I bought this battery for my iPad 2 and to a lesser degree to charge some other eletronics (a mobile hotspot, iPod shuffle, and a couple of other goodies). It works great. The .5A port will charge up anything design for it and the 1A port is enough that the iPad 2 will charge while on, where as anything using the regular USB spec of .5A and 5V will only charge the iPad if it is in standby/off.
I drained my iPad down to about 42% charge and hooked it up to the 1A port overnight and by the morning the battery pack was drained and the iPad was back up to 91% charge. Most battery packs that claim 5000mAh claim to charge an iPad by about 50% and this is right in that range (49% to be technical). The iPad 2's battery is ~25W/hr battery, so that works out to something like 3,400mAh for half a charge at 3.7v with the battery pack at a claimed 5,000mAh at 3.7v. Something to keep in mind is there are inefficiencies in both converting the voltage from the battery pack from 3.7 to 5V, any possible voltage coversion on the iPad's side to go from 5V to whatever the actual charging voltage is (if there is a change, it might charge at 5V) and then inefficiencies in the internal battery charging (I think most batteries are around 80-90% efficient in charging, plus a voltage conversion efficiency of probably 80-90% again). So 3,400mAh stored in the iPad's battery works out close to a real 5,000mAh in the battery pack if you figure in inefficienies in the charging process. Also as I mentioned, other name brand battery packs that claim ~5,000mAh also only claim a 50% charge on an iPad.
It takes about 6hrs to charge the battery pack from dead to max and it took somewhere less than 5hrs to drain itself completely charging the iPad. Its not going to charge your iPad as fast as a wall charger would, but it is going to be enough to run your iPad full tilt and up the charge a little bit while the battery pack lasts, or give you about half a charge if your iPad is sitting off/standby.
The battery pack is small, easily palmable and light. It does not include a charger, but it does come with a USB to mini-USB cable to use with an existing USB charger. It takes 1A to charge, so a normal iPod or iPad charger or really any USB charger rated at 1A will do the job. It'll charge off of a computer's USB port as well, but I suspect it would take a lot longer with the .5A provided.
I have not attempted to charge two devices at the same time to see if it can keep up with a full 1.5A of drain or not.
Overall I was expecting the worst, but I've been pleasantly suprised. A great budget battery pack that delivers more or less what it states. My biggest knock are the battery charge and charge level LEDs. WAY too bright. They really light up a room at night with the lights off, and frankly probably burn more power than they should. Really LEDs don't use much power, but I still can't help thinking that I might have gotten another couple of % charge level on my iPad if the LEDs were much dimmer.
Sorry for the long review, but there was little info on this item and I thought I'd fill in some details for potential buyers
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Needed a backup battery for work, so did not want to spend much money. Initially received the item and noticed the generic, cheaply printed, name of the product "mobile power" but thought as long as it works ok, I'll be ok. None the less charged it threw it in my bag and really didn't intend on using it much if ever, but tempting fate as I may only two weeks later I needed to use the back up battery. Plugged it in to disappointingly find out it had died after only two weeks of sitting in my bag stagnant. So I am not upset just yet, thinking its cheap, ill just charge it more frequently. I charge it again and now want to test it. This time the results were even more disappointing as the unit was freshly charged and when used would only charge an Ipad for approximately 1 minute then shut down as if it were dead. Tried this several times to make sure I was not making any mistakes but no luck. Also attempted to consult the instructions, but between the lack of instructions and nearly 1 in 4 words being misspelled, this was of no help. Yes I knew what I was getting into with this cheap backup battery but this was far worse as it is only a fancy looking paper weight. Worse yet because I waited several weeks to use the battery and find out it was junk, I missed the return window and am spending much more than I originally would if I were to buy a quality unit.
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This product, in every way except being white, is identical to the New Trent IMP50D but is much less expensive (I have both). It powers/charges a 1G iPad nicely and any other USB device I've tried it with. Be warned, with both this and the New Trent version, it won't supply TWO power hungry devices at once. It's real output is 1 amp combined between the two jacks not the 1 amp plus 0.5 amp (1.5 A) claimed. So an iPad alone (or some of the more power hungry phones) will max it out by themselves. But that's not a big drawback. It's great to bring on flights, throw in your backpack, etc. for lots of reserve power.
And, as an aside, this is about the cheapest device of this kind I'm comfortable with. Just Google "lipo fire" and you'll find out what cheaply made Lithium Poly batteries, as are in all of these devices, can do when things go wrong. They catch fire, explode, shoot flames at 1000+ degrees, and more. Houses and cars have burned to the ground, flights have made emergency landings, etc. So buyer beware. It's best to buy from a company with an established brand name and some assets in the USA. New Trent seems to be such a company, and this seems to be an "OEM" version of the product they sell.
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I've been using this external backup battery for a couple of months now and am overall pretty disappointed.
First and foremost, the capacity is not 5000mAh, not even close. On a full charge, this battery will charge my 1600mAh cellphone battery for about 1.5 charges. So either the power transfer efficiency is below 50%, or the battery capacity is just way overstated.
Second, the battery gets incredibly hot. My phone is rated for an 850mA charge current, and when I use the 500mA charge port, and the battery still gets very hot. If I connect the 1000mA charge port, the battery makes a loud wining sound and gets extremely hot extremely quickly, which is strange because I am able to use other 1000mA chargers without issue.
Lastly, there is no charging cable or adapter shipped with the battery. Sure, you can charge it using your own wall chargers, but the device uses a mini USB port that it does not provide a cable for. And the other cables that ARE provided (the ones you don't need, because presumably you already have cables for your phone) are incredibly low quality, using a cheap kind of universal connector that only makes contact if you place it down gently and don't touch it while its charging.
Overall, I guess you get what you pay for. In this case, its typical made-in-China crap.
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This is a great device that serves its purpose.
Pro:
2 USB ports
Does 2 full charges on iPhone 4
Battery charge indicator
Glossy appearance
Cons:
Medium in size compared to other portable batteries
Takes about 4 hours to charge
Overall great device
8.5/10
