Friday, 02 May 2014 10:51

Power Monkey Extreme Reviewed

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£120 is a lot of money to splash out on a battery to recharge your phone, and there are cheaper alternatives including cheaper versions of the POwermonkey. What you get for your £120 though is a product that will give you reliable service pretty much anywhere on the planet and will probably permanently change the way you think about power for multi-day trips.
The Extreme is Powertravellers premium model, hence the premium price, but it comes with a massive capacity 9000mAh battery capable of charging a mobile phone or GPS up to 6 times and thanks to its dual output channels can also power up your tablet or USB device. Dust and water resistant and with a comprehensive adapter selection it's designed for the outdoors from the ground up and tested in some of the harshest environments.

In practise what you really notice about the Powermonkey extreme is its simplicity - it does what it says on the tin and does it with the minimum amount of fuss and fiddling about. The simple thumb slide system of operating makes the charger simple to turn on and off with an auto-shutoff when charging's finished and no-fuss accidental operation prevention to conserve battery power. The unit also has a very low static wastage that means you can leave it for up to 1 year and it will still hold 75% of its charge. Before having the Powertraveller Extreme mobile power was always a concern, requiring back-up batteries where possible and careful use of power hugry features such as GPS mapping on the phone, particularly on multi day trips. With the charger, however, it was a simple matter at the end of each day to connect phone to Powermonkey and leave it to recharge while getting on with other things around camp. Used over a three day weekend, including regular use of both Twitter and Facebook plus live commentary of the Champions League final including extra time and penalties, the battery kept an iphone fully charged without even dropping a single bar on its capacity display.
After a few days of sunshine we've finally had chance to run through all the re-charge options; mains USB and solar. Mains is by far the fastest option, followed by USB with a full mains charge taking just 3 hours and a USB aroud 5 hours. The rugged, clam-shell design solar panel offers 3 Watt max output, allowing full recharge of the powermonkey extreme within 15 hours in optimum light conditions and independent charging of devices either seperately or at the same time as the main battery. In practise the unit recharged the battery from empty in 17 hours in the bright sunny weather of late May.

You Can Charge:
iPad/Tablet 1-2 times
iPhone/Smartphone 4-6 times
GPS systems 4-6 times
Mobile Phone 8-12 times

The Powermokey Extreme also charges many other portable devices, iPod, iPhone and iPad products using the USB sync/charge cable supplied by Apple. Tips are inlcuded for the latest BlackBerry, Garmin, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Mini USB, Micro USB and female USB DC cable for Apple iPod, iPhone and iPad, DC4.0 for PSP, e-readers and some digital cameras. Other tips can be purchased from www.powertraveller.com
Over the years we've tested scores of mobile chargers and quite simply the Powermonkey Extreme is the most rugged, durable, easiest to use option with the most power available and the least faffing about with settings, switches and controls when used in the field. At £120 it's not cheap but it's so far ahead of the competition, including less powerful powermonkey models, that it's worth every penny for anyone contemplating multi-day trips.

 


We were so impressed we bought one!

 

Pros:

  • Rugged
  • Waterproof
  • Lots of power
  • Works with almost any device

 

Cons:

  • Weight
  • Price


Note: This article was restored from the archives. It's published creation date is inaccurate.

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