Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
Nitecore Summit Air
4.6
Pros & Cons
-
Fantastic temperature range. -
Holds up to 60% of charge capacity at -40F. -
Small and light.
-
Only 15W of output when using both ports. -
Pricey.
Your average power bank is built to perform in normal day-to-day situations: at home, the office, or the chic coffee shop a few minutes’ walk from work. They aren’t built for harsh environments.
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In fact, blistering highs of 140°F and sub-zero lows hitting -40°F will kill an ordinary battery. Throw moisture into the mix, and most power banks will be dead in a matter of minutes. But not the Nitecore Summit Air. This power bank is just as happy in a jacket pocket on the summit of Everest as it is in that coffee shop.
The problem with normal power banks
Lithium-ion batteries have been designed to perform their best within a narrow range of 32°F to 104°F. Every degree you venture outside of this range starts to put the battery at risk, and stray too far outside that narrow “happy place” and you risk killing the battery or setting it alight.
I’ve killed many a power bank over the years. Some baked to death in a pocket in the sun, others froze during a cold winter’s night while powering a time-lapse camera. Beyond the annoyance of losing a bit of kit, there are the risks that come from not being able to charge a vital bit of equipment (like a headlamp… yeah, ask me why I mention that).
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Luckily, you can get power banks designed to operate outside this range, making use of lithium-ion batteries with modified chemistries to allow them to work in a wider temperature range, which is exactly what’s inside the Summit Air. This unit is rated to operate from -40°F to 140°F.
Small but powerful
The Summit Air is an 8,000 mAh/28.8 Wh power bank. This capacity figure is for room-temperature discharge, and it’s at lower temperatures that things get interesting.
At -4°F — a temperature where most power banks give up the ghost completely — the Summit Air still has 80% of its rated capacity. Push that temperature down to -40°F and, incredibly, it can still deliver about 60% of its rated capacity.
It’s kitted out with two USB-C ports, each of which can output a maximum of 22.5 W (this drops to a combined total of 15 W when both ports are used). One of the ports can also be used to charge the power bank at up to 20 W.
The USB-C ports have a trick up their sleeve. If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve been scrabbling to connect a charge cable when it’s dark and your hands are cold, you’ll know just how elusive ports can be. To make things easier, Nitecore has added cool but subtle RGB lights around the ports.
Enough light to see where they are, but not enough to be annoying. One caveat on charging: while the power bank has an incredible discharge temperature range, its charging range is narrower — 32°F to 122°F. Attempting to charge the power bank either side of this range can permanently damage the unit.
The cells are clad in a carbon fiber shell that’s stylish, tough, and incredibly light. This power bank measures 3.62 x 1.61 x 0.83 inches but weighs only 4.76 ounces. This is around 44% lighter than power banks of similar capacities.
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There’s a button on the power bank to activate it and turn on the RGB light, along with the power level LEDs. The power bank will turn on automatically when a load is connected.
Safety is a priority for a power bank, and this one has everything that you’d expect, including overvoltage, overcurrent, overtemperature, and overdischarge protections, and has two built-in temperature sensors to make sure that things don’t get too hot. On the back of the unit is the all-important Airline Approved stamp (which, while being manufacturer marking and not a regulator’s approval, does help if there’s doubt over the capacity) which means you shouldn’t have any hassles taking it on your travels.
Near the button is a lanyard hole, which is perfect for the lanyard/USB-C cable that comes with the unit. Nitecore rates this power bank as water-resistant to IPX8, which means that it can survive heavy rain, deep snow, the inevitable moisture that’s part of most outdoor activities, and accidental immersion.
Important safety tool
I’ve spent several weeks testing the Summit Air, both in the lab and outside, and it’s definitely a power bank that I’d trust with my life.
That might sound dramatic, but recently my headlamp died on the way down from the mountains, and my power bank bit the dust at the same time. It forced me to make a hasty detour to a bothy because it was far too unsafe to descend safely. It was then that I realized how important a reliable piece of kit like this actually is.
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As well as my usual thermal and safety tests — all of which the power bank passed — I also froze it in a commercial freezer (down to about -20°F, which is the best I could achieve) for a day before seeing if it still worked.
It did. Capacity was down to about 80% of its rating, but it worked.
ZDNET buying advice
There are a lot — and I mean a LOT — of power banks out there, but if you filter them down to power banks that will still function when temperatures drop below freezing, that list immediately becomes small. Keep dropping the mercury to -40, the spot where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet and boiling water thrown into the air will come down as ice crystals, and you’re down to only a few.
The Nitecore Summit Air would be one of them on that very exclusive shortlist. It’s small enough to slip into a pocket but is built to survive a temperature range that would turn almost all other battery packs into useless bricks.
At $85, this isn’t a cheap power pack, but it is built to a specification that makes it perfect for activities such as skiing, mountaineering, or desert ultramarathons. It’ll work for surviving a summer in Death Valley or a winter in Montana.
