More and more feature’s are now being “engraved” into smartphone’s these days. And their demand for power is on the rise. An hour of gaming, 24×7 background data sync’ing, some music and a few minutes of video playback will almost leave you with battery capacity to barely make it to your home.
For me this is a real turn off. What’s the point of owing a device when you can’t make full use of it? Let’s say you are coming back to your home from office, are stuck in your car and think about clearing that one level of Angry Birds you are stuck at. You take out your Android device and bam! There’s just 18% battery left :/ !@#$%
So this is where something called a portable charger or battery pack comes into play. Kit Power Junkie, a portable mobile phone battery charger that stocks in 5000 mAh of power and can juice up your device at any place, any time! Courtesy Mobilefun.co.uk, I had an opportunity to take out Kit Power Junkie for a spin and satisfy my hunger of extra battery power and here’s how it fared for me:
Initial Expression – Contents
Kit Power Junkie comes with usb charger cable for the unit and a manual. There’s no usb cable provided for the 2 slots (500 mAh and 1A) that it hosts. Not a bad exclusion but providing one usb cable with multi pin extensions would have been a great addition.
Moreover, I was restricted to recharging the unit from the supplied USB cable only, no power socket charger. This was a real let down considering the fact that Power Junkie requires 5-6 for a full recharge and keeping my laptop powered on for this duration made no sense.
The good part being I bought a USB charger, which I have been planning to buy for some time 😉
The Look And Feel
Kit Power Junkie comes in pure white color and has 3 lights on it’s face indicating the charge left in the unit. My only complaint here is that the LED charge indicators are so bright that it almost feels like a 0 watt bulb is emitting light. And not to forget, the indicators looks too flashy. The manufacturer’s could have saved from current flow by placing more sophisticated power level indicators.
5000 mAh – Really? How It Fared
The moot point. Does Kit Power Junkie really provide that much juice for your device?
I hoped so when I plugged in my Galaxy S2 the first time for charging but was left disappointed. The first cycle yielded approximately 2000 mAh of charge, well below what has been advertised. Though being the nature of rechargeable battery, they take 2-3 full recharges before delivering to their full potential. However, the same did not happen. After recharging and discharging 4-5 times, the maximum charge I could extract only ~3500 mAh of charge from the unit. Disappointing results.
Charging Time
The other important aspect is the charging time. Usually my Galaxy S II takes about 3 hours to go from 5% to 95%. Charging with Kit Power Junkie it took approximately 4.5 hours and that too when it was connected with 1A output port. Charging turned out to be deathly slow. After experiencing this I did not have the patience to check out charging via the 500 mAh port, which I am sure would double up the time needed to charge (simple calculation!).
Turn Offs
The first and foremost point is the goofed up output ports. Kit Power Junkies provides 2 USB charging slots, 500 mAh and 1A. When connected to former port, your device will switch to USB charging mode with MTP initialization (for Android devices) whereas the 1A slot acts up as a AC, wall socket connection, allowing faster charging (comparatively). The problem I faced was, occasionally when connected to 1A port, my device was still going into USB charging mode.
Secondly, at times with the unit turned off, the ports were still active with current flowing through them. This I noticed when I connected my phone and even before powering it on the charging began! I guess, this is one of the reason why ~3500 mAh power was served, current leakage.
Worth The Money?
Well, I am in a tough spot. I presented my view of the unit and will leave it to you to decided whether this is worth your hard earned money or not.
Kit Power Junkie is available for £30.59 at Mobilefun website and can be bought by visiting their webstore – Kit Power Junkie Twin USB Emergency Charger
