Dell Power Companion

The Dell Power Companion seems like an interesting product. With USB power banks getting to ridiculous capacities (12000 mAh = 43 Wh) it was a matter of time before some tried to power a laptop with one.

The main thing I'm wondering about is compatibility. Dell's website lists the XPS 13 and latitude 14 7000 as compatible, presumably because the power bank is rated at 45W and those laptops use 45W power supplies. Most of Dell's mainstream notebooks use 65W power supplies or 90W if they have discrete graphics. I imagine using this should be the same as using a 45W power supply as far as the laptop is concerned.

Obviously a 65W or 90W laptop isn't going to be able to run at full throttle off of this thing, but they are able throttle back in a meaningful way when on battery. Would they recognize that the power supply is only 45W and throttle back to match, or would they throttle back completely, or not work at all?

 

Hi Superparamagnetic,
Even though you posted a month ago, I thought I would reply because nobody else has yet and I just asked Dell Support this question today. Here was the answer:
Agent (TIP_Michael Angles): "As I have checked , this power companion is primarily designed for our small devices and ultra books. Mostly devices that requires not that much power . Yes the plug in is the same on most models but for example if you plug it in on a higher model it will just give you an error notification that the system requires more power".
So that resolves at least the first part of your question definitively.
As for "throttle back", I did not ask about that but from the response given by Dell Support I imagine you would just receive an error message and it wouldn´t work at all, or at least not in a meaningful way.
Good luck!

 

Its cheaper just to bring along a spare battery. That is what I so. Due to preference I am still on 6000 series Latitude that require more juice that the latest range. Because of that I use the extra 3 cell mediabay batt and carry another 6 cell extra just to be sure that I can last my day off the grid. I have notice powerbanks that yield 45W that comes with the necessary power jack to be used with a laptop but somehow I have less faith on the quality of cells that they use.

 

I was looking to buy one of these for a upcoming holiday but Dell have a 1-2 week lead time on shipping and I am not so sure that it will reach me in time and secondly they seem to want an insane price for it £112.

 

The problem is, the newer laptop models (Ultrabooks) have the battery built in, so no this is not an option. (Plus, you miss out on having the USB ports to charge your phone too!)

 

That's what I figured Dell would say. The thing is if you look on the product page, it lists several compatible model (e.g. the Latitude series) that can come with discrete graphics and typically ship with 90W PSUs, so this is clearly not just limited to smaller low power systems.

Perhaps the newer systems have a way to throttle back to decrease power? Or maybe the ULV chips save just enough power that this works? It would be interesting to see if older laptops can handle this.

I'm not sure how spare batteries are cheaper. Dell batteries go for over $100 a piece. This is currently $100 and has been as low as $60 on sale.

Regardless, if this worked it would also provide more flexibility in that you could plug it in without having to power off your machine, or use it with multiple laptop lines. You could upgrade your laptop while keeping the spare battery.

 

I am not sure its because of quirks of marketing or logistics but over ere in Malaysia I can get Dell 3 year batt for E6230 for less than USD50 equivalent.

 

I certainly like the idea of the power companion and didn't realise it was compatible with the E7240 (thought it was only the newer smaller pin laptops) but the price is too high at the moment as I can get an extended battery for around £50 while the power companion is £100. I'm hoping I can get it cheaper in time though as it is just new out and there seems to be few sources for it.

John

 

I just got one and it works for the XPS 13 of course. I have it plugged into a XPS 15 at the moment and it looks like it wont charge the XPS 15, but is keeping it charged. It gives the warning that the battery isn't big enough, yada yada yada.

 

I am thinking to get the 18Ah model for my E7450 with discrete graphics. My actual psu is 90W but the machine draws <30W under normal use, the real question is, does the firmware/bios allow the unit to power the laptop and how annoying are the error messages?
Also, what is the effective capacity in Wh? (=how long does it last, compared to my 4-cell internal 54Wh battery?)

 

I have the discrete 7450 and the 18Ah power companion and I have had no error messages so far. However, I have not run anything using the discrete graphics with the power companion plugged in. I will try it out sometime in the next few days and let you know if it works or not.

 

Many thanks for the feedback! How long does the companion extends your runtime?