Anker External Wall Charger, Batteries for Samsung Galaxy S4

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Let’s not talk about how the charging port of my Samsung Galaxy S4 stopped working and let’s talk about solutions people. 

When your S4 charging port is no longer working, you can no longer charge your phone battery when it’s in your phone. So your options are limited to getting it repaired (I was quoted $60), buy a new phone, or buy an external charger.

I hate paying to have my phone fixed. It always feels scammy to have things repaired, so that was out. And plunking down another $200 for a new phone was not a consideration either.

I liked the idea of having an external charger for my Galaxy s4 battery.

Search for Samsung Galaxy External Charger

It seems whenever I need something, the first place I go is Amazon nowadays, and this situation was no different. I searched for battery replacements and external chargers for my Galaxy S4.

I came across several options — luckily most were farely inexpensive.

After some comparison shopping I decided on the Anker® Travel Charger with 2 extra 2600mAh batteries. It was 40% cheaper than the OEM Samsung wall charger option, plus you got two batteries instead of one. The Anker product not only was cheaper, but was well-reviewed in the 140+ reviews it received.

Review: Samsung External Charger and 2 replacement batteries from Anker

Review: Anker Wall Charger for Samsung Galaxy S4

The Anker travel charger and two batteries arrived a couple days later. The package was small enough to fit in my mailbox.

(In hindsight  I don’t know why I didn’t choose to have the batteries shipped one-day for an extra $4. Man, the cheapeness you passed onto me is strong, mom.)


Both 2600mAh batteries came charged at 55% juice which was nice because my phone had been dead for about two days and I was itching to get it going as soon as I can.

I powered up my Galaxy S4 with the new Anker battery. The phone worked as expected, but the first charge the batteries came with drained FAST.

I’m talking 5-7%  gone every 10 minutes or so. And since my phone was out of service the last couple days, the first thing my phone wanted to do was update all my apps, which didn’t help.

At this rate,  the battery would be completely empty in about an hour. I was hopeful that the first charge wasn’t representative of future performance.

I used up the charges on the new batteries (down to 12-15%) and plopped them up into the charger for a couple hours. The batteries were larger than the charger, so they jutted out of the side. Not a problem for me, but I could see why they might bother someone else.

Fortunately, the next few charges lasted longer, but definitely not as long as I came to expect with my Samsung battery, and the Anker batteries seem to drain quicker than I was comfortable with. At this point, I was considering purchasing the Samsung charger.


Luckily I waited a little longer. I came to find that I wasn’t waiting long enough for the batteries to charge to full capacity. Anything short of that would drain the batteries quicker.

In the manual, Anker instructs you to charge the battery until you see a blue light. My problem (and impatience) was that at certain angles, the charger’s light reflects off the blue label and looks as if there’s a blue light under the constant pink light. So confused by that, I would pull the battery out earlier than expected. It always seemed to be around 88%+ when I did so I thought it was a quirk of the charger.

Anker Wall Charger for Samsung Galaxy S4

(I get confused by lights easily)

Finally, after a few days, I had enough time to charge the battery for several consecutive hours. After a few hours, I noticed that the charger light turned full blue – with no hint of pink or other color. That did the trick. 100%.

Conclusion: Anker Batteries are good value

When fully-charged, these Anker  Li-ion Batteries worked great – not up to the standard OEM Samsungs, but they’ll keep you going most of the day.

The fact that you get two extra batteries makes it even easier to have a working phone for more than a full day. With your original Samsung, you have three batteries in all. For the price, the Anker batteries are a good value that do the job well and the travel charger is good option to juice up that extra battery.

[UPDATE] The travel charger stopped working approximately two weeks into the usage. I emailed their customer service a day ago. I’ll update this with my findings.

[UPDATE2] Customer service replied within 24 hours and sent me a replacement charger within 5 business days. Nice!

Review Summary
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Aggregate Rating
no rating based on 0 votes
Brand Name
Anker
Product Name
Anker Battery for Samsung Galaxy (2600mAh)
Price
USD $20
Product Availability
Available in Stock

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5 Comments

  1. avatar
    Bauke-Jan says:

    Can you maybe tell me wich of the four metal contact points on top the battery is the plus an wich is the minus? And what the other 2 are used for? Because I ordered a galaxy s4 battery with extra capacity to make my own portable charger for my phone but I don’t know what is what and I don’t own a galaxy s4

      1. avatar
        Bauke-Jan says:

        I want to build my own portable wireless charger for my Phone and needed a battery for it wich is thin and would store enough energy for my portable charger but i can’t find any specifications of what the pins are for

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