Belkin Power Pack 4000
Battery back-up
Accessory of the Week
We’ve all been there. You leave the house in the morning, whip your smartphone out of your pocket to send a text and the dreaded red indicator is displaying on its battery level indicator. You won’t be near a computer or power socket for hours. What to do?
Belkin’s Power Pack 4000 may be the answer. It’s a portable battery charger which can supply enough juice to charge the average smartphone twice over. Keep one of these in your bag and you’ll never be out of power for long.
The Power Pack 4000 can also be used to charge a tablet, and for some will provide one complete charge, though for an iPad it will only take the battery level to 40 per cent.
The unit itself is around the size of a portable hard drive, though slimmer and lighter. It has two USB ports, so you could charge two devices at once, though I’d recommend reserving that particular function for emergencies. It comes with a wall plug and two 15cm USB cables, one with a micro USB plug and the other with mini USB.
You’ll have to charge the Power Pack 4000 for eight hours the first time you use it but after that it should only take 3-4 hours to fill it up. Status indicators on the top let you know how much charge it has left.
The Power Pack 4000 is a small, lightweight and, dare I say, good-looking portable charger that does the job well. ®
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COMMENTS
Seems like everyone else agrees
that this Belkin unit, compared to others available in similar or larger capacities is horribly over-priced. I expect to see this in airport electrical shops at list price + 50%
Typical marketing fluff..
How about telling us actually how many mAh this can hold?
Re: Cheaper to buy a spare battery
It IS cheaper to buy and carry a spare (whci I ALSO do) but these do have advantages. For example, I can head out into the hills for a full days training with one of these (actually, I use the cheaper, lighter, slimmer Maplin one as per an earlier commentard). I leave my San Francisco plugged into this which, effectively, just doubles the thickness of the device but also allows me to run full GPS tracking software for about 15-20 hours (depending on what else I'm doing). Swapping batteries isn't always convenient out in the hills and, in the case of training runs, causes a break in the GPS trace.
Also, whilst the spare battery will have to be thrown away when I get rid of the SanFran (or thrown in with the eBay auction!) the external battery has seen me through three different devices now and is still going strong.
Expensive
Seems expensive. I picked up the Trent iTurbo which has a 6600 mAh battery (this one has a 4000 mAh battery) for about £15 from the big river: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0050DYZ1M
