Orfeika Power Bank Review: The Ideal Battery Pack?

A $37 power bank with four built-in cables sounds like a gimmick until it charges a dead 15-inch MacBook Air to 100 percent and still has 12 percent left over. That’s the test Photography Life ran on the Orfeika 20,000mAh power bank, and it’s why the reviewer, who bought the unit with his own money and has no relationship with Orfeika, called it one of those rare pieces of gear that meaningfully improves how you travel.

Why This Category Matters

Field power is a recurring problem on shoots and trips: camera batteries, phone batteries, and now laptop batteries for on-location editing all compete for the same wall outlet that may not exist. A power bank that only tops off a phone solves half the problem. The real test of the category is whether one brick can also revive a laptop, and how much dead weight it adds to a bag for the rest of the trip.

What Makes It Different

The Orfeika stands out on two fronts: capacity-to-weight, and connector coverage.

At 20,000 mAh, it sits in what the review calls the “sweet spot” for capacity, enough to charge a smartphone roughly 3 to 3.5 times or a 15-inch MacBook Air about once, without ballooning into the 1-plus-pound bricks common at that capacity. Photography Life measured it at 340 grams (0.75 lbs) and noted it’s lighter than a similarly priced 20,000 mAh competitor that ships with only one built-in USB-C cable.

Connector count is the other differentiator. The 20,000 mAh model has four built-in cables (USB-C, Lightning, USB-A, and Micro-USB) plus additional ports, adding up to six output paths and four input paths, with 20W PD USB-C fast charging. In practice that means no separate cable pouch: the bank can charge, or be charged by, nearly anything a working photographer already carries.

The Catch / Who It’s For

The review’s only complaint is a minor one: the reviewer would trade the Micro-USB cable for a second USB-C cable, since Micro-USB has largely faded out of current camera and phone ecosystems. No overheating, output shortfall, or build quality issue is flagged.

That combination fits photographers and videographers who travel light and want one brick to cover a phone, action cam, and laptop without hauling a drawer of cables. It’s a weaker fit if you need pass-through speeds above 20W or you’ve already standardized on a single high-wattage USB-C-only setup.

Source: Photography Life

Content created with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy.