I received 8400mAh and 5400mAh external battery packs for testing from the manufacturer to write an honest and unbiased review and you will find both pluses and minuses of my experience in this review.
I am attaching a collage of 6 photos labeled with number 1 through 6 that I will be referencing in this review.
The first thing I noticed when I opened the package is that brick looks slick and well made. Its dimensions are 3.66" x 1.69" x 0.87" (smaller than a deck of cards). Photo #1 has it next to a pen for size reference.
The box contained two USB cords 7" and 27" and adapters to fit different devices (Micro 5pin, PSP, Nokia DCP 2.0, Mini 5pin, iPhone/iPad, Samsun 20 pin, LG, SONY Ericsson). Photo #1 shows the entire content including all adapters. The adapters are a weak point of the design, they feel a bit flimsy and it is easy to loose all the small pieces. The minimum configuration for my devices is two connectors: one that goes into the AC plug to charge the external battery and the second (mini USB) that goes into the devices for charging. You can see the large connection bundle it creates best in Photo #1 where the cable is shown with the adapter for the AC plug.
The blue lights on top of the battery pack indicate the level of power in the battery: 4 circles indicate full charge, 3 circle indicate 75% and so forth. To turn on the device you need to press the button on the side of the unit. To turn off the device you need to press and hold the button for a few seconds (this is not documented, I found it by experimenting).
The 5400mAh PowerGen has one USB outlet. I tested my four electronic devices using both my own USB cable as well as the manufacture cable+adapter.
The provided adapters fit Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone, Nexus 7 tablet and Sansa Clip MP3 (as they take regular USB-to-micro USB cable) but none of the provided adapters fit Galaxy Samsung 7.7 Tablet. The Amazon product description mentions Samsung Galaxy and does not explicitly state that Galaxy Tablets are not supported so I hoped it would work, but it did not.
I used Battery App to determine how each device recognized the external battery pack. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.
The key findings:
(1) Using PowerGen cables vs generic cables that came with my devices made a difference.
(2) Samsung Galaxy 7.7 cannot be charged with this battery pack
Why using PowerGen cables makes a difference:
PowerGen cables are charging cables, not data cables. This is achieved by shorting the two data connections together (rendering them useless for data transfer), but this fulls Nexus to see it as an AC power connection, and will accept the higher current of the charging source.
The table below summarizes my findings.
Nexus 7 Tablet (photo #2 and #3)
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Regular cable -- discharging
PowerGen cable -- AC
Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone (photo #4 and #5)
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Regular cable -- USB
PowerGen cable -- AC
Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7 (photo #6)
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Regular cable -- discharging
PowerGen cable -- no adapter, cannot be used
SanDisk Sansa Clip+ MP3 Player
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Regular cable -- works (USB rate)
PowerGen cable -- works (AC rate)
The behavior with Nexus devices was consistent and very good when used with PowerGen cables. Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone was more forgiving and worked even in 2 AMP outlet with my own cable at USB rate. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone with 3800 mAh super battery Trexcell Samsung Galaxy Nexus 3800mah got charged from 81% to 100% in less than 2 hours. The charging started at 3:18pm, at 5 pm it was at full charge. It stayed at 100% with the battery going down to about 3/4 full when I checked at 9 pm. At 6:15 pm the next day (27 hours later) the phone was at 100% and the battery pack was down to 1 light (25% full). Finally, at 8pm the next day last light on the battery pack went off, and the phone began discharging. Pretty good!
Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7 did not work (was discharging) with this external power pack. I got slightly better results with 8400mAh power pack (for details see my review of PowerGen 8400mAh).
The MP3 player recognized the power pack, however it behaved differently than charging from AC recharger.
When I charge Sansa MP3 with a standard AC charger, the MP3 player goes into charging mode, displaying the charging animated icon, the MP3 content is not played. When MP3 was plugged into the PowerGen external battery it continued to play the content. I listen to books on my MP3 player so this caused me to move forward in my book and I had to manually reset my position by a few chapters to get back to where I was when I started charging. The positive side of this, is that is possible to continue listening while MP3 is recharging. This turned out to be immediately useful, as 30 minutes after I finished testing a thunderstorm knocked out my electric power for 9 hours and when my MP3 battery died I listened to it attached to the PowerGen battery while it recharged.
To summarize:
I liked:
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1. Good behavior with Nexus devices.
2. Solution for MP3 player with built-in battery
3. Looks sleek, feels solid, is compact
I did not like:
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1. The multiple piece connectors are flimsy and easy to loose. I already ordered a one piece replacement.
2. Documentation are hard to read: it is in microscopic font and written in broken English.
3. Did not work with for my Samsung Galaxy tablet
Overall, I am pleased with this unit and recommend for the devices I tested with the exception of Samsung Galaxy tablet.
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.
11/12/2012 Update:
I just finished testing and wrote a review of the new 9000 mAh PowerGen power pack that works with Samsung Galaxy table, and provides AC performance for Nexus devices.
I also just finished testing and wrote a review of the new 6000mAh PowerGen power pack which similar to this one.
Ali Julia review ★★★★★
From product description this external battery is compatible with:
Apple:iPhone 4S / iPhone 4 / iPhone 3GS/ ipod touch/classic/nano/ iPad/ iPad 2 [OEM CABLE REQUIRED]
HTC Sensation XE XL / Thunderbolt / EVO 3D / EVO 4G / Incredible S / Evo Shift 4g
Samsung Galaxy S 2 / Epic 4G / Galaxy S 4G / Galaxy Nexus
Blackberry Curve / Storm 2 / Tour Style / Bold
Motorola Atrix / Bionic / Droid X , X2, 2 , 3, 4, Pro , R2D2 / triumph
Nokia N900 / N8 / N97 / C6 / C3 C7 / E7 / X6
LG Optimus , 2x , V , S , T / Quantum / Vortex
Sony Experia ARC Arc / Neo / Play / Mini
Amazon Kindle Fire, and all other kindles
Others Nook Color, NDS, Portable Wifi, PSP (NOT compatible with PSP vista)
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