Product review: Fosmon 15600mAh P15K Power Bank

♦ size: 6.5" x 2.5" x 0.75"
♦ weight: 11.65 oz
♦ number of ports: 2
♦ flashlight: no
♦ pass through charging: yes (i.e. the battery can charge while being charged itself)
♦ cable: 6.5" charging cable (has a warning not ot use with wall chargers that exceed 1A)

This external battery is relatively small for its large capacity of 15600 mAh. It has two ports and came with a short charging cable that had a warning not to use with chargers exceeding 1A. Since one of the ports on this external battery is 2.1A this warning seems confusing.

I like the capacity of this battery but ran into some issues with iPad Mini Tablet. The charger performed very poorly on its 2.1A port, especially for my iPad Mini. And it could not charge my iPad Mini at all when I tested charging two devices at the same time. I am including the details of the tests at the end of the review for those who are interested in the nitty gritty numbers.

To see how well different chargers and external batteries charge my mobile devices I use a Nexus phone and an iPadMini to test each of them. I do my tests with the devices charged to the same level, running the same applications and using the same cables to keep everything the same. This allows me to compare them to each other in a fair way. I use the current monitor to see what current is delivered to each device which tells me how well each external battery is working.

In these tests Fosmon had mixed results. It performed reasonably with Android phone, but significantly below average for my iPadMini Tablet.

I also tested to see if the battery supports pass-through charging (i.e. whether the battery can charge mobile devices while it is being charged). Yes, it can charge while being charged.

For Android devices it matters if a cable used to charge the device is a charging cable or a data cable. In a charging cables the two data connections are shorted together (rendering the cable useless for data transfer), but this fools devices to see the cable as an AC power connection and thus the battery accept a higher current for charging. Most of the time external batteries come with a charging cable, but every now I run across a manufacturer that encloses data cables with external batteries. It is not easy to tell what cable you got unless you have a current monitor. I always include this test in my reviews so people can improve the performance of the battery by switching to a charging cable. Good news in this case - Fosmon package includes a charging cable.

Samsung Nexus phone:
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1A port: 0.94A/5.01V (good)
2A port: 0.89A/5.01V (below average)
(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this phone is 1.00A/5V)

iPad Mini tablet: (tests repeated with several charging cables including the OEM cable that came with the tablet)
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1A port: 0.93A/5.08V (average for 1A port)
2A port: 0.57A/5.08V (poor, significantly below average for 2A port)
(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this tablet is 1.70A/5V)

iPad Mini tablet and Nexus phone at the same time (two combinations)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1A port: 0.08A/5.08V (iPad Mini, not charging)
2A port: 0.63A/5.01V (Nexus phone, below average)

1A port: 0.92A/5.01V (Nexus phone, ok)
2A port: 0.47A/5.08V (iPad Mini, poor, significantly below average)

To summarized this external battery performed best with my Android phone. I like its large capacity, especially for travel. My iPadMini did not charge very well with it, I have tried several charging cables to be sure of the results.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★☆