Price When Reviewed

£50.99

Best Prices Today: INIU Cougar P62-E1 20000mAh (65W) Power Bank

The compact and colorful 65W max 20K INIU Cougar P62-E1 power bank is a neat choice for the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air, with the potential to top the laptop to near full while fast-charging an iPhone at the same time.

Choosing a power bank that has ample capacity for charging a laptop means making some compromises on size and weight for the higher battery capacity.

While you can buy a 0.34-inch slim 5K (5000mAh) power bank that will charge your iPhone to over 75%, recharging your MacBook to the same percentage means carrying around a bigger brick.

While even laptop power banks have come down in size and weight recently, thanks to GaN battery technology, there’s no MacBook battery pack that you can slip into your pocket without raising eyebrows… until now, with this surprisingly compact power pack.

The INIU Cougar P62-E1 doesn’t have a cute name but it is certainly the cutest high-capacity power bank you’ll find this side of a Disney store.

Super small

The INIU Cougar P62-E1 is the smallest and lightest power bank that we’ve tested that has a battery capacity of 20000mAH (milliamp hours) and 65W of output power.

20K is the minimum you should be looking at when it comes to selecting a power bank for your laptop.

While a 10000mAh power bank will get a laptop to maybe 30-40% of power, it will need at least a 40W output that most 10K power banks can only aspire to—most reach only 30W, which is weak for laptop charging.

The P62-E1 manages to squeeze a 20K battery into its compact body that measures 4.3 (H) x 2.8 (W) x 1.1 (D) inches (11 x 7.1 x 2.9cm) and weighs just 11.4oz (324g).

INIU claims that this size reduction is made possible by use of a high-density TinyCell and innovative HyperStack circuit technology.

Until this point, we rated the Ugreen Nexode Power Bank 20000mAh (130W) as the lightest 20K laptop power bank in our chart of the best power banks for MacBook. Its pillar-shaped shell measures 5.2 x 2.1 x 2 inches (13.1 x 5.4 x 5.1cm) and weighs 16.9oz (480g). The P62-E1 has a more compact shape that is wider but significantly shorter and slimmer.

Appealing design

Available in six bold colors—black, blue, red, orange, yellow and white—compared to other laptop power banks that almost all come in dark gray cases.

INIU has avoided giving these colors ridiculous names such as Ferrari Red or Bumblebee Yellow, but they are bolder than many phone battery packs that have paint-pot names but rather pastelly hues.

To give an idea of the colors, we’d suggest they match to lipstick red, banana yellow, basketball orange, and the black is really quite dark gray-ish. The blue looks like a bright cyan when you select the color on the product page but in reality is a quite dark Prussian steel.

Even forgetting the compact size, some people will buy this power bank on looks alone.

Performance

How much the power bank fills your depleted MacBook is of course the key factor in choosing a battery pack for a laptop.

20000mAh is 65Wh (watt hours), which as we have mentioned is the minimum you should look for if you want to recharge your laptop to over 50% of power.

The INIU Cougar P62-E1 performed excellently in our tests with an M2 MacBook Pro, recharging the laptop to 87% from a flat start. In the same tests of 20K power banks, we have seen up to a superior 95% recharge score (with the Baseus EnerCore CR11) but also 78% (with the Cuktech 45W Power Bank), so the INIU battery pack scored highly despite its compact dimensions.

Battery capacity is not the only important specification, however. Power output is also key to how fast the battery pack can refill the laptop. If it’s too slow, your laptop might run down faster than the power bank can fill it.

The P62-E1 is rated at 65W, which is easily enough to charge a MacBook Air and sufficient to get power into even a MacBook Pro, as our tests proved. The Pro would prefer 140W (16-inch) or 100W (14-inch) but 65W will be enough if you are not in a big hurry or thrashing the laptop on a bunch of processor-heavy tasks.

Ports

The INIU Cougar P62-E1 has three ports: one 65W USB-C, another USB-C at 35W and an 18W USB-A for legacy devices.

I didn’t even realize at first and so was delighted to discover that the handle loop is actually a hidden snap-out detachable USB-C cable. As long as you don’t leave it somewhere, this is a more convenient solution than the built-in retractable cables seen in a few new power banks, which I always fear might be a future point of failure.

It’s possible to use all at the same time for simultaneous charging of three devices. Note though that maximum output is 65W, and when using the second USB-C and USB-A together, these two ports are limited to sharing 15W of output—so all three together would be 45W + 15W.

Using the two USB-C ports together takes the first output to 45W and the second to 20W. Using the first USB-C and the USB-A allows for 45W + 18W.

The power bank can be charged itself at an input rate of 45W, which is acceptable for a 65W output device. It should charge to 100% in under two hours.

For larger laptops INIU also offers a $75.99 model with 100W, 45W and 18W ports, the Cougar P63-E1, although this is a third of an inch deeper and weighs 13.8oz (392g).

Price

The INIU Cougar P62-E1 20000mAh (65W) Power Bank is priced at an affordable $50.99 / £50.99 / €49,99.

That compares well to rival 20K laptop power banks such as the $89/£69 Ugreen Nexode 20K, although that power banks can charge at 100W and with a maximum power out of 130W so is better suited to larger laptops and multi-device charging.

The 100W Anker Prime 20K costs $139/£129 but has a much greater max power output of 200W.

A closer comparison would be the Cuktech 20K Portable Power Bank, which is much cheaper ($30 / £28) but limited to 45W max output and about twice the size.

Should you buy the INIU Cougar P62-E1 20K (65W) Power Bank

The compact and colorful 20000mAh INIU Cougar P62-E1 power bank is a neat portable recharging choice for the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air, with the potential to top the laptop to full while fast-charging an iPhone at the same time. Its size makes it a portable champion and its splendid colors are appealing on their own.

Best Prices Today: INIU Cougar P62-E1 20000mAh (65W) Power Bank

Author: Simon Jary, Contributor, Macworld