Smartphones are all the rage these days. Everyone uses them as more then just a plain old phone. We browse the web, stream media, play our music, check our e-mail, take pictures, check social networks and oh, yeah, use it as a phone. Battery technology in these phones have not really progressed to the point where you can make it the whole day. Especially if you are using it as something other then just a plain phone. If you are away from an outlet at anytime, well, you will likely run out of juice at any time unless you have something like Kensington’s Pocket Battery for Smartphones.
This battery is much smaller than my Droid 2. It fits nicely into a pocket in my jeans and hardly weighs anything. I don’t even feel it when it’s in one of my pockets on my cargo shorts.
On the back is a USB cable that you just flip put and plugin to a USB charger or a free USB port on any computer. Once it is charged, the light on the front turns green.
To charge your phone, you select one of the cables that are on either side of the battery depending on what kind of phone you have. It supports both Mini B USB and MicroUSB. Pull it away from the side of the battery, connect it to your phone and press the button. Your phone should go into charge mode and start charging.
Last night, in an experiment, I had the battery fully charged and y Droid 2 down to about 20 percent. I plugged it in while driving my family on some errands and even stopping for a bite to eat. Once the battery was drained, I looked at my phone and it was about 70 percent charged. While it was not a 100 percent charge, it is still extending the amount of time I can be away from a outlet. In extreme cases, this could help you make a phone call or two when your phone would normally go dead.
One reason this battery will not charge my phone up all the way because it only has a 1200 mAh capacity. The battery on my Droid 2 has a 1400 mAh battery. So even if you are completely flat, the best you can hope for is a 85 percent charge and you likely won’t get that to various losses that occur when charging. However, it’s still capable of giving your phone some extra life and that is something I appreciate!
The only issue I have had with this battery is I would occasionally plug it in and press the button and it would not charge. I would unplug it and replug it and hit the button again and it would start charging. Not exactly sure why this happened and when it did, I wiggled the cable a bit to see if it was a bad cable but the cable was fine. So I chalk this one up to a fluke.
The Kensington Pocket Battery for Smartphones is available for pre-order direct from Kensington for $39.99.
