REVIEW – Power. It fuels everything in our lives nowadays. When the Mophie Powerstation with Lightning connector portable battery review offer came along, I jumped at the opportunity to finally rid myself of that dreaded micro-USB cable.

What is it?

The Mophie Powerstation with Lightning connector portable battery is your typical portable battery for charging your USB devices – except that it charges with the Apple Lightning connector.

What’s in the box?

• Mophie Powerstation portable battery
• Quick Start Guide

Design and features

The Mophie Powerstation with Lightning connector portable battery features a 5,050mAh battery that charges via the Apple Lightning connector which lets you use the existing Lightning cable from your Apple device to recharge the powerstation. It provides up to +20 hours of battery life for an iPhone X, + 7 hours for iPad mini 4, or +4 hours for iPad 10.5 inch.

With two USB-A ports, the Mophie Powerstation can charge two USB devices at the same time. There is one 2.1A port and one 1.0A port.

The Mophie Powerstation also has a great feature called “Priority+ charging” which will charge the connected device first, then recharge the powerstation battery. This is a great feature that allows you to just plug both in, and when you’re ready to go both are charged and ready for your day.

The LED power indicator has four LED’s that indicate the charging status and the current battery life.

The battery is lighter than the 10,000mAh battery that I was previously using. Although it has a smaller capacity, it’s plenty of extra power for what I need. The device weighs just 4.8 oz (136g). It’s so light that I spent a good 10 minutes looking for it one day before I realized that it was in my cargo pants pocket, along with my phone. I was so used to the weight of the phone and didn’t even notice the extra weight of the battery.

The operation of the Mophie Powerstation is pretty simple, simply push the power button and plug in your device. While the device is charging your phone, pressing the power button again does not turn it off, so there’s no need to worry about it getting turned off before your phone is charged.

As I mentioned before, I don’t like the micro-USB connector type as it’s too small and fragile, and its directional so you always have to look at it to plug it in the correct way. The Apple Lightning connector plugs in much easier and there’s no need for an additional cord in my vehicles.

What I like

• Small size – just 2.7 x 4.7 x 0.5 in (69 x 119 x 13 mm)
• Lightning connector charging!

What needs to be improved

I consider the price is a little high for the mAh you get with this device, but the convenience factor offsets that a bit for me.

The only thing that I could think of that I would like to see improved is the LED status lights. Although nice, I would prefer to see an actual LED percentage read-out like one of my other batteries has. It’s difficult to know when 3 lights are on if it’s at 75% or 99%.

Final thoughts

Hasta la vista, micro-USB – Mophie has terminated my need for you!
Price: $49.95
Where to buy: Mophie.
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Mophie.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Batteries and Chargers

Mophie Powerstation with Lightning connector review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 25, 2019 at 11:00 am.

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REVIEW – Wall chargers, especially for laptops are a very necessary evil. It’s a pain to carry it with you from place to place, but if you make the choice to leave it behind, you’re almost guaranteed to run out of juice. Until recently, if you chose to run an Apple laptop of some variety, you were limited to using Apple manufactured wall chargers as well as a result of their proprietary magnetic connector. With the switch to USB-C on more recent laptops, there are now some excellent alternatives. Nekteck makes just such a product and as it would happen, sent one over for review.

What is it?

It’s a USB-C Wall charger for any device that needs up to 90w of power. That means the primary target is laptops, but USB-C devices of any kind should also be able to use this. If you’re thinking that was a long product name up in the title, it’s actually quite a bit longer. Here’s the full product name that I would guess is aimed at Google keywords…

Nekteck USB-IF Certified 90W Type C Wall Charger with Built-in Cable Power Delivery Compatible with MacBook/New MacBook Pro, Google Pixel 3/2/ XL, PixelBook, Galaxy S9 S9+ S8, Nintendo Switch, Black

How’s it work? Let’s move along.

Hardware specs

• Input: 100V-240V/AC, 50/60Hz
• Output: Type-C PD 90W Max
• USB-C Output :5V/3A,9V/3A,15V/3A,20V/4.5A
• Dimensions: 3.34 x 3.34 x 1.18 inch
• Cable Length: 6ft
• USB-IF,UL/CE/FCC/RoHS certified with 6 circuit design protection( Automatic Recovery, Over Voltage Protection, Over Current Protection, Short Circuit Protection, Safe Charging, Radiation Protection )

What’s in the box?

• 1 90w USB Type C Wall Charger

Design and features

The square design is rather unassuming. The plastic enclosure features a textured matte surface with a polished gloss logo on the front face and along the perimeter on each side.

There are two key physical features of the design. Foldable US style prongs…

and a tethered USB Type-C cable with a well designed 90º strain relief at the connection to the charger.

Setup

Connect the wall adapter to a compatible outlet, and then the USB connector on the end of the cable to the USB-C or USB-C (PD) device that you need to charge.

Performance

There are some products that you just need to work every single time. A laptop wall charger is a perfect example of that. Like many of you, my day job requires a laptop. I need to go from my desk, to meetings, back to my desk, home and back again. A single wall charger can totally handle the job, but you’ll leave it behind sooner or later.

The Nekteck charger is straightforward in that the cable is permanently attached with the connector you need on the end. The 90º tethered end points down and flexes to either side depending on where your outlet’s location is to you. The prongs fold easily, but have enough over-center resistance that they aren’t folding on you every time you blindly try to plug it in the wall. The USB-C connector slides into my Mac easily and the last few millimeters of travel provide that satisfying “snap” sound that lets you know you’re properly connected. Side note: I only noticed in posting the below picture, how much more USB-C connectors get beat up over the older magnetic style.

The cable is similar in thickness to the cable that came with my Apple charger, but seems a bit less flexible which makes it a bit harder to wrap it up for carrying. Speaking of carrying, there’s no cable management for keeping it in the wrapped position. Apple doesn’t provide a solution for theirs either, and their cable is completely separate which arguably makes it worse. Luckily, I had something available to use for that purpose that works just fine.

I already have a power solution at my work desk, so with this new charger in hand I moved the Apple one to my home desk and placed the Nekteck in my pack for daily availability. Almost immediately, an extended China trip (real test) reared its head.

I’m happy to report that the Nekteck charger worked great and for that, I’m extremely thankful as I did not bring a backup. I was able to use it to repeatedly charge my 15″ MacBook Pro as well as a 10,000mAh portable power bank I travel with. Thanks to Nekteck’s ability to handle up to 240v input, it did so speedily and without fail in hotels, factories, and airports throughout my China trip without the use of any travel adaptors/converters and generally had no issues at all.

In fact, the only challenge I was faced with was a very common issue that plagues a lot of wall outlets over there; loose wall outlets. The Nekteck charger is not super lightweight, and its orientation needs some tension on the prongs to hold it in the outlet. The above photo is one of those, and it would stay there for about 15 seconds before rotating down and falling out. In those scenarios, I had to find something to prop up the bottom of the charger to keep it from falling out of the wall. This is 100% an outlet issue, but just wanted to mention it for any of you traveling internationally.

I should point out that the increased speed of PD (Power Delivery) is only available on devices that support PD. In general, the Nekteck will power an USB-C input device as fast as that device allows it to charge.

What I like

• Price
• Tethered, strain relieved cable
• Foldable prongs
• Black color

What needs to be improved

• Cable management for travel

Final thoughts

There’s not much to find fault with here. Nekteck’s 90w charger works great. It’s a little more square, but at $69 for 61w and $79 for 87w for the comparable Apple chargers, you can buy 2 of these and have money left over. This one is staying in my pack.

Price: $29.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Nekteck.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Batteries and Chargers

Nekteck 90w USB Type C Wall Charger review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 6, 2019 at 11:00 am.

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Today, I’m bringing to you a new portable power bank, but it’s unlike the dozens we’ve reviewed here over the years. The Jackery PowerBar can power an AC device, as well as those USB-powered items in your kit. How’s that for differentiation?

Note: Photos may be tapped or clicked for a larger image.

What is it?

The Jackery PowerBar is a grey box 6.25”x2.5”x2.5”. It holds 23,200 mAh / 83.53 Wh of power. It can charge or power devices through USB2/3, USB-C, and 110 AC with a US power plug.

Hardware specs

Capacity – 20800mAh
Cell Type – Lithium-ion 18650
Material  – PC  Housing
Color Available – Grey
Weight – 690g
Dimensions – 160*65*65mm
Cycle Life – ≥500
USB 1 – Quick Charge 3.0
USB 2 – 5V 2.4A
AC Output – 110V 85W
USB C Output – 5V 3A
Minimum Output Current – 20mA~160mA
Input USB C – 5V 3A
Charging Time – 7H
Certificates – FCC ROHS UN38.3 ETL CE

What’s in the box?

• PowerBank
• USB-A to USB-C cable
• USB charger

Design and features

When you first hold the PowerBar, you think “Hmm. Standard power bank, just square and a bit heavy for a new item of this capacity.” Then, you look at the end opposite the input and the power button and – wait. Is that an AC outlet? This is a game-changer!
The PowerBar 77 is a square, sleek metal box of power. The ports and other interface elements are all on the small faces, with an AC port on one end and 2 USB-A jacks and a USB-C jack on the opposite end. The matte finish of the sides gives plenty of gripiness while not appearing industrial.
On the multi-port face, there is an on-off button that activates it. An LCD meter is on when it’s active and shows the power available.
The AC outlet requires venting, so there are mesh windows on the sides parallel to the plug blades, and a fan turns on when the power is activated. This fan is so quiet that I have never noticed it unless I actually put the unit up to my ear in a relatively quiet room.

What I Like

• AC power!
• USB A and C output
• Multiple input options

What needs to be improved

• None that I could find.

Final thoughts

Power packs are a fact of life until the invention of wireless dedicated power or something else Star Trek/Star Wars worthy. Everything we do, at least online, requires power. While batteries have progressed a huge amount in the last dozen years, they are still not able to run phones, laptops, and tablets forever. Usage costs power. Carrying around a source of power is easy with a power pack, but there’s always a trade-off. Weight, heat, or ventilation will affect the amount of power available and what type of power it is – AC or DC. The Jackery Powerbar, while a bit heavy for the amount of power it offers, adds a clear advantage in the AC power plug it offers. Count me as a fan. If you’re needing juice for your laptop or another AC device, you’ll be one, too.

Price: $129.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Jackery.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Batteries and Chargers

Jackery PowerBar review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 2, 2019 at 11:02 am.

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