Mobility Digest Review: Avantree Universal Battery Pack

More Power! I need more power! If you own any mobile device then I’m sure you’ve run across times where you need more power for it, sadly most don’t last an entire with average use and if you use it a lot then expect to charge it a lot. Lately I’ve been interested in battery packs for my devices, one of the main reasons is my kids like using my iPod Touch 4th gen but sadly the battery only last a little over an hour. I do have other devices as well that require power and I don’t always remember to charge them, so having an external battery pack is nice. Today for review Mobile Fun has sent me over the Avantree Universal Battery pack which can charge most any mobile device, including phones and tablets and even your PSP! Anyway, read on….

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Vendor: Mobile Fun

Price: $37.99

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

 

Specs/Features:

Avantree Universal Battery Pack – SPPW-220-SLR

Keep your smartphone’s battery replenished with this slim and sleek universal power bank, designed to support virtually any small mobile device.

Emergency charger – Charge your phone when you need it most
With mobile phones being able to do loads more its important to ensure that your battery is always charged so you are able to take that important call, reply to that urgent text message or send an email. The Avantree Universal Battery Pack is designed to provide you with 90 minutes more battery life off a single charge. Which is enough to keep your phone running until you’re able to get to a charging point.

Lightweight, safe and reusable
Designed to be sleek and stylish, the aluminum battery pack is incredibly slender and can be easily taken with you wherever you go. Furthermore, the Avantree Universal Battery Pack can be recharged itself using the USB charging point so you can quickly and easily charge it up by plugging in your car charger or connecting it your PC or laptop. This enables you to always be sure that you’ve got that emergency power for when you need it.

Maximum output of 1000mA
An outstanding feature of the portable charger is  the fact that it has a maximum output of 1000mA, which means you can use it not only to charge any supported smartphone but also to charge tablet-style devices like the iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab (not to full power) and even power your HTC phone with the satellite navigation turned on.

Includes charging adapter for iPhone, micro USB, mini USB and DC 2.0
Included with the battery pack are charging adapters for the iPhone, micro USB devices and mini USB devices as well as a standard DC 2.0 barrel connection. This means that it is ideal for Apple devices, Blackberrys, Samsung devices, PSP console and many more.

Specifications:
Capacity: 2,200mAh
Input: 5V/800mA
Output: 5 to 5.5V/1,000mAh(maximum)
Dimensions: 23.2 x 89mm

Manufacturer Product page: http://www.avantree.com/product-detail.php?pid=538

 

 

What’s in the Box?

So we’ve got a nice looking little white box with a window on the front showing the battery pack and images of some of what it can charge. On the back is basic directions and a little more info.

When you open the box and get everything out you’ll find the battery pack, user guide, a nice cloth drawstring bag and a small plastic bag with retractable USB cable in it. You might be wondering where the tips are, well they come in the blue carrying bag.

The USB cable used for charging your devices and the battery itself is the retractable kind as I said above. It does stretch out pretty far, much farther than I have shown in the picture, it’s about 32 inches long when pulled out.

Here’s the tips, you’ll find an Apple connector, micro and mini USB along with a barrel style like for a Nokia phone and pretty much anything that uses that style of connection.

The tips just plug into the end of the USB cable and they stay put, they’re fairly hard to get on and off.

So here’s the actual battery pack, it’s aluminum and it’s not exactly what I would call lightweight. It’s about 3 1/2” long and about 3/4” in diameter.

On the bottom is a just some info like the model number and some specs.

On the top you’ll find a regular UBS connection and a microUSB port along with a small black button. The button is to power the device on so you can charge your stuff with it. The regular USB port is used with the retractable cable and is used for charging your devices. The microUSB port is used for charging the battery pack itself.

When you press the button a green LED comes on to indicate power, but when charging the LED is red.

Here’s what it looks like with the cable plugged in:

 

 

 

Impressions / Review:

 

To use it you’ll need to charge it first and you can use your own microUSB cable or use the supplied cable wit the microUSB tip. Charging takes a couple hours, it is USB so it’s not exactly fast as I’m sure you know.

When charging the light is green also, powered on essentially but the LED blinks while transferring power.

 

To test it out I charged my iPod Touch 4th, it had about half a charge on it. Plugged it in and it worked fine, the iPod started charging.

I did the charging the same day and took pictures during charging to figure out how long it would take to get to a full charge from just half that it is.

It took about 30 minutes to get to full charge, so I guess it would take about an hour from a dead battery.

I’d say that’s not bad for charging and yes you can use it while you’re charging it. The rate of charge from the battery pack is similar to just plugging it into your computer.

Even after charging the iPod Touch tehre was still power left in the Avantree battery pack to charge something else. How much I’m not as there’s really no power indicator on the pack sadly.

The Avantree battery pack will even charge tablets like the iPad but it won’t provide a full charge as it isn’t powerful enough, but it will give you some more power. Basically it can charge any mobile type device as long as the tips fit, I’s really universal, well for the most part anyway. You can use the Avantree as a mobile phone battery, a tablet battery or to even charge your PSP.

 

 

Conclusion:

The Avantree Battery Pack is great little product from what I’ve seen, it works and it works just as fast as a normal charger would.

The battery pack can charge pretty much any mobile devices from phones to tablets to even portable gaming devices, as long as the tip fits you can pretty much charge it with this battery.

The price is about $40 and I think it’s worth it as it is well made, the pack itself is constructed very well. Included in the package you’ll even find a handy carrying bag so you can keep everything together and take it with you.

 

 

 

Pros:
+Small and portable
+Comes with its own carrying case
+Tips included for most major devices
+Really is a universal batery pack

 

Cons:
-No battery level indicator on the battery pack