Appletell reviews the Technocel PowerPak portable battery and home charger
by at February 21, 2010 4:24 pm
Sections: iDevice Accessories, iPhone, iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, iPod, iPod Accessories, iPod Docks and Speakers, iPod touch, Reviews
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Provides: Backup battery and home charging for USB devices
Developer: Technocel
Minimum Requirements: Compatible USB device
Price: $49.99
Availability: Now
Pretty much everything that can be thrown into a pocket or purse these days can be recharged, and why not? Keep those landfills free of batteries, we say (although full of rechargeable devices, so I don’t think we’re making much progress there). Trouble is, your variety of devices have a variety of plugs, so what’s good for recharging one of them will likely not work with another. Technocel’s Universal PowerPak aims to solve that problem by giving you a combination backup rechargeable battery pack and home charger with 10 power tips to accomodate a wide variety of devices.
The device itself measures nearly 3″ high by about 2-1/2″ wide and a little over 1-3/4″ deep. It features nice rounded edges and a smooth, matte black finish. The outlet prongs on the back can be flipped up to hide when not in use, and the single USB port is located on the bottom (a dual USB model is forthcoming). If you’re plugging a USB device into the PowerPak, such as an iPhone or iPod, you’re set; no extra cable required.
If your device’s connector port is a bit more proprietary—as with a Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Casio, or other device—you’ll need to also use two of the included cables. The first is a USB system cable to plug into the PowerPak. The second is the power tip for your particular device. The good news is that the tips are interchangeable, so you’d be hard pressed to find a device at your house that can’t be charged that with this (Technocel claims 95% compatibility out of the box). The bad news is that you have to screw the tips in, so switching from one to another is more work than it needs to be.
The included power tips are:
When the PowerPak is plugged into the wall, you can use it as a charger by plugging your device into the USB port; it’ll charge as if you’re plugging your device directly into the wall. If you are on the go, you plug in your device the same way to recharge via the PowerPak’s 1,000mAh lithium-ion polymer battery. Four LEDs will indicate the power status of the internal battery with the press of a button, but they don’t come on automatically when recharging. This allows the device to use less power when plugged into the wall (it’s Energy Star compliant), but will require the extra step of hitting the battery level indicator button to let you know when the charge is full.
Technocel claims the PowerPak will hold its charge for up to 30 days in a cool environment, and will provide up to three additional hours of talk time from a full charge. This, of course, is dependent upon your device. I attempted to charge my fully depleted iPhone off a full PowerPak battery, and it didn’t quite make it up to 100%. Of course, that’s not exactly the point of this. Consider it first a home charger with some battery backup reserve. Where my wife and I used to recharge our iPhones in the kitchen with Apple’s iPhone cables, we now have the PowerPak. It does the recharge job just fine, and if we find ourselves heading out the door with a depleted phone, we can just pull out the PowerPak, plug in our phones, and get enough battery to keep us active until we reach our destination.
At $50.00, you can get backup batteries that will give you more juice than the PowerPak. But the versatility of the 10 power tips and the ability to use it as a home charger make it a convenient choice for those who depend upon a wide variety of portable devices.
Buy the PowerPak
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