Product review: Yubi Power® YP840A 8400mAh External Battery Charger Tested with Nexus 7 Tab, Galaxy Nexus Phone, Galaxy 7.7 Tab and Sansa Clip+ MP3

In the last 6 months I have tested 6 different power banks using the same set of tests so I can compare them to each other. Yubi Power® YP840A performed better than any of the power banks I tested so far. The best performance before Yubi YP840A was PowerGen PGMPP12000, which charged my Android phone 5% in 10 minutes. As you will see in the table below Yubi did better.

Description of my tests:
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I test each devices by charging each unit for 10 minutes and noting how the charge % change.

I use Battery App by Elvison to determine how each device recognized the charging source. '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.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone
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Port1______Yubi cable________AC source_____7% charge in 10 minutes
Port2______Yubi cable________AC source_____8% charge in 10 minutes

Nexus 7 Tablet
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Port1______Yubi cable________AC source_____4% charge in 10 minutes
Port2______Yubi cable________AC source_____3% charge in 10 minutes

Nexus 7 Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone at the same time
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Port1______Yubi cable________AC source_____7% charge in 10 minutes (phone)
Port2______Yubi cable________AC source_____3% charge in 10 minutes (tablet)

Port1______Yubi cable________AC source_____4% charge in 10 minutes (tablet)
Port2______Yubi cable________AC source_____8% charge in 10 minutes (phone)

Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7
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Port1______Yubi cable________AC source_____3% charge in 10 minutes
Port2______Yubi cable________AC source_____3% charge in 10 minutes

Port1______Samsung cable_____discharging___0% charge in 10 minutes
Port2______Samsung cable_____discharging___0% charge in 10 minutes

Disconnected__________________discharging___2% discharge in 10 minutes

SanDisk Sansa Clip+ MP3 Player
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Port1 - worked
Port2 - worked

The MP3 player recognized the charger on both outlet, however it behaved differently than charging from the charger it came with the player itself. When I charge Sansa MP3 with a standard AC charger, the MP3 player goes into charging mode, displaying the charging animated icon. When it 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 is very handy for Sansa MP3 player since it has built-in battery that cannot be swapped for a charged one. I used to have to stop listening to have it recharged and now I can continue to listen while it re-charges. I was very happy to have this feature during hurricane Sandy when I lost power and my books on MP3 player were my only source of entertainment.

 

Notes:
1. The manufacture is offering a free connector tip for Samsung Galaxy Tablets. This connector is not available as part of the standard package, but is made available to Galaxy owners free of charge per request (documentation includes a note about a free P1000 connector for Galaxy). I tested my Galaxy 7.7 Tab with this connector and it worked very well. With my Samsung charging cable the unit was only able to slow down discharging, not recharge. The retail package includes a 30 pin Apple connector which looks very similar to P1000 Galaxy connector but does not fit the Galaxy port. I am attaching a collage of several photos. Photo #2 and Photo#3 show these two connectors next to each and show the subtle difference between the two.

2. After using the micro adapter tip successfully on 7 tests (total of 70 minutes of use) the micro adapter tip stopped working. I isolated the problem to the tip by tested the cable with another micro adapter tip (that combination worked) and then this tip with another working cable (that combination did not work). I contacted the manufactor to find if there is a policy for handling bad adaptors and he said that customers who encountered this problem should contact the manufacture for a free replacement. The product comes with 1 year warranty. Another option is to replace the multi part charging cable with a single piece generic charging cable.

Difference between a power cable and a data cable:
Charging cables short the two data connections together (rendering them useless for data transfer), but this fools devices to see them as an AC power connection, and thus accept the higher current of the charging source. Both my generic cable and PowerGen cables used in my tests are charging cables.

3. The unit is nice looking black brick, its size is 4" x 2.5" x 3/4". Its weight is 7.3 oz.

4. The box contains 4 adaptor tips: micro USB, mini USB, Nokia 2mm round, and 30pin Apple. 30 pin Galaxy adaptor as avaible free upon request. The box also contains one 7" USB cord. You can see the entire content of the package in Photo #1.

5. Yubi power bank has two USB ports. They are not labelled. Documentation states that you can change devices requiring 2.1A and 1A from both outputs. Both ports behaved the same in my tests.

6. Some power banks included LED flash light as part of the unit. Yubi YP840A does NOT.

7. The blue lights on top of the battery pack indicate the level of power in the battery: 3 lights indicate full charge, 2 lights indicate 2/3 of full power and so forth. To turn on the device you need to press the button on top of the unit. The device can be turned off by pressing the button on the top of the unit again.

8. The Warranty period for Yubi YP840A is 1 year (as stated in Amazon product description). The manual I received stated that the warranty period is 6 months. I contacted the manufacture to clarify which number is valid, and I was told that 1 year is correct and the newer versions of the manual will have this information corrected.

Yubi YP840A showed the fastest re-charging of all the power bank I have tested to date. But the adapter tip died prematurely. I debated whether I should deduct a star for this defect. All power banks use these tips so they can work with multiple devices. The adapter tips are the weak points of this design and I think failures will happen in some random number of devices. I decided that based on 1 year free warranty replacement policy, the overall excellent performance of the unit, and availability of the Galaxy adapter tip (which none of the other power banks I tested offered) this unit deserves a 5 star rating.

I received a sample unit for testing and writing an unbiased and honest review. I described the positives and negatives of my experience with the unit. If you have questions about my tests or features I have not addressed, I am happy to answer comments.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.



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