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Is it worth buying a no-name powerbank on Aliexpress? Blind purchases and 50 Ah measurements

p.kaczmarek2  2 222 Cool? (+2)
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TL;DR

  • A no-name AliExpress powerbank labeled “Power Bank” and claiming 50 Ah at 3.7 V was bought for about 50 PLN (~15 USD) to see whether the bargain is real.
  • The casing advertises “fast charging,” but the unit has no Quick Charge support, only 5 V/2.1 A output, and a QC trigger cannot raise the voltage.
  • Charging from 0 to 100% draws less than 16 Ah at 5 V, while discharge tests deliver about 12.5 Ah at 5 V.
  • The biggest red flag is the mismatch between 50 Ah and 74 Wh: the numbers imply roughly 20 Ah, suggesting bad labeling, a typo, or creative marketing.
Black power bank in a windowed box labeled “CONTAINER” and “POWER BANK”
I've been presenting my capacity tests of various powerbanks on the forum for a while now, but I've recently realised that I've been too conscious of choosing good models such as Baseus , JoyRoom or Romoss . For this reason, I decided to go for the first cheapest 50 Ah powerbank from China and see what happens. Will I get a package at all, or will they send a brick?
I paid about 50PLN (~15USD). The price is quite small, but maybe that's because importers don't have to make money when I buy direct from overseas?
Close-up of a power bank box with window and labels “Fast Charging”, “High Capacity”, and “NEW”
The case says "fast charging" but not "quick charge" - there will be no QC standard, i.e. supplying higher voltage than 5 V?
Power bank package label with manufacturer details and CE, FCC, UKCA marks, plus “MADE IN CHINA”
Look in vain on the casing for information about the model of the powerbank. According to the sticker, the model is simply "Power Bank". The "Container" on the packaging is already some kind of a nameplate.
Box of “CONTAINER Power Bank” showing product text, feature icons, and a barcode
There is quite a long product description on the packaging, but I don't see any specifics.
Black power bank in a white tray with a coiled white USB cable on top
A USB C cable is included.
Close-up of the back of a black power bank with Chinese text: 3.7V/74Wh, 50000mAh, 5V/2.1A
Finally, on the powerbank itself, there is what looks like a model name - GB35590-2017. These 2017s are worrying. Declared capacity: 50 Ah at 3.7 volts,. That would make a good match. What surprises me is the 74 Wh.
After all, if you multiply, it comes out rather 185 Wh of energy? Even if they were to take losses into account, it blandly comes out many times less. Could it be that it is not 50 Ah after all, but, say, 20 Ah?
Let's check further. Production date May 2025. I am also concerned about the voltage and current - only 5 V and 2.1 A? There is not even QC.
Ports - supposedly the orange colour indicates a higher current port?
Close-up of a power bank port panel with USB-A, USB-C, Lightning, micro-USB ports and two LED lights
The manual says some interesting things, supposedly the input can be up to 20 volts, I would be afraid to check this.
Open power bank manual with English and Chinese text plus charging diagrams

First load tests.
The powerbank is able to provide a total current up to about 2.5 A, then the voltage drops. My phones (Xiaomi 11 and iPhone 7) are charged at 5 V, current up to 1 A. The QC Trigger is unable to trigger a higher voltage.
Power bank connected to an electronic load with cooling fan and LED display on a white surface Phone charging from a power bank via a USB meter; phone shows 62%, meter reads 0.96 A.
USB “CHARGER Doctor” meter with red display showing 0.96 A Power bank connected to a USB meter showing 4.908 V and 0.580 A on a white surface

Next it is time to check the capacity.
Charging is done with a current of just under 2 A. Charging from 0 to 100% shows on the meter less than 16 Ah drawn (at 5 V).
Close-up of a USB meter showing 5.15 V, 0.00 A and 15,964 mAh, with a 100% display in the background
After multiplication, here we have 80 Wh. You can already see that the expected 50 Ah output will be far short of this, as there are losses both when charging the cells and when discharging them. Nevertheless, let us check. Three separate tests:
Measurement module on a PCB with red LED display reading 12.46 and a metal knob Electronic PCB with red LED display reading 12.53 and indicator LEDs labeled Ah and Wh Test PCB with red 12.43 readout and LEDs next to labels V, Ah, and Wh
At 5 volts, approximately 12.5 Ah can be obtained. This gives us 62 Wh. And the capacity?
The nominal 50 Ah is at a cell voltage of 3.7 V, so you have to recalculate. You also have to take into account the losses on the inverter; in this series I have taken a fixed conversion factor of 0.85. Output: 12.5 Ah at 5 V, nominally 20 Ah. Unfortunately ...

In summary , there are two problems here.
The first problem is the lack of QC, this significantly slows down the charging of modern devices. The packaging slogans 'fast charging', but that's just marketing text, it's different to supporting the Quick Charge standard.
The second problem is capacity. The first thing that surprises me is the declaration of 74 Wh of energy while claiming 50 Ah of capacity. How did they come up with that? As the cells inside are nominally 3.7 V, after all, from 50 Ah it will come out around 185 Wh rather than 74 Wh. To get 74 Wh at nominal 3.7 V, the capacity would have to be ~20 Ah, not 50 Ah.
You could even conclude that this is a 20 Ah powerbank that a creative marketing person changed 20 to 50 to make it look better, while forgetting about those watt-hours because he probably didn't even know what they were...
Or a typo crept in.

About Author
p.kaczmarek2
p.kaczmarek2 wrote 14233 posts with rating 12132 , helped 647 times. Been with us since 2014 year.

Comments

E8600 31 Mar 2026 16:01

I could be wrong but I infer from the casing that it is on 18650 cells the question is how many 16? Then with 3.5 Ah cells it is possible that it would show close to 50 Ah. A bit strange with this fast... [Read more]

tzok 31 Mar 2026 18:52

The Chinese have an original way of counting capacity in Ah - it doesn't matter how the cells are connected, they simply multiply the capacity of one by the number of cells and state this on the case.... [Read more]

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