RAVPower Luster 6000mah Backup External Battery Pack Power Bank Charger Review - General Accessories

In the box:
The product comes in a simple, tan box that says RAVPower on the sides and "Power To The People" on the top. Around the box, there is a removable sleeve that tells you what colors the product comes in and basic information about the product. When you open the box, the product is there wrapped in plastic. Underneath the product, you will find the warranty card, Thank you for your purchase card, and and a user manual.
First Impressions:
The product fits in my hand very well and it also feels very sturdy. The external battery I have is black with silver trim around it. The Oval on top of the battery that is cut into four sections are four lights that tell you how much battery is left on the product or how much the product has charged. The product has only one button on in that when pushed, makes the lights come on to show the battery percentage The external battery also has a built-in flashlight.
Review:
Great product! I like how compact and easy to carry this external battery is. This is great for someone who needs to charge their phone at least once a through the day. I have used this external battery to charge my Moto G 1st Gen from 0 to 100% and I still had 3 lights lit on the battery when the phone was fully charged. I was using my phone while it charged too! One unique feature this product has it that it does not have a power button. The battery starts to charge your phone when you plug it in and turns off when you disconnect your phone or hold the power indicator button while your phone is still connected. The battery takes about four to five hours to charge and it took about three to four hours to charge my Moto G from 0% to 100%. If your looking for a good quality, compact external battery, look no further and buy this one.

Related

[REVIEW] Official Samsung 1300mah Powerpack

I already posted this in another thread by Trbobuick, but I thought an new thread with a correct title would be of better use...
I just recieved the powerpack, and its not very beautiful, IMHO. The cut out spaces for the power button and the volume rockers makes it look a bit odd.
The material (and texture) used for the powerpack sadly doesn't look like anything on the S2. It stains easier than the phone itself, as it seems.
During charging with the S2 in the powerpack, the phone beeped every few minutes that is was fully charged. (Another user reported it did it only every hour). While you may sleep through only one beep, this powerpack will keep you awake all night. (I am on a stock rom)
And then, if the powerpack (disconnected from mains charger) has charged the phone, the phone has the "remove charger" notification, and this (until now) stays and seems to prevent further charging the phone by the powerpack. (Unless you remove and reconnect the powerpack).
Until now this Samsung Powerpack seems a badly (I am mild) designed thing, unless I don't understand the operation of the powerpack.
Its just an external battery, and more or less behaves as such. That there is a phone fitting inside this external battery seems more like a coincidence as intentional.
Not Happy.
See other threads about this powerpack:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1110441
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1167652
I'm not entirely sure how the pack works.... you charge the pack and then the pack charges the phone? So essentially it's a portable charger that draws its power from its own battery?
Yes.
Its just an external battery with a USB pass-through (not all functions of the normal USB plug are passed through, such as HDMI) and this external battery charges your phone.
p.s.
It seems as the powerpack still charges, even if the normal charging icon is not shown.
When I check battery status it (allways) says 4 seconds on battery.....
Gede said:
Yes.
Its just an external battery with a USB pass-through (not all functions of the normal USB plug are passed through, such as HDMI) and this external battery charges your phone.
p.s.
It seems as the powerpack still charges, even if the normal charging icon is not shown.
When I check battery status it (allways) says 4 seconds on battery.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it charges, I got 6 hours of medium use before the pack stops charging the SGS2 and it begins using the internal battery.
Battery meter is useless to measure this tho, it thinks it's still on the charger.
Aaaaaand, I gave up trying to charge the pack while the SGS2 was in it because:
1) It charges so very bloody slowly
2) The wake me up thing I get every hour or so
I charge the case on it's own now, thankfully I have a whole bunch of microUSB chargers. But really Samsung? It's not that you haven't had time to improve on the design, considering the SGS had a battery case too.
Mine arrived yesterday, wasnt exactly what I was expecting in terms of size.
As it adds as an external power source, battery stats are useless.
Ran it from 5pm yesterday and my SGII switched over to internal battery at around 5am.
Now charging as standalone to stop the beeping !!

Experiences with el cheapo battery and chargers

I would just like to share some of my experiences with a cheap 3$ eBay battery (like this one), as well as ultra-cheap 2$ USB chargers.
I bought this battery early January to supplement my GS3's main battery. At first I used it as a backup battery, keeping it in my bag in case my main battery dies. This worked great for a couple of weeks until I could no longer be bothered to swap out the battery every time I needed to charge the other one. So I ended up leaving the eBay battery in full time. At this point I have grown to trust it, seeing as I hadn't had any issues.
Months went by like this, but by the end of March, I was scratching my head as to why my phone wasn't lasting as long as it used to. I guess this change was so gradual that I didn't notice it for long. Now this past week, the battery has had even more trouble holding a charge. It took hours to recharge, and barely lasted with me listening to music, chatting on fb and checking reddit several times a day. It got to a point where one night, it only charged to 90%, and then the next night it charged up to 45%. It also would only charge a few percent at a time when daydream was on.
Now yesterday, by the time I got home ~16:00, the battery died. I plugged it in, but it wouldn't charge - a battery with a warning symbol icon lit up when plugging it in. After a few minutes of fiddling, I managed to get my phone to turn on, but then it almost immediately turned off. A few minutes more, I managed to turn it on and finally charge using the original charger. After an hour, it didn't even reach 20%. This enraged me, causing me to finally hot swap the battery to the original one. Surprisingly, it charged up to 70% in less than 1 hour. Quite a nice change.
Since this morning I've been using it more than normally (large FTP download, streaming youtube), and I still have 60%
I suspect that the low quality anode within the battery corroded very quickly due to the high stresses involved with powering the phone, and charging rapidly. The thing that I often see online, is people being afraid of batteries blowing up or damaging their phones, but this is highly unlikely. The phone has the battery charging circuit built into it, and it will regulate the CV and CC charging cycles itself. It shuts off the phone when the voltage drops too low, and it wouldn't go over 4.2v because the phone wouldn't charge above that. The only damage that a cheap battery can do is to leak or vent inside a phone - hence the need for proper circuitry in the phone.
I also have experiences using absolutely the cheapest batteries in some of my other gadgets. Both of my cameras use the cheapest batteries I could find on eBay - without any problems. Ironically, for my point and shoot, the eBay batteries last longer and display an accurate time estimate. With my DSLR, the 2 batteries that I bought (originally to make a cheap power supply for long timelapses), they work identically, charge identically and fit perfectly. I also bought some protected 18650 batteries for various LED projects I was working on, as well as for my flashlight, but about half of them are now dead - I suspect due to the protection circuit. So yeah, those are my experiences with ultra cheap batteries.
Now, as per the chargers, I mostly use only el cheapo dealextreme or eBay ones. I've had no issues with charging my old iPhone, my SGS3, tablet, and my el cheapo 20$ Huawei phone. However, they don't work well with my Raspberry Pi, iPad and my mom's Android tablet (the touchscreen glitches big time).
So yeah. I don't know what the purpose of this is. Just had to speak out .

[REVIEW] Fremo P130 13000mAh Power Bank External Battery Charger

I just had a chance to put this battery pack through some tests and here is my review for it.
This is a very solid battery pack from Fremo. The fit and finish is very good as well as its ability to charge my electronics close to OEM specs.
Fit / finish
- Very well put together as there wasn't any misaligned edges or noticeable creaks coming from it while handling it. I really like the silver finish on this thing as it isn't a fingerprint magnet and the silver/white color combination is very nice looking. There are 2 usb ports, @ 1A / @ 2A, and 4 LEDs. Pushing the button will make the LEDs light up indicating how much power is left in the pack. While charging electronics, the LEDs stay on depending on how much charge is left in the pack.
Performance
Note: I use a USB Power meter to get the amperage readings when doing my testing
- I tested this battery pack with my Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 and a Nexus 5 cell phone. It was able to provide close to the amperage that the OEM chargers put out.
Thinkpad tablet 2 OEM charger showed 1.8A. Using the battery pack in the 2A slot, the USB power meter was giving a reading of 1.68A - 1.72A while charging the tablet.
For the Nexus 5, OEM charger showed .98A and the battery pack showed .92A - .95A.
As you can see, the battery pack gave close to OEM numbers for both products so this is very good!
In terms of charging this battery pack up, at 0% completely drained, it took approximately 7hrs and 15mins to charge it to 100%. Note that the LED lights do not turn off when it is done charging. This is a very good time. For example, I have a cheaper brand battery pack that is only 9000mAh and it takes almost 8hrs to charge it.
All in all, this is a very good battery pack for the money. Don't fall for those cheaper battery packs as the saying is true, "you get what you pay for". I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a reasonably priced and reliable battery pack.
Link to product on Amazon site: http://www.amazon.com/13000mAh-External-Battery-Charger-more-Silver/dp/B00MHI7TO8/ref=cm_rdp_product/189-6094633-4065328

EasyAcc® 18000mAh Dual USB Power Bank Portable High Capacity External Battery Review

In the box:
The box is a very simple cardboard box with EasyAcc on it and a product overview on the bottom. Along with the battery, you get two micro USB cables of different lengths and a user manual.
First Impressions:
The battery feels very nice. It has some weight to it and the chrome trim goes well with the matte black. This battery feels very expensive.
Review:
This battery is probably the best accessory I own. The battery does what it's suppose to do and more. I was able to charge my IPod Touch and my Moto G at the same time and still had 4 lights lit up on the battery. With this battery, you can easily charge your phone fully at least 5 times as promised. The battery feels solid in your hand and it's not slippery at all to handle. It's also easy to carry around too. I was able to put the battery in my pants pocket while it charged my phone and the battery didn't feel like it was weighting me down. It was like having regular phone in my pocket. One thing about this battery is it does take a long time to fully charge since it's 18000mAh. It took me about 10-12 hours to charge this battery and I used a rapid wall charger. Make sure you charge this battery during the night while you're sleep, if you'll need it for the next day. The flashlight that's on the battery is bright and a very useful feature to have. The price is very reasonable also. I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a good quality external battery

RAVPower Deluxe 16000mAh External Portable Charger Battery Power Bank

In The Box:
The product comes in a simple, beige box that is wrapped in a sleeve. On the sleeve, there are specifications of the product and contact information. Once you remove the sleeve, you are greeted with RAVPower's slogan "Power To The People" on the top of the box and RAVPower on the both sides of the box. Along with the 16000mAh battery, RAVPower includes a warranty card, and a thank you card. Inside the box, there is two micro USB cables, a USB wall adapter, and a travel pouch.
First Impressions:
The battery is of great quality and the battery has some weight to it. The materials that the battery is made of attract almost zero fingerprints which is great. The flashlight is very bright for how small it is also. I thought the battery percentage indicator light would be difficult to read since all four lights are built into one, but it's actually fairly easy to read. I like how this battery came with a travel pouch. The travel pouch makes it easy for one to transport the battery, the USB cables, and the wall adapter at the same time.
Review:
Another great battery from RAVPower. This battery is great for someone who wants a battery that will charge their devices many times while not having to charge the battery frequently. With this battery fully charged, you could charge a device at least three times. This battery charged my Moto G (1STGen) from 0% to 100% in about 4 hours. One thing that I am not very fond of with this battery is that it takes forever to charge. This battery takes about 9 hours to charge from 0% to 100%. When charging this battery, do not expect it to use it anytime soon. I wish the battery charged faster, but it is 16000mAh so a long charge time is expected with this huge battery. Other than that, this is a great product that everyone should own. I would highly recommend this product.
*Disclaimer*This product was sent to me for review by EasyAcc. My review depicts my unbiased opinion that I stand by 100%.*

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