Mobile Power Pack Review At Pocket Now

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&amp;t=reviews&amp;id=585">http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&amp;t=reviews&amp;id=585</a><br /><br /><i>"Power. Without it we would still be banging those rocks together (and those of you without, just keep banging, you'll get it someday). In a society that slowly is becoming more and more dependent on its mobile devices, power is becoming a more and more important commodity. Enter Socket Communications with their newly released Mobile Power Pack. With the equivalent of (at least) 16 AAA batteries, it certainly has a lot of juice. But enough juice to make the price tag worth it? Read on for the electrifying review."</i><br /><br />7,200 mAh of mobile power goodness! Read their review to see if it is the right solution for you.

[drop]

Thank you, Ed.

I wanted to get this ever since I first saw it mentioned here at PPCThoughts. As an X50v owner who is unwilling to get an extended battery that increases the bulk of the unit, this Power Pack offers a great solution.

[PDANEWBIE]

What? It's a hardware review but it doesn't even review some of the basic questions.

1) How long does it retain its charge upon it being charged up? I.E. can you get this charge it up let it site for 3 weeks and then get 10 charges to a PDA?

2) Is there degridation between the 7200 mAh it has and what it actually supplies out?

3) It indicates price as a con but doesn't give an MSRP or even a span of costs from a few vendors.

In all a nice review but I left it with a bunch of questions that I'll have to look into.

[beq]

Hmm, the first thing I'd done was to scroll all the way to the bottom to the check out the Pros/Cons (:)), and right above that is a section titled Purchasing with cost?

[fishfuzz]

What? It's a hardware review but it doesn't even review some of the basic questions.

1) How long does it retain its charge upon it being charged up? I.E. can you get this charge it up let it site for 3 weeks and then get 10 charges to a PDA?

2) Is there degridation between the 7200 mAh it has and what it actually supplies out?

3) It indicates price as a con but doesn't give an MSRP or even a span of costs from a few vendors.

In all a nice review but I left it with a bunch of questions that I'll have to look into.

3) The price is there (MSRP and cheapest) at the bottom of the review (rather than at the top like the Thoughts sites).

1&amp;2) The unit does seems to keep its charge for quite some time (in my experience). Unfortunately, there isn't any way to efficiently test this in a standard review environment where you only have 2 weeks (max normally) to complete a review.

[phs]

I don't know why anybody would pay US$150 for this. I got a charger from http://www.semsons.com/batexwitusb.html for US$14.99. Has a USB port too. With four 2100 mah NiMh AA batteries, it does the trick. Granted it doesn't charge my iPaq 2210 ten times over, but I bet the Socket won't either.

[ricksfiona]

I think I'd rather just carry an extra battery. I don't think I can go through two batteries in a day. If I knew I was going to do heavy usage, I would bring a $30 USB charger cable or a cradle that can charge a spent battery...

[PDANEWBIE]

Duh I scrolled through the review and didn't see the cost 2 times. *hitting my head*. Thanks for pointing it out.

As for review time I understand there usually is a time delay but even in 2 weeks you can do a chargeup the minute you get it wait 1 week and test how much of a charge it has left. Might allow for at least an extrapolation of possible charge loss due to not being plugged in itself. really I am just wondering how it would handle extreme conditions like taking your unit backpacking for 2 weeks in the country and then going to access it 5 days in or something.

Where I can see this as benificial would be people that end up going on camping trips and want to take their PDA and GPS with them and don't have the access to "recharge" all the time. This is something that could hold up.

Also again something like this would be good for those overseas trips where you can burn out the smaller chargers 2 times over.

As far as daily use thought I agree where every house has a bazillion sockets and most homes have a PC with a USB port I don't ind there being a lack of power on daily venues.

[Sven Johannsen]

As for review time I understand there usually is a time delay but even in 2 weeks you can do a chargeup the minute you get it wait 1 week and test how much of a charge it has left. .

How do you do that? There isn't a charge meter like on a PPC that says 99% left or 75% left. You'd have to charge it up, charge as many PPCs as you have, or charge and discharge them over and over until it wouldn't do it anymore. Then you could recharge it, wait a week and go through the charge PPCs a bunch of times again and see if there is any significant difference. Lots of variables to control, time to invest, and probably wouldn't tell you much over a week, or without several runs to establish an average.

I would guess it lasts a significant amount of time on the shelf. That's chatracteristic of LiIon. If you have two batteries for your PPC, you can check this out. Charge the backup and don't use it for a couple of weeks, but don't leave it on the charger. After two weeks to a month, mine typically have lost no more than a couple of %.

[PBR]

The article mentions that he found it online for $100 but he failed to mention where...

[fishfuzz]

Did you look for the unit @ shopper.com?