UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W Review

Introduction

The UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W is a powerful battery, the kind most will struggle to truly max out. At least in terms of sheer output, anyway. 

As the name suggests, it can reach 200W of supplied power, across a pair of USB-C ports. And with 25000mAh (90Wh) to its name, it is just as useful for charging laptops as phones and tablets. 

Solid efficiency, a useful screen and aeroplane-friendly capacity make the UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W a potent travel buddy. Some will be disappointed that it doesn’t support the fast-charging standards of the Chinese phone brands, though, which many may assume this UGreen can charge at full speed. It can’t. 

The UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W is listed at £98.99/$129.99 but can frequently be found on sale online.

Design

• 155 x 54 x 51mm
• 604g
• 2x USB-C, 1x USB-A

The UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W is a large, upright brick. It’s the power bank equivalent of an Easter Island statue.

It even has a face too, which appears when you press the side button to bring the UGreen out of standby. But, yes, it’s a cute little pixel art face wearing headphones, not a stern one with a protruding brow. It even starts to look anxious when low on charge. Very cute.

If you’re planning on doing a lot of travel with no stowed cabin bags, you might find UGreen’s flatter Nexode 2000mAh 100W power bank easier to fit. But I have enjoyed using this one more. 

It chases the desirability of Anker’s best, and most expensive, power banks by using a fairly large front display. This shows the current charge level, in per cent, and the wattage output of each of the UGreen’s three connections. 

Press the side button while on this screen and you get a second, even geekier one. It shows the voltage and current for each USB output, plus a little graph of the power level of the last minute or so. 

The UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W screen is, as in all these flashy power banks, covered by scratch-happy plastic rather than toughened glass. But — not as common as I’d like — UGreen does include a drawstring sack that will protect it while in a rucksack or suitcase. 

The entire casing is plastic, decked out to look a little like anodised aluminium, and as usual, there’s no explicit protection from water. USB connectors are as exposed to the elements as they could be.

There are just three connectors on the top. Two USB-C connectors are rated for 140W and 100W output each, while the USB-A can output up to 18W, at either 12V or 9V voltage. 

While I’ve said, and the power bank layout suggests, this is an “upright” power bank, UGreen knows it’s probably more practical to stick it on its back when on a desk. There are little rubber strips along its back, to help avoid you knocking it off the surface. 

At first glance the UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W is very clearly similar to banks from the Anker Prime series. However, it does lack a few of the features I’ve seen in at least some Anker models. 

There’s no mobile app, no display of the unit’s charge cycles or a temperature indicator that will tell you whether lower-than-expected power output is probably down to overheating. The average buyer doesn’t really need these extras, though.

The UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W screen is also relatively dim. It’s clearly made for use indoors, which makes sense. And it becomes basically illegible outdoors on a sunny day.

There’s no backlight control, and no ambient light sensor to let the power bank ramp up brightness in sunnier conditions. Would this be overkill? Sure, but it’s the kind of thing many of us tend to take for granted. 

One handy extra feature is a “trickle charge” mode, switched on by long-pressing the side button. This reduces the minimum output of the connectors, for when you need to charge a super-low-power device.

Performance

• 80+ percent efficiency
• Up to 200W continuous output
• 65W charging of the battery itself

The UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W’s USB-C ports can deliver the high output promised. When charging a 100W Samsung Galaxy laptop, both the battery and my power tester recorded power delivery of 98W for long stretches of time.

I’ve seen little to no obvious thermal throttling here, meaning you can really tear through the battery’s entire power store when charging two high-demand gadgets at once.

It’s no doubt in part thanks to the internal structure of this power bank. Inside the shell are five 21700 batteries, suggesting each has 5000mAh capacity. 

This is a larger, newer, battery format than the classic 18650 shape, often used in gadgets like vapes and ebikes. UGreen claims these batteries are “automotive grade” but it’s not clear this means much more than that 21700 cells are also used in electric cars, including the Tesla Model Y. 

The “primary” USB-C output can even stretch to 140W, with a mammoth 28V (5A) output, but you won’t find too many devices that can rev that high. Most super-high-power laptops I review don’t primarily use USB-C to charge, and the category average for slim ones is still in the region of 65W. This is a punchy power bank.

As noted earlier, the UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W is not ideal for the famously fast-charging phones from Chinese brands like OnePlus, OPPO and Honor.

This battery uses the USB Power Delivery (PD 3.1) standard, which is not typically used by super-fast-charging phones. Check your phone spec before buying – my tester Huawei Nova 11 Pro charges at 13.5W rather than its 100W maximum, for example.

It’s also best to think of the third USB-A shape slot as a secondary feature too. Plugging something into it appears to limit the second USB-C to somewhere in the region of 14W. And it had caused the only real headaches during testing, as while the UGreen recognises very swiftly when a USB-C device is unplugged, it takes a while for the power bank to twig when the USB-A is disconnected. 

This can lead to moments when two high-power USB-C devices are plugged in and yet receiving 0W of power as the UGreen’s brains try to work out what it should be doing. You shouldn’t have such issues while just using the USB-Cs. 

When charging the UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W, it sucked up 92.65Wh over one hour 55 minutes. That’s equivalent to 25,040mAh. 

Its stated capacity is 90Wh, so it’s reassuring to see it take in slightly over that figure, given there are power losses in every part of the chain in these batteries. And while it can spit out masses of power, its peak charging speed is 65W.

On charging another device, the UGreen outputs 74.58Wh, meaning we get 80% of what we put in. Or 82.6% of the stated capacity. 

This is consistent with other higher-cost power banks I’ve reviewed. And the exact figure you get will vary between runs, and the power draw the UGreen Nexode Power Bank 25000mAh 200W is subjected to. 

But 80% efficiency or above? We’re in a happy place with this UGreen. 

Should you buy it?

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