepts? 45W? 60W? or is 30W acceptable? A statement from HP beyond just pointing at their own external battery would be great.

Best regards, Jörg

[SnakeSVK]

Hello, I am in the same boat as you (for ZBook 15 G5 CTO), and I will be waiting for 3TB55AA, it was announced on 1st Nov. and it uses a more advanced power cell from Samsung SDI, there is no capacity estimation yet however. It can output 60W of power (20V@3Amps), and appears to be much smaller than N9F71AA or 2NA10AA

[joerg1970]

Hi SnakeSVK,

Thanks for the hint. I was not aware that there is someting new in the pipeline from HP. However, with a quick google search for the 3TB55AA model I could not find too many details. Interesting would of course be the capacity and some details regarding size, weight, price and availability.

In the meantime I found a cost efficient way to get the BatPower model to Sweden. I have ordered that one now and will report how it performs.

best regards, Jörg

[Jaalexzac]

Hi Jörg,

I have the same laptop and I also need to get a powerbank for it?

Have you tested the BatPower? What are your thoughts on it? 

Also any other cheaper alternative that you might recommend?

Thank you!

Cheers,

Alex.

[joerg1970]

Hi Alex,

I am happy with the BatPower. It does what it is supposed to do without problems. It even allows to be beween a charging adapter and the Laptop. So the laptop can be charged from a wall pug and the battery is also chagred with whatever power is left.

I looked into cheaper solutions, but I did not find anything I found convincing. Usually the problem is that ony 30W or 45W USB-C Charging is supported. I have not tested these batteries. Maybe they even work with our HP 840 G5 when accepting longer charging times due to the lower power output, but I have not tried it. Most likely the Laptop will not accept them and will not charge at all.

best regards, Jörg

[MontereyDragon]

Not to be funny, but just how long are your flights?  I personally utilize external power unites for my Video Cameras, which seem to work far better than changing batteries.  However, as far as my Laptop (which I also use on shoots extensively) I only use external power while I change out the laptop batteries.  Fully charging all the Laptop batteries before a trip, requires only a minimal amount of External Power, which can save its charge and be used without much issues.  Just a thought.

[MontereyDragon]

I notice your recent reply and was wonder if you could help me.  I have an Elite Model 17-x010ds Laptop and I've lost my Bios Password.  I get the following code after the third failure: [ i 51560264 ].  It's becoming virtually impossible for me to have anyone here kick back an unlock Code.

Can you assist me?

[joerg1970]

Hi,

Well, My flights are often just within Europe 1-3 hours per leg and often I have two legs with a connection somewhere. On top of that there is of course the time spent on the way to anf from the airport and waiting before boarding. I might use the laptop at any of these parts of the journey. Sometimes there is a chance of power, in lounges or restaurants for example, but often there is not or it requires quite some search.

On intercontinental flights many airlines these days offer power plugs also in economy class. But this is not something to rely on and these power outlets are often fragile and might not work.

Changing batteries does not work any more, because they are build in. I think this is the case for the vast majority of the laptop models these days. Also I noticed that the build in capacity is getting smaller and smaller with every new generation. low weight and compact size are of course nice, but I would also appreciate to really get a full day of work from the build in battery, but that is not realistic in real-life scenarios. Something like my current 840 G5 with double the battery would be a real win for me even if it is getting a little thicker and heavier. I mean this thing is primarily a tool.

In my experience the build in batteries are not big enough to support use throughout the entire journey unless I just do some occasional email checks and text writing. But I might even watch a movie or something like that.

So an external additional battery is really the only way for me to get full usage for the entire time without limiting myself in what i can do and without hunting down places to charge all the ime. In my previous laptop model I could use a slice battery, which is installed under the laptop. With that I could get some 9-11 hours usage from the combined batteries. That is enough. With just the build in battery we are talking realisically abouth 4-5 hours. Or even less. With that I would run out of battry on most of my trips or I would be hunting for any chance of charging on the way.

[joerg1970]

One more thing about the Batpower USB-C battery: the laptop power managment does not distinguish it from a power adapter. It does not know that it is yet another battery and therefore does apply battery power profiles, which are usually more power saving. It migt make sense to create a special power profile and select it manualy when using the external battery. I guess this would lead to longer available time.

How is this handled with HP's own external USB-C Batteries? Are they recognized by the laptop and treated as such by power managment?

[Jaalexzac]

Thank you very much Jörg, appreciate your help!

cheers,

Alex.