I don’t think I’ve used one of Duracell’s famous coppertop batteries since I was a kid — but recently, I’ve had a compelling reason to try one again. The new Duracell M150, on sale today for $199, is one of the most packed portable battery banks I’ve ever seen.
The 1.8-pound, 3.1-inch-wide canister not only sports two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a MagSafe-compatible wireless charging lid, and a built-in ring light but it’s also got its own charging dock so you can keep it plugged in on a desk or nightstand before taking it on the go.
With 100W of power from its main USB-C port and a 91Wh capacity, it’s both small enough to legally carry on an airplane and powerful enough to charge up (most) of a laptop like the Dell XPS 15 or 16-inch MacBook Pro at close to top speed. And with 150W of headroom overall, I was able to get 92W for my laptop, 40W for my Steam Deck, and 15W to wirelessly charge my phone, all at the same time.
The Duracell M150 comes with its own charging dock. Sadly, you can’t buy extra docks. Image: Duracell
Plus, there’s a nifty compartment under that wireless charging lid just big enough for a small earbuds case, or a short USB cable, or a pair of USB-C power meters. I tried ’em all.
But before you hold this up as the perfect nightstand / travel gadget, know it can’t charge all of those things at once without spinning up a fan, one that got a good bit noisier when I plugged my second and third gadget in.
The Duracell dock also doesn’t charge the battery fast enough to keep a large laptop running indefinitely. My Kill-O-Watt suggests it supplies under 60W of continuous power, and that’s the max the battery can take from its USB-C input as well.
And while the MagSafe-compatible charging pad does let your iPhone turn into a bedside clock or photo frame with iOS 17’s StandBy mode, it’s only charging that iPhone at 7.5W, not the 15W I see with my Samsung, because of Apple’s limitations.
If you just blearily drop your phone atop the charger at bedtime, you might wake up with a dead phone because the unit shuts itself off after a few hours — even if its power LEDs are still lit up white. (Just press the power button when you set your phone down.)
Speaking of those LEDs, they made it a tad hard for my wife and me to sleep because I couldn’t turn them off. Duracell says that was a quirk of my unit, though, and should be fixed in the ones shipping now. If you’re taking suggestions, Duracell, might I suggest a second wireless charger inside the compartment to top up my earbuds case or watch?
Lastly, I should probably note that mine didn’t make it through airport security unscathed. The TSA flagged my bag twice at the airport, denting and scratching the heck out of what seems to be the gadget’s thin painted aluminum shell. (That’s why you don’t see any hands-on photos in this story.) Thankfully, I shot our video before the damage was done.
I hope we’ll see more dockable battery banks like this: Anker announced one, too, but never wound up sending me a review unit and may have stopped selling it after reported issues. Anker’s website currently lists it as “coming soon.”
