Anker Zolo A1695 165W 90Wh Power Bank Review
With every new Anker power bank I think – “this is it, it can’t get any better.”
With every new Anker power bank, they prove me wrong.
I’d forgive you if you thought there was little room for improvement in the “put a battery in a plastic box” space, but in their latest iteration Anker have skipped some of the complexity in their Prime series in favour of some convenience.
Three generations of Anker battery!
737 (2022), Prime (2024) and uh Zolo A1695? (2025)
Okay, okay, I have an admission. I liked the last generation Anker “Prime” so much that I bought the dock to keep it topped up. It felt like a fantastic idea at the time, but I have no idea where that dock is right now and – despite my enthusiasm for it – I never really used it all that much.
Along with the dock the Prime had Bluetooth connectivity and a companion app for all sorts of juicy data. Like the dock this felt like a good idea, but in practice I haven’t opened the app more than twice since finishing my review. And when I did, it wasn’t all that useful anyway (I wanted to know if I could graph the energy use of a connected device.)
Anker were kind enough to supply me their shiny new battery, which I’m going to call Zolo because I find it hilarious that it’s written on the battery, but not mentioned much of anywhere else. It ditches the five pin charging connector (oof if, like me, you invested in a Prime docking station) and ditches Bluetooth connectivity (nobody is going to miss this) in favour of perhaps the most useful addition I’ve seen in a portable battery yet; not one, but two USB type-C cables. Okay they would be a little bit more useful if I weren’t the proud owner of a very nice, but somewhat dated Lightning-port-weilding iPhone. (Note: Zolo may be a rung down from the range-topping Prime, which might explain its lack of complexity, but I’d be lying if I pretended to understand Anker’s product naming.)
Holding things by their cable feels chaotic but it’s allegedly rated for 20KG…
With the Zolo A1695 Anker have done the somewhat controversial “use one of the attached cables as a lanyard” thing. It’s a silly and simple idea, one of the attached (or captive, if you will) USB cables is around 30cm, flat, with a strong, woven sheath and a plastic clip to hold the connector. The result is a little loop of cable which is strong enough to tote the battery around from, and if the idea of carrying a battery by its cable makes you raise an eyebrow- well now you know why I find it somewhat unsettling. That said I seem to have a knack for trashing cables, and place precious little faith in them. Anker claims it will support up to 20kg, and if this thing holds up, I want a full length cable made the same way.
The second captive cable – there were two, remember – came as more of a surprise (I had not read the press release for these batteries since I was full of cold and my eyes wouldn’t focus) since it’s tucked almost out of sight in the top of the battery. The connector, which is loosely secured by a magnet, lifts up and can be pulled out to reveal 69cm (nice) of flat silicone cable. It is, far and above, the most useful thing I’ve ever had in a portable battery. And this is coming from someone who has a dozen USB Type-C cables floating around the house, but can never seem to find one.
Go go gadget cable!
If you’re lucky enough that all of your devices support USB Type-C then gone is the hassle of making sure to keep a cable handy at all times. Gone is the hassle of trying to carefully wrap it up and remember to tuck it in your bag. Gone is the hassle of plugging it in. It’s just there, grab the end, pull and boom – over half a meter of cable, more than enough when it’s a portable battery you can easily sit on a desk or cable near your device, is at your disposal.
Not only is it convenient, but Anker have added a nice little touch- pull the cable and the battery wakes up, displaying the current remaining capacity. Keep messing about with it and you’ll eventually unlock an easter egg (I’ve started looking for these now one of my kids found the face on an earlier model) and a little spinny-eyed face will stick its tongue out at you.
The positioning of the extending cable and lanyard mean you can potentially hang the battery off your bag and feed the power cable through the zipper to a phone or another device. I’m not sure why you’d want to do this over just tucking it into your bag, but you could.
Some regular old ports too!
If the two captive cables weren’t already enough they have displaced some good ol’ fashioned ports from their usual home on top, down to the bottom left of the battery. You’ll find a USB Type-C and a USB Type-A here and while they feel a little awkwardly placed at first they’re tucked just out of the way when holding the battery and operating the button with a thumb. The USB Type-A is a surprising but welcome holdout, since it’s all but redundant but remains useful for the odd device that’s A Bit Weird with full blown USB Type-C cables, or just needs something awkward like micro USB. In my case it’s very handy for the TicWatch charger which is a little magnetic clip with a captive USB Type-A cable.
The Zolo A1695 has also seen something of a visual overhaul over the Anker Prime. It’s still very much an evolution of the range, but its much softer shape and less busy, less textured design are very welcome improvements. It feels both familiar and very modern.
A slightly smaller screen, still a square LCD, is tucked into the top of its comically oversized (though still smaller than the Prime’s) black plastic window, though the interface is bigger and bolder than ever and has been refined for easier readability. You can’t change any settings or view any detailed diagnostic information. You can, however, check the battery temperature – it will warn you and shut off if it gets too hot – and the battery health. Both of these tidbits have a dedicated screen with bigger text, making them much more accessible than previous iterations.
Along the same lines the charge level and individual port input/output levels have been split from the single screen of previous iterations to two distinct screens. You’ll get a summary when you turn on the battery, but plug something in and it’ll jump briefly to a breakdown that shows the power output for each port and gives you some quick reassurance that things are charging as they should.
The UI is generally nice, with little flourishes like a tiny face and a subtly animated arrow showing charge direction. Colours are kept to a minimum with green and blue dominating – as they always have – and showing charge/discharge, and red/yellow being reserved for warnings.
Pass through charging.
The holy grail.
Though the laptop is eating most of the supply capacity here.
Finally, it supports pass-through charging. As long as you use an AC adapter with enough horsepower you can slowly charge the battery itself while powering devices connected downstream. This is great if you’ve just got one A/C adapter and no spare cable and want to laptop in a hotel room while making sure both your battery and laptop stay topped up for whatever event might lie ahead.
Anker’s Zolo A1695 Power Bank merges refinement of their prior products design language, with the stripping back of superfluous features and the addition of very real conveniences. It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best portable battery I have tested so far. I’d hope so, I suppose, since it’s also the newest. While it doesn’t have the single port oomph of the Prime version (100W vs the Prime’s 140W) the captive cables are – to be incredibly cliche about it – a game changer. That is, at least, if they last!
(Also the button has been moved from the right to the left, GO LEFT HANDERS!)
If you’re quick off the mark you can get Anker’s Zolo A1695 for around £72, since they’ve got 20% off. If you’ve somehow found yourself in January with anything more than beans on toast money left, then I’d highly recommend it… and I wouldn’t mind a coffee 😀