Best Power Bank in Pakistan: How Many mAh Do You Need?

For most people the right answer is 10,000mAh. It refills a modern phone about one and a half times, it fits in a jacket pocket, and it is light enough that you actually carry it — the property that matters on the day your battery dies. Go up to 20,000mAh if you charge two phones, travel, or sit through long outages. Drop to 5,000mAh only for a single top-up.

The number on the box is not the number you get. A 10,000mAh pack delivers roughly 6,000–7,000mAh into a phone, because the cells sit at a lower voltage than the USB output and converting between them costs energy. That is physics, not a swindle.

Below: how to size a pack from your phone's battery, why watts matter more than mAh, how to spot an inflated listing, the flight limit, and what to check at the door when you order one from Markaz China and pay cash on delivery.

The short answer, by how you use your phone

Pick capacity from the job. Every extra mAh is weight you carry every day of the month for a top-up you need three times.

• 5,000mAh — the pocket top-up. Roughly one charge of a mid-size phone. Light enough to forget in a bag. Right if your problem is the last two hours of a long day.
• 10,000mAh — the default. About one and a half charges, or a phone plus earbuds. Carries you through a day away from a socket. This is the size most people should buy, and the size most people regret going above.
• 20,000mAh — travel and outages. Two to three phone charges, or two phones at once if it has two output ports. Noticeably heavier: good in a bag, bad in a pocket.
• 25,000mAh and up with USB-C Power Delivery — laptops. Only worth it if you charge a laptop or a tablet, and only if the listing states PD at 45W or more. A huge pack with a 10W output will not charge a laptop at all, whatever the capacity says.

Work it out from your own phone

Your phone's battery capacity is printed in its specifications; most current phones sit between 4,000mAh and 5,000mAh. Then three steps:

1. Multiply the pack's rated capacity by 0.65 — a realistic estimate of what actually reaches a phone.
2. Divide by your phone's battery capacity.
3. That is how many times the pack refills your phone from empty.

Worked example, as an example only: a 10,000mAh pack × 0.65 = 6,500mAh usable, so a phone with a 5,000mAh battery gets about 1.3 full charges. The same phone gets about 2.6 charges from a 20,000mAh pack. If that is lower than you expected, the pack is not faulty — the arithmetic was always this.

Why you never get the capacity on the box

Two things eat the difference, and neither is avoidable.

Voltage. The lithium cells in a power bank sit at a nominal 3.7 volts. USB output is 5 volts. A figure in mAh only means something at a stated voltage, so the pack's 3.7V capacity has to be converted to 5V before it can charge anything, and that conversion alone removes roughly a quarter of the number.

Heat. The pack's conversion circuit and your phone's charging circuit both lose energy as heat. You can feel this happening: a pack that is warm while it works is warm for that reason.

Together they put real delivery at roughly 60–70% of the rated figure. A listing that quotes both numbers — rated capacity and output capacity — is being straight with you, and the output figure is the one to compare between products.

The figure that is hardest to fudge is energy, in watt-hours: multiply mAh by 3.7 and divide by 1,000. A 10,000mAh pack is about 37Wh; a 20,000mAh pack about 74Wh. Keep that formula, because the airline rule further down is written in Wh.

Watts decide how it feels, mAh decides how long

Capacity is how much. Power, in watts, is how fast. Most disappointment with a power bank is a watts problem wearing a capacity costume.

• Output watts set how quickly your phone fills. A 10W output on a large phone battery is a slow evening. An 18W or 20W Power Delivery output gets the same phone to a useful level in a fraction of the time.
• Input watts set how long the pack takes to refill itself. A 20,000mAh pack with a 10W input is an overnight job and part of the next morning. This is the specification sellers leave out, so ask for it on anything large.
• The protocol has to match. Fast charging happens only when the pack, the cable and the phone all speak the same standard — USB Power Delivery on most current phones, or the handset maker's own. Mismatch anywhere and everything quietly falls back to slow charging without telling you why.
• The cable is part of the system. A USB-C to USB-C cable rated for the wattage you are asking for, not the thinnest one in the drawer. Our guide to buying mobile accessories online in Pakistan covers how to read a cable's rating and why a cheap one throttles a good charger.

Given a choice between a 20,000mAh pack at 10W and a 10,000mAh pack at 20W, most people are happier with the second.

How to read a power bank listing

The weight test

Cells have mass, and that is the one claim a seller cannot style their way out of. A genuine 10,000mAh pack lands somewhere around 180–250g; a genuine 20,000mAh pack somewhere around 350–450g, depending on the casing. A listing that advertises 50,000mAh and ships something that weighs 200g is not a bargain — it is a small pack in a large shell. If the weight is missing from the listing, ask for it before you order; a seller who will not give you a number in grams has told you the answer.

Numbers that mean nothing

• "Equivalent", "peak" or "maximum" capacity. Marketing words wrapped around a figure with no definition behind it.
• A round capacity with no output rating. If a listing will not say how many watts come out, assume the slowest port it could legally ship.
• Charge counts without a phone. "Charges your phone 8 times" is meaningless unless it says which phone and which battery.

What to look for instead

• A brand and model number you can search for outside the listing.
• Rated capacity, output capacity, output watts, input watts, and the fast-charge standard named (PD, QC) rather than implied.
• Ports: how many, which type, and whether the advertised wattage is for one port alone or shared across all of them.
• Protection circuitry stated — over-charge, over-discharge, short-circuit and temperature.
• Weight in grams.
• Pass-through charging, if you want to charge the pack and a phone at the same time. Plenty of packs do not support it and will not say so.

Where a power bank fits in a load-shedding plan

Worth being honest about the limits. A power bank keeps phones, earbuds, a torch and a small speaker alive through an outage. It is not a backup for a fan, a router or a laptop you are working on all afternoon — that is what a UPS or an inverter is for. A few larger packs add a 12V DC output that can keep a small router up; most do not, and the listing will say so plainly if it does.

If outages where you live run long, a 20,000mAh pack kept charged beats a 10,000mAh pack charged when you remember. Top it up while the power is on, and every few weeks even when you have not used it — a pack left flat for months loses capacity.

Flying with a power bank

Hand luggage only. Spare lithium batteries are not permitted in checked baggage, and a power bank forgotten in a suitcase is the most common reason a bag gets opened. Capacity limits are written in watt-hours: up to 100Wh travels with no special permission, 100–160Wh needs the airline's approval in advance, and above 160Wh is not carried on passenger flights at all.

Convert before you pack — mAh × 3.7 ÷ 1,000 = Wh. A 20,000mAh pack is about 74Wh and is comfortably inside the limit. A 27,000mAh pack sits right at 100Wh, which is exactly the size that gets argued about at the gate. Check that the capacity is printed and still readable on the case, because staff read the label, not your arithmetic. An unbranded pack with no legible rating is the one that gets left behind.

Three failures worth knowing about

• Swelling. A case that no longer sits flat, a seam that has opened, or a soft spot under the panel means the cell is gassing. Stop using it that day. Do not charge it, do not puncture it, and take it to an electronics or battery collection point rather than the household bin.
• Heat. Warm while charging is normal. Hot enough that you want to put it down is not. Unplug it, let it cool on a hard surface away from fabric, and if it does it twice, retire it. Never charge a pack under a pillow or inside a closed bag.
• Cells with no protection circuit. This is what a no-name pack is really saving you money on. The protection board is the cheapest part to leave out and the only part that stops a bad cell becoming a fire. A power bank is the one accessory where the unbranded option is a genuinely different product.

Buying one online in Pakistan without a bad surprise

Three routes, and the trade-off is the same one that runs through online shopping in Pakistan generally: speed and recourse against price.

• A brand's own store or authorised seller. Most expensive, warranty is real, and a swollen pack gets replaced instead of argued about. The right choice for a pack you will carry daily for years.
• A local marketplace or Instagram seller. Wide range and fast delivery, quality all over the map. Buy on a stated brand and model, never on a photo.
• Direct from China. Factory pricing without the importer's markup, at the cost of waiting — 10–17 days through Markaz's China categories against 3–5 days for stock already in Pakistan. Good for accessories you are buying deliberately rather than urgently.

Whichever route, the protection that does the work here is cash on delivery. A power bank is a product you can check in a minute at the door before any money changes hands: lift it and see whether the weight matches the claim, read the rated capacity and output off the case, check the ports are the ones advertised, and plug your phone in to confirm it charges. Prepaid, all of that happens after you have paid. Markaz orders arrive cash on delivery across Pakistan, which is why the weight test above is a practical test and not a theoretical one. Browse what is in stock locally on the Markaz shop categories, or watch the deals page if you are replacing a pack rather than buying in an emergency.

If you are buying the rest of the kit at the same time, our guide to where to buy electronics and gadgets online in Pakistan covers warranty, PTA and voltage for the larger devices.

If you want to sell power banks rather than buy one

Power banks sell all year and harder during outage season, which makes the category tempting and risky at once. The risk is specific: a faulty pack is a safety complaint, not a return. So the rules are different from fashion.

• Stock a named brand with a protection circuit you can point to in the listing. Price against it honestly rather than racing the cheapest seller in the market.
• Put the real numbers in your own listing — rated capacity, output capacity, watts in and out, weight. The sellers who do this get fewer returns, because the buyer's expectation was set correctly.
• Test one unit from every batch before you list it. Charge it fully, charge a phone from it, and weigh it.
• Start with single units. Markaz has no minimum order, so you can list one pack, see how it moves and how it is received, and only then buy depth. Our list of the best gadgets and accessories to dropship in Pakistan covers which electronics are worth the handling and which are not.

The Markaz reseller programme is where that starts: you set your own margin, the order ships to your customer, and delivery runs 3–5 days inside Pakistan.

A one-minute checklist before you order

1. Phone battery capacity found, and the pack sized against it with the 0.65 rule.
2. Output watts and fast-charge standard stated, and your phone supports that standard.
3. Input watts stated, so you know what recharging the pack costs you in hours.
4. Weight in grams given, and plausible for the claimed capacity.
5. Brand, model number and protection circuitry named in the listing.
6. Under 100Wh if it will ever go on a flight — 27,000mAh is the ceiling.
7. Cash on delivery available, so the checks happen before you pay.

Frequently asked questions

Is 10,000mAh enough for a day?

For one phone, yes, comfortably. It gives most phones about one and a half full charges, which covers a day away from a socket plus a margin. If you are charging two phones, or a phone and a tablet, move to 20,000mAh.

How many times will a 20,000mAh power bank charge my phone?

Around two and a half times for a phone with a 5,000mAh battery. Multiply 20,000 by 0.65 to get usable capacity, then divide by your phone's battery. Expect a little less in cold weather or if you charge while using the phone.

Can I take a power bank on a flight from Pakistan?

In hand luggage, yes, if it is under 100Wh — which covers everything up to about 27,000mAh. Never in checked baggage. Between 100Wh and 160Wh you need the airline's permission before you travel, and the rated capacity has to be legible on the case.

Why does my power bank charge my phone slower than the wall charger?

Almost always watts, not capacity. Either the pack's output is lower than your wall charger's, the cable is not rated for the speed, or the pack and the phone do not share a fast-charge standard. Check the output rating on the pack before assuming it is faulty.

Is it safe to buy a power bank online in Pakistan?

Yes, with the checks above. Buy a stated brand and model rather than a photo, insist on a weight in grams, and take cash on delivery so you can weigh the pack, read its label and charge a phone from it before paying. Those three steps remove most of the risk in the category.

What should I do if my power bank swells?

Stop using it immediately and do not try to charge it. Keep it away from fabric and anything flammable, do not puncture or compress it, and dispose of it at an electronics or battery collection point. A swollen pack does not recover.

Can a power bank charge a laptop?

Only one that states USB-C Power Delivery at a wattage your laptop accepts — usually 45W or more, and 65W for larger machines. Capacity alone is not enough: a 30,000mAh pack with a 10W output will not charge a laptop no matter how long you leave it plugged in.