Anker's Cyber Week Sale Enters Final Days With Up to 60% Off Sitewide

Extremely disappointed in the contents of my "mystery box." A useless battery pack.

Two USB-A ports. 15W output, one port only. 7.5W if using both. USB-C for input only. Micro-USB input for power. Takes ten and a half hours to charge.

Who is this for? It retails for $50 (which is insane) so technically it qualifies for the $30 box but I wouldn't have paid anything for this. I don't even know who to give it to. Nobody wants this.

Not falling for that one again. For a few more dollars during the same sale I could have gotten a much better modern one.

Don't be fooled by those pictures, you're not getting those nice expensive items. It's not just me. The posts on the other Anker mystery box sales have similar stories, or even worse.

I feel like I can't recommend Anker anymore. They used to be one of my favorite brands and their support was great, but I've been having a ton of trouble with their 577 Thunderbolt Dock that I purchased earlier this year and I've been going back and forth with support and they are driving me crazy. They told me I needed a Windows computer to update it, and I told them I don't have one. Then they kept telling me to just borrow one from a friend or family member, and I'm like "You guys, this isn't the 1990s, I don't even know any friends or family who still use Windows computers, it's Macs, Chromebooks, and iPads" And then they were like "There's nobody at your work that has a Windows computer" and I'm like "Dudes, it's 2023, I work remotely." And then they were wanting me to like send it off to a coworker across the country to fix it and I'm like "WTF?"

Then they eventually told me to forget the firmware update they sent and to just use another machine to test to see if it's my machine or the dock. And I'm like "This issue didn't even happen until I started using your stupid dock." and besides that, the issue is a kernel panic type of crash that freezes up the entire computer and takes about a week before it presents itself. And I told them that and they expected me to borrow someone else's Mac (I only have one at the moment and my new 14" M3 Max still hasn't shipped yet) and use their computer as my daily computer for a week? What? I don't even have all of my work stuff installed on there, which will take hours of my time to setup and then I'm just using their computer like it's mine? Like who in the hell is going to let me do that to test this thing for weeks to see if it crashes again? I mean, I have already reinstalled my Mac from scratch and it still does this when the Anker dock is connected.

So today I finally get a friend of a friend with a Windows laptop who let me connect the dock to update the firmware. I go to download the firmware from the link they sent and the freaking link they sent was through one of those free download services and had expired! So now I'm super pissed, I emailed Anker and told them I need a link ASAP (this was noon on a Friday, today) and I still haven't heard back from them many hours later. So I sent them another email just a moment ago requesting a refund because this is ridiculous. I intend to buy a dock from another company. Anyone have good suggestions? Anker used to have great customer service but it has gone down the toilet, like it does with so many companies, unfortunately.

Why would anyone get a mystery box from a charger company unless you just like throwing away money… I mean I guess

Deals entering their final thousand days?

i ordered two of the $29 mystery boxes on the 24th and they still haven’t made it outside of California when I just tracked the package (which has to then make it all the way to NYC). Some seriously slow shipping! Also, MacRumors must make a killing from Anker for their neverending stream of articles about Anker products being on sale. When aren’t they on sale?

I feel like I can't recommend Anker anymore. They used to be one of my favorite brands and their support was great, but I've been having a ton of trouble with their 577 Thunderbolt Dock that I purchased earlier this year and I've been going back and forth with support and they are driving me crazy. They told me I needed a Windows computer to update it, and I told them I don't have one. Then they kept telling me to just borrow one from a friend or family member, and I'm like "You guys, this isn't the 1990s, I don't even know any friends or family who still use Windows computers, it's Macs, Chromebooks, and iPads" And then they were like "There's nobody at your work that has a Windows computer" and I'm like "Dudes, it's 2023, I work remotely." And then they were wanting me to like send it off to a coworker across the country to fix it and I'm like "WTF?"
~snip~

I feel the same too these days, it is such a shame. Their prices have been steadily increasingly, whilst it seems to me, their quality has been decreasing. I have just had a second recently purchased cable of theirs fail, I have never had any cables fail previously as I look after them. It is like Under Armour and Timberland, once they hit primetime, it is all about max profits, whatever the cost to quality and ultimately, the customer.