Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger Lets the Nintendo Switch Stay Charged Through Mobile Gaming

The Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger is primarily sold by Anker to support charging the Nintendo Switch along with another similar model, the Anker PowerCore 20100mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger (see this review). Even with 22.5W based charging offered by both these Anker chargers, it is still much lower than 39W charging offered by the Nintendo Switch AC Adapter or other competitors such as the Insignia Switch Dock Kit's AC adapter and the AmazonBasics Dual Voltage Switch AC Charger.  

Among the many USB-C chargers and power banks being sold in the BIC Camera store in Japan, the Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger and Anker PowerCore 20100mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger were in stock at the time we purchased.

The Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger has also been licensed by Nintendo similar to the Anker PowerCore 20100mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger which is also expected to work fine with the Switch.

Anker conveniently provides a separate USB Type-C to Type-A cable to go with the Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger in addition to the charger's pouch and quick guide. 

By comparison the Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger is a more compact version of the Anker PowerCore 20100mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger to also have both a USB Type-C in and out charging port and a standard 7.5W USB Type-A port.

Similarly the USB Type-C port can be used to rapidly charge the Switch console when connected or charge the Anker power bank, both using USB Power Delivery technology.

Here Anker claims to support 15 watts (5 volts @ 3 amps), 22.5 watts (9 volts @ 2.5 amps) and 22.5 watts (15 volts @ 1.5 amps) for Power Delivery charging out over USB Type-C. The charger also supports up to 22.5W for Power Delivery charging in through the same Type-C port using 15 watts (5 volts @ 3 amps), 22.5 watts (9 volts @ 2.5 amps), 21 watts (15 volts @ 1.4 amps) and 20 watts (20 volts @ 1 amps).

The USB Type-A port provides 7.5 watts (5 volts @ 1.5 amps) for charging other USB peripherals.

If you go to the product page for this charger, again you will see different power being advertised which also happened for the Anker PowerCore 20100mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger. This is the problem with Anker where it can easily confuse the user by displaying inconsistent specs.

Using the USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs with the Granite River Labs USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester, we performed the following tests for the Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger.

The USB Power Test App first negotiates a power contract for every PDO supported by the Anker charger, and increases the load gradually to find the threshold where over current protection (OCP) kicks in and voltage and current start to drop for safety reasons. However the charger is not able to recover from 5V PDO OCP and requires the user to manually press the charger's power button after each OCP trigger for the charger to start providing voltage and current again.

The USB Power Test App reports out all the PDO's supported by the Anker charger and their OCP thresholds. OCP thresholds for the Anker charger are set at about 5-16% above the maximum current levels for the fixed PDO's.

PDO	OCP (A)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	3.17
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 2.5A	2.73
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 1.8A	1.99
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 1.5A	1.74

The USB Power Test App from Granite River Labs takes this data to produce an I-V curve which graphically shows the relationship between voltage and current for each PDO. We can observe current fold-back behavior where as the current increases beyond the OCP threshold, the voltage starts to bend down rather than immediately shutting off. The 3rd and 4th PDO's show more dramatic fold-back behavior compared to the other PDO's.

Since the Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger is a multi port charger, the USB Power Test App can be used to determine whether each output port of the charger is able to supply power independently. For every PDO supported by the Anker charger, the USB Power Test App increases the load gradually for both the USB Type-C and Type-A ports to detect any power loss at the highest load limit for each port.

USB Type-C Port

USB Type-A Port

The USB Power Test App reports out the voltage, current and load limits for all the PDO's supported by the Anker charger for each port.

Port1 PDO	Port2 PDO	Port1 (V)	Port1 (A)	Port1 Loading(%)	Port2 (V)	Port2 (A)	Port2 Loading(%)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A		4.99	2.98	100% (14.9W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	5.14	2.98	103.2%	3.09	1.48
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 2.5A		8.85	2.49	100% (22W)
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 2.5A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	8.8	2.49	99.4%	3.1	1.49
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 1.8A		11.9	1.8	100% (21.4W)
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 1.8A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	11.85	1.8	99.75%	4.86	1.5
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 1.5A		15	1.51	100% (22.6W)
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 1.5A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	14.94	1.51	99.64%	4.86	1.5
	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A				4.92	1.5	100% (7.4W)
PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 3A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	5.14	2.98		3.09	1.48	62.19%
PDO#2 Fixed: 9V 2.5A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	8.8	2.49		3.1	1.49	62.77%
PDO#3 Fixed: 12V 1.8A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	11.85	1.8		4.86	1.5	98.65%
PDO#4 Fixed: 15V 1.5A	PDO#1 Fixed: 5V 1.5A	14.94	1.51		4.86	1.5	98.78%

Using the USB Power Delivery Compliance C2 Tester from Granite River Labs to run just a subset of the full USB Power Delivery compliance test suite,  the Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger was observed to exhibit specs compliance with no compliance failures.

USB-IF High Level Mapping Summary

Sl No	Test Category	Test Group Description	Test Result
1	PHY_PRIMARY_TX	BMC Physical Layer Transmitter	PASS
2	PHY_PRIMARY_RX	BMC Physical Layer Receiver	PASS
3	PHY_PRIMARY_MISC	BMC Physical Layer Miscellaneous	PASS
4	PROT_PRIMARY	Protocol Specific Primary	PASS

Result Summary

Sl No	Test ID	Test Name	Test Result
1	TDA.2.1.1.1	TDA.2.1.1.1 BMC PHY TX EYE	PASS
2	TDA.2.1.1.2	TDA.2.1.1.2 BMC PHY TX BIT	PASS
3	TDA.2.1.2.2	TDA.2.1.2.2 BMC PHY RX INT REJ	PASS
4	TDA.2.1.2.1	TDA.2.1.2.1 BMC PHY RX BUSIDL	PASS
5	TDA.2.1.3.1	TDA.2.1.3.1 BMC PHY TERM	PASS
7	TDA.2.2.1	TDA.2.2.1 BMC PROT SEQ GETCAPS	PASS
12	TDA.2.2.7	TDA.2.2.7 BMC PROT BIST NOT 5V SRC	PASS
14	TDA.2.2.9	TDA.2.2.9 BMC PROT GSC REC	PASS
15	TDA.2.2.10	TDA.2.2.10 BMC PROT IGN PPS	PASS
16	TDA.2.3.1.1	TDA.2.3.1.1 POW SRC LOAD P PC	PASS
18	TDA.2.3.2.1	TDA.2.3.2.1 POW SRC TRANS P PC	PASS
20	TDA.2.3.3.1	TDA.2.3.3.1 POW SNK TRANS C CP	PASS

BMC Eye Diagram

The Anker PowerCore 13400mAh Nintendo Switch Edition PD Portable Charger can also be seen to make use of different voltage and current levels for charging in the load trace below captured using the GRL-USB-PD C2 Compliance Test Solution App.