Skip to main content

Understanding mAh

In this episode -  Understanding Milliamp Hours (mAh) . . .



Adapted article from the How-To-Geek Newsletter by Kris Wouk.


When shopping for backup power (portable charger) for your phone, you're sure to encounter the term milliamp hours or the abbreviation mAh. Not sure what this means, let's examine it.


What Are Milliamp Hours?


Milliamp hours (mAh) is a unit that measures power over time.


A milliamp is a measure of electric current, precisely one-thousandth of an amp. Amps and milliamps measure the strength of the electric current. Add hours to this, and you get a measure of how long this current can flow at that strength.


Let's use a battery as an example. If your battery can maintain a current output of one milliamp for one hour, you would call it a one mAh battery.

You will see mAh used in many electronic devices with a battery, from phones, and watches, to Bluetooth devices. These devices range from hundreds of milliamp hours into the thousands in terms of capacity, but they're all measured the same way. One thing to note here is that milliamp-hours are only a measure of capacity. They don't dictate how fast your backup battery will charge a device.


Device Capacity -


The average smartphone has a battery capacity ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 mAh. But as phones have advanced, demand for batteries has increased, thus diminishing battery life overall. This means portable chargers are more popular than ever. To be of any practical use, you'll want a compact charger that has at least as much battery capacity as whatever you'd like to charge. After all, an older charger with a 2,000 mAh capacity doesn't do much for an iPhone 13 with a 3,227 mAh battery.


A charger with roughly the same capacity as your phone or tablet is better than nothing, but bigger is almost always better. Even if you don't use the maximum capacity of your charger, it's often better to have the extra power and not need it than find yourself without it.


For example, if you need to charge your smartphone while wilderness camping, you'll want a higher-capacity charger since you will have no opportunity to recharge. Look for a battery of about 20,000 mAh, especially if you're planning more extended trips.


Another option is to harness the power of the Sun - Solar power banks are starting to come down in size and price.


Here's a mountaineering tip: if you're like me, you use your smartphone as a camera, take videos, document ideas in Notes, listen to audiobooks, music, and so much more. Place your phone in airplane mode, especially when you know there is no cell signal. This will extend your battery.


More Power!


Charger capacity continues to increase as our devices' batteries get larger. That brings up the question, is it possible to have a charger with too much capacity for the devices you are charging?


While there are some downsides to larger capacity chargers, there aren't many, and none of them are dangerous. A charger with many more milliamp hours of capacity than you require won't damage your device.


The main downside of a charger with more capacity than you need is size. More capacity means larger batteries, which sometimes require more space for cooling. This can add additional bulk and steal valuable backpack space, but clever packing can solve this problem.


The other downside to a battery with a larger capacity is that it will take longer to recharge.


The bottom line is this; determine your phone's battery capacity and adjust accordingly. So, let's hit the trails this summer fully charged!


If you have a suggestion for a future podcast, email me at pball@sbcglobal.net or click the link  https://anchor.fm/patrick-ball/message and leave us a voice message.


I'm Patrick Ball; thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Confidently Wrong: The Art of the AI Tall Tale

In this episode, A chat with Adamas the Chef on hidden recipes causing digital hallucinations. Pull up a chair and pour yourself a fresh cup of coffee—and please, for your own sake, taste it first. We need to have a quiet chat about why your computer sometimes decides to reinvent reality with the confidence of a five-star chef who has clearly lost his mind. In the world of technology, we call it a  hallucination . It sounds pretty dramatic, doesn’t it? As if the computer decided to ignore your instructions altogether in favor of a vivid, technicolor imagination that simply hasn’t met reality yet. But in truth, an AI hallucination isn’t a breakdown; it’s just a very confident, very polite mistake. Think of it like our friend Adamas , the Chef. Adamas is a master of the kitchen, but he is also a bit of a romantic who refuses to say “I don’t know.” When you ask him for a classic recipe he hasn’t made in years, he doesn’t stop to consult a cookbook—that’s far too pedestrian. Instead, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Opening Day Magic 2026 . . .

It’s back. Baseball—yes, baseball ! If you’re someone who finds themselves inexplicably drawn to this peculiar ritual, let’s be honest with each other: it’s a bit odd, right? I mean, 162 games. That’s a lot of hot dogs, a lot of standing around, and a lot of grown men in oddly tailored trousers spitting with remarkable precision. And yet, here we are, poised on the precipice of another season. Thursday, March 26, 2026, to be precise—Opening Day. It’s a curious thing, this Opening Day. You walk into a stadium, or turn on the TV, and suddenly, everyone is infected with a highly contagious strain of . . . Optimism . It’s a spectacular form of collective amnesia. All of last year’s fumbles, the endless losing streaks, the existential dread of watching your bullpen implode in the eighth inning—poof. Gone. It’s entirely replaced by a wide-eyed, childlike belief that this year, finally, the baseball gods will smile upon us. The Cycle of Hope and Despair As a Cubs fan, I know this cycle intim...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Cowardice of Corporate Jargon

Picture this: an email lands in your inbox. A colleague—maybe even a friend—needs a favor, a second set of eyes, a moment of your time. You sigh, stare at the glow of your monitor, and type: “I’d love to help, but I just don’t have the bandwidth right now.” Hit send. Problem solved. Conscience clear. Except it shouldn’t be. Most of us have said or sent that line at least once, hoping it would land gently. On the surface, it’s perfect—efficient, polite, even self-aware. And that’s exactly the problem. It lets you decline without ever quite telling the truth. You didn’t just say no; you softened the discomfort of being human until it barely felt like a feeling at all. Instead of admitting, I’m overwhelmed , or I don’t have the energy , you reach for the sterile vocabulary of a server room. You turn a feeling into a metric. A boundary into a system limitation. Apologies, my data transfer rate is capped. Please submit a ticket to my emotional help desk. It’s a clever little trick—and an un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Overcooking the Grid

In this episode, terrified of smart toasters, yet demanding infinite electricity for potato personality tests. Pull up that chair again, and let’s hope your coffee is safe this time. In our last chat, we talked about our well-meaning but occasionally delusional AI friend, Chef Adamas, and his penchant for hallucinating blueberries into your Carbonara. We learned how to manage his quirks by keeping our “digital pantry” organized. But today, we need to look past the chef and take a hard look at the sheer size of the kitchen we are building for him. And folks, that kitchen has gotten completely out of hand. Down in Louisiana, tech companies are currently building an artificial intelligence data center the size of 70 football fields. It is a four-million-square-foot digital brain that requires so much electricity they are building three new natural gas power plants just to keep the servers from literally melting down into a puddle of expensive silicon. And what are we using this god-like, ...
1 comment
Read more