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I got the Duracell PowerSource in December 09. Since then I have purchased it again and again, many many times over--Most were made gifts (and they're A. useful for just about anyone with mobile electrionic devices, so perfect gifts and B. always recieved at least positive praise if not confessions of love for their usefulness). I presently use two for myself (One that I carry on me, one that knocks around the house. Or I take both on long trips) and have one more in its package as a spare.I'm the type of person that feels compelled to write reviews on products I come to love, and I do, I love this little guy. My original reasons for getting it, was simply this: All my day-to-day carry-around smaller gizmos presently, either directly charge by USB (by way of mini-USB ports), or have charging cables that end in a full USB plug. This is partly by design in selection on my part, and partly the industries overwhelming embrace of the USB standard as a viable power source provider as well on its usual data tasks. The convenience is clear, with USB being a standard specification, if your device can power from USB, you can assume you can charge it from just about anything that has a USB port, meaning then, any USB port is inherently a universal charger for your gear. When I travel, I bring a couple AC to USB power adapters and use those plus the free USB ports on my laptop to charge my myriad of devices. But I now carry the PowerSource mini with me in my pockets from day to day, and primarily use it to extend the battery usage times on my devices, as well charging them back up in a pinch.
The PowerSource Mini is fully designed by Xantrex for Duracell, a fact openly mentioned several times in the included instructions. Xantrex is a Canada based company well known for its power inverters in particular. The PowerSource mini is, as the instructions say, "designed in Canada, Assembled in China."
It's a very solid little device, fits well in the palm, easily slipped into any pocket. It is roughly about the size of a deck of cards, just a bit wider. There are three ports on it, 2 outputs (meant for charging your stuff), and one input (meant for charging the PowerSource mini's built in 3Ah(3,000mAh) Li-on Polymer battery). The two outputs are a standard female full sized USB port, and a male mini-USB swivel out arm. The input (aka the PowerSource minis charging port) is a small round plug, the type you typically find on most AC adapters, I don't know the exact size. Initially, I was disappointed that the input plug was like this, because although the charging cable is the round plug on one end and a regular full sized male USB plug on the other end (IE, the PowerSource mini charges via USB itself) it just means one more cable you gotta keep track of and try not to lose. But after thinking about it for a minute or two, I could clearly see why they decided to do it this way: it differentiates the input plugs from the outputs. Sure, it'd have been more convenient had the input been its own, say, female mini-usb, but had it been, it'd make it confusing as to what ports were for what task. By differentiating the input from the outputs it is very clear what is meant for what. Sure they possibly could've designed circuitry with a switch control to switch one of the USB ports from a output to input role as needed, but this would've added unnecessary complexity, so overall, in the end, I quite like what they've done here.
The User Interface is as simple as you can get: there is one button on the face. Press it once to turn the device on (IE, it will begin to provide power to the output ports), and press it again to turn it off. There is a central blue LED under the power button that lights when on. There is a secondary LED just below the power button that can light green, amber, or red as relevant. This LED is the power level status indicator and at any one time will let you know the power level, and what the status of the PowerSource mini is: When you're charging the PowerSource mini, it blinks green up to and until the built-in Li-on Polymer battery is fully charged. When you have the PowerSource mini on and feeding power to your devices, the indicator LED will light along with the power LED to indicate the present battery level. Green means there's plenty of charge still, amber means the capacity is low, and finally, red means the battery is almost depleted, and the PowerSource mini will automatically be shutting down in ten seconds in order to protect its internal battery (you don't want to run the battery completely dead, this is not good for it in the long run).
Since the PowerSource mini charges by USB (via included charging cable) it can be charged by any USB port, including the ones on your computers, and comes included with both an AC adapter for plugging into the wall and a car adapter for plugging into your car's cigarette lighter socket. Know this: the AC adapter and car adapter are not exclusive chargers to the PowerSource mini--they are both USB chargers with a female full USB plug on them. Which means that you can also use them to directly power any of your USB chargeable devices. So for example, if your cellphone charges by way of USB, if you buy this kit, you not only will get a battery extender, but also a car charger and extra wall charger for your phone as well.
My PowerSource mini was ready to go straight out of the package, it still had a charge on it (and was in the green level as indicated by the indicator LED) mostly thanks to its Li-on Polymer battery and partly thanks to the fact that was a fairly recently built unit. There is a prominent manufactured on date on the back side of them, mine was assembled on November 8th, 2008, meaning that it was a full year from manuifacturing date until it was opened from its package by me--so it was a pleasant sign to see it still had a good full charge. (note: I purchased this unit elsewhere from an overstock company, not Amazon, so I don't know how reent the units Amazon sells were manufactured--though I believe this is now a depricated model that has been replaced with newer models from Duracel now, so one would expect a little dating). One of the great characteristics of Lithium ion Polymer batteries, is that they have relatively low self discharge as compared to say, regular NiMH batteries. I'm not exactly sure of the figure, but I believe I heard that Li-on Polymer cells will self discharge only about 10% per year. Which is awesome in a device like this, it means you can charge it, then throw it in your bag and be reasonably sure it will still have a good charge whenever you need it. If you've ever been disappointed to find that your NiMH batteries completely discharged themselves unusable in a month's time of non-use... Well, this is a diffrtrny story all together.
Speaking of the backside--a feature I really like about the PowerSource mini is that it has rubber feet on the back. It doesn't sound like much, really until you realize this means you can pretty much put it down on any mostly flat surface while it charges your gizmos, and it will stay in place without sliding.
OK, so how does it work? One word: awesome. In my usage, I have been using it to charge/extend battery life on my HTC TouchPro 2 phone, recharge my Meizu MP3 player, recharge/extend battery on my GPS navigation device, and a plethora of other uses as they come up. A new use I've found recently for one of my units (and lattely it has been all but dedicated to this task) is: Mini RC helicopter charging. I own the very popular Symma s107 mini copter, that model can be charged from a cable that comes out of the controller and charges it from the controllers batteries, or by an included USB cable from any USB port. I keep that cable now almost exclusively tethered to one of my Powersource Minis, and it is a sheer awesome arrangement--It leaves the controllers batteries for controlling only(so you need not replace them as often), pis extremely portable, and it charges the Copter much faster than the controller charges it. I cannot even say how many charges I get from this setup, because I honestly don't know. Countless, it feels like.
The instruction sheet has a small chart of typical recharge times for specific devices and it is as follows:
Device Recharge Time
iPOD 14 hours (
