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Comment by jobu | Hacker News Reader

Anker may make great products, but their marketing is shit. They have way too many products and no good way to differentiate. Check out this site which tries to explain the differences:

http://www.powerbankguide.com/anker-powercore-vs-astro-the-d...

Let us simplify the situation for you –

#1 An Anker PowerCore+ powerbank is BETTER and NEWER than Astro Gen 1 or Gen 2 of same capacity.

#2 An Anker PowerCore (without the +) powerbank is BETTER and NEWER than Astro Gen 1 or Gen 2 of same capacity.

#3 Anker PowerCore+ and Anker PowerCore powerbanks exist side by side with PowerCore+ usually having some extra features while PowerCore offers excellent value for money.

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Which is somewhere between irrelevant and a good thing because of the way their products are sold. Namely, consumers search "power bank" on amazon and buy something in the top 5-10 results. The more positions on that list Anker can hold (by having slightly different products) the better position they're in.

What you describe sounds like search result spam, which is neither irrelevant or a good thing for the consumer.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. Amazon is to blame for this state of affairs.

There are a number of people who won't buy a micro USB cable unless the product has the name of their phone in the name. So you see the exact same product listed multiple times with different names.

If amazon would extend their car parts search functionality -- letting users put in their phone model and then giving a curated list of compatible devices, it would be awesome.

It works pretty well for car parts, although you're at the mercy of the seller to determine compatibility for less prominent things.

The guide tries to make things seem really complex but the reality isn't so bad.. Anker fully replaced their single-tier Astro line with their two-tier PowerCore line.. that's way simpler than the branding situations with the vast majority of consumer electronics companies. The only real cause of confusion here is retailers continuing to sell their older Astro products as if they were the latest models, which is hardly Anker's fault.

It would help if the Anker site didn't still list the Astro products alongside PowerCore.

> Anker fully replaced their single-tier Astro line with their two-tier PowerCore line.

Where do you see that?

First I want to know the feature difference between Astro, PowerCore, PowerCore II, and PowerCore+. (WTF are PowerIQ, VoltageBoost, QuickCharge, etc.) Next I want to see something that compares product dimensions, weight, and mAh between all of their products. Recharge times would be ideal as well, but I understand those can vary based on ambient temperature and other factors.

It seems like that should be Step 1 for any decent marketing department, but either their website doesn't have this information or it's hidden very well: https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/107/Batteries

> Where do you see that?

In your post. The bit about "BETTER and NEWER".

I've never had an issue finding out any metrics about their products from the Amazon page. That includes what all of their trademarked features mean. Having a chart that compares all of them doesn't really make sense when each one has the relevant info.

> The only real cause of confusion here is retailers continuing to sell their older Astro products as if they were the latest models, which is hardly Anker's fault.

It's surely Anker's fault if they list the two generations of products side-by-side on their own website (which, as can be seen at jobu (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395302 )'s link https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/107/Batteries , they do).

That webpage looks to be an affiliate seller page, so their lack of clarity benefits them if people click on their links to figure out what's really going on. All they need to do is get that referrer cookie set and their job is done; understanding powerbanks is secondary (if that).

their marketing may be getting a revamp, since this piece is a massive submarine that's been at the top of HN all day.

An insignificant minority will care about the website of a power bank product.

It's somewhat similar when you search for their products on Amazon.

I can decide which product is best for me. My family and friends? Not so much.

(They may get "good enough" and put up with it, but e.g. not experience fast/fastest charging that their device can actually support. As one example.)

P.S. Even then, I'd prefer not to sort through so many products / product specs.

I assumed part of this was older product inventories staying up on Amazon. But apparently, the Anker product line is just confusingly diverse and overlapping.

Yeah, I'm a fan and own a bunch of their products, but I think it's crazy how inept their own web site and Amazon listings are at just listing the damn specs for the devices or offering useful comparisons.

What input does it draw? Does this support PD, and if so what modes and how fast? Will this cable work for Thunderbolt 3? How much amperage is it rated for?

These are some of the easiest products to quantify in technical terms; make that information easy to find, and give me the marketing pitch afterward.

I dunno, making it to the top of HN is pretty great content marketing.

No different than shopping on Amazon.

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