batteries - page 4

Zaggsparq Charger Batteries For iPhone, iPad, iAnything

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It used to be that we carried spare batteries for our devices. Then Apple sealed its products’ cases shut and some of us complained. Loudly. Then we realized that carrying an external battery pack meant we didn’t have to power-down to swap out batteries, and that we could now pick and choose the perfect third-party option, and we all shut the hell up.

Which is my long-winded way of introducing the new Zaggsparq packs, a range of three battery packs tailored perfectly to your iCharging needs. As long as you don’t own an iPad 3, that is.

myCharge Peak 6000 Is Almost Equal To the iPad’s Monster Battery

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Never forget a cable again.

 

 

11,666mAh. That’s the nightmare figure that faces you every time you plug the newest iPad in to charge. You really need to charge the thing overnight, otherwise you’ll be sitting there for hours and hours waiting for the battery meter to tick over to 100%.

And the myCharge Peak 6000 – like most external battery packs – will only make a small contribution to that yawning, ravenous battery. It will toss 6,000 mAh into the void before excusing itself for its own refill, but if you use it with, say, an iPhone you will be able to charge the thing several times over.

The Peak 6000 wins on design, too. The wall prongs are built in for fast hookup, as are a 30-pin dock connector and a microUSB plug. You won’t be losing any parts of this charger. It even has a pop-out USB input for charging from a computer, should there only be one wall-wart available.

The price for this well-designed back up? $99. Buy two and you’d have enough to fully charge the greedy, bloated iPad 3.

Source: myCharge

 

Stackable Batteries Can Even Charge The New iPad

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Rack 'em and stack 'em.

IPad 3. Hired: Retina screen, speedy 4G internet, lots of lovely RAM. Fired: Weight. Heat. Girth. Retired: That damn battery.

Yes, if the iPad 3 were to be leaping over a fence to escape its doom, and Paris were to fire an arrow to stop it, the arrow would hit the iPad 3 in its battery charger, not its heel (sorry about the extended and twisted Greek adventure story there). Sure, the battery lasts long enough, but it takes forever to charge the thing.

Happily, Exogear’s stackable battery packs are here to help.

Boost Your Changers Charger With A Second Solar Panel

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A Changers panel in action. Photo Charlie Sorrel (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

 

I spent most of last week riding my loaded-up bike through the north of Spain, and as any self-respecting geek would do, I was carrying gadgets, including a power-hungry iPad 3, and a Changers solar-powered charger. I’m planning a longer post on how this worked out, but right now I’m going to tell you about a new accessory for the Changers charger which should make it even more effective on road trips.

Just Mobile’s Tiny Battery Pack Is Big Enough To Completely Charge Your iPhone

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This tiny backup battery is small enough to take anywhere.

 

“You can’t take it with you.” This is a saying usually uttered by those people who are bitterly jealous of their richer friends' and relatives' success. It refers to the fact that your money is no good when you’re dead.

But it could equally apply to many external battery packs for the iPhone, which you can’t take with you because they’re too big, and you’re not carrying a bag.

Enter the Gum, a tiny 2200mAH battery pack which fits in your pocket, and while it won’t help you in the afterlife, it will help you where it counts: in the actual real world of too-short battery life.

Tiny Keychain Battery Pack For iPhone Emergencies

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Emergency juice, always in your pocket.

Imagine the scene: You’re in the middle of a particularly intense iPhoneography session, and the photos you’re getting are gold. You snap one keeper after another and then shift over to SnapSeed or some such app to really spice things up. But you’re so engrossed in the process of editing that you don’t notice your iPhone’s battery is almost dead until you get the dreaded pop-up warning.

If you are equipped with Photojojo’s keychain backup charger, then you needn’t worry. Just flip the top, plug it in and continue working.

Cellink, An iPhone Charging, Card-Reading, Battery Backup-Ing Dongle

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The Cellink is ugly, but it might turn out to be the most useful thing in your gadget bag

Do you carry a backup battery, a camera connection kit and a charger with you in your man-sack? Yeah, me too, and it’s really no big deal as even together they weight almost nothing. But if you’d rather combine these items into one easy-to-lose box, then the Cellink I is just the thing for you.

ThinkTank’s Widget Wallets Will Help You Organize Almost Everything

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I’m a complete neat freak. Add to this my weakness for bags of all kinds and you’ll see immediately why I love these new organizing wallets from ThinkTank. These four wallets are designed for tidying and storing SD cards, flash gels and cameras batteries.

If you hear the phrase “A place for everything, and everything in its place,” and nod in solemn agreement, then read on.

Why Your New iPad Charges Past 100%… And Why Every Other Gadget Does Too [Feature]

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Technically, this is the most your new iPad's battery should ever be charged.

Last week, Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies discovered that when he charged his new iPad, it continued to draw current long after iOS reported its lithium-ion polymer battery as being 100% charged.

Doing some experiments, Dr. Soneira discovered that if allowed to charge until the point where the 10W charger stopped drawing full current from the mains, his iPad could last 11.6 hours on a single charge, compared to just 10.4 hours if he unplugged it the second it reached 100%.

Why does the new iPad do this? Dr. Soneira believes that it’s a bug in the way the new iPad reports its battery charge. Apple has since spoken out and called it a “great feature” in iOS. But what the heck is really going on?

The truth is more complicated. Apple’s being disingenuous calling this a “feature” of iOS. In fact, technically it harms your new iPad’s battery. That said, it’s certainly not a bug, as Dr. Soneira emphatically suggests. Rather, this is the way all gadget batteries charge. To understand why this is, and how you can maximize your device’s battery life and longevity, you first need to understand a little bit about how batteries charge.

In-App Ads Drain Up To 75% Of Your Phone’s Battery

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Free apps aren't so free after all
Photo: Apple

Free apps that display in-app advertising are sucking the life out of your cellphone’s battery. A team led by Abhinav Pathak, a computer boffin at Purdue University, Indiana, found that around “65%-75% of energy in free apps is spent in third-party advertising modules.”

Translation: Free apps like Angry Birds and Facebook may actually cost you more than paid apps in the end.

Friday Night Fights: Should The iPhone Allow You To Easily Swap Batteries? [Feature]

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Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Should The iPhone Allow You To Easily Swap In And Out Batteries? A lot of Android phones let you swap in and out batteries if you’re low on power, but Apple’s never done so. Is this just another example of Apple hardware oppression, or do they have a good reason?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Apple Is Working To Revolutionize Batteries In Time For LTE iPhone 5

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Two of the reasons Apple’s iPhone is yet to adopt LTE connectivity is that existing LTE chips are just too large for the iPhone’s slender form factor, and they eat up so much power your new iPhone 4S wouldn’t even last the six hours that you currently get if it was hooked up to an LTE network.

However, a new Apple patent application reveals that the Cupertino company has already set about revolutionizing its batteries to make them thinner and more efficient — possibly making way for LTE connectivity in the iPhone 5.

This iPhone 4S Battery Case Also Projects An Interactive Infrared Keyboard On Any Surface [CES 2012]

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LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Texting on the iPhone’s 3.5-inch touchscreen is about as good as you can expect, but wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to fit a full-size keyboard in there for good measure?

Celluon thinks there’s a way to do just that with the Prodigy, a Juice Pack-style battery case for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s with one interesting trick up its sleeve: it can project an interactive infrared keyboard onto any flat surface.

In theory, this means effortless typing as long as you can prop your iPhone up on a table or desk. The reality, though? Stick to texting.

This 70s Era Monstrosity Will Keep Your MacBook Air Juiced In The Post-Apocalypse

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Are you looking for an external battery for your MacBook Air cobbled together from the cutting edge of Kruschev-era Soviet electronics? Want less functionality in that battery than one of Sanho’s excellent HyperMac offerings while also doing your small part to slaughter Mother Earth? Most importantly, want a gadget that can accomplish all of these heady things at a price far, far greater than the more eco-friendly competition? We’ve got you covered.

Sanho introduces HyperMac MagSafe conversion kit

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We love Sanho’s line of HyperMac products, which allow you to juice your MacBook or iOS device with an external battery pack… but when Cupertino C&D’ed Sanho over Hypermac for using Apple’s patented MagSafe connectors, the future of the product line seemed in doubt.

We needn’t have worried. A couple of weeks ago, Sanho announced their new line of HyperMac batteries, which use Apple’s own airline adapter to connect to your MacBook via MagSafe, a solution that deftly sidestepped the legal problems.

The only problem with the new HyperMac batteries? While they’ll keep your laptop going, they won’t actually charge them… kind of a bummer.

Luckily, Sanho’s just announced a new HyperMac battery conversion gift that lets you modify your existing MacBook power adapter to not just hook up to your laptop as usual, but also to connect to your external battery. Sanho claims there’s no soldering or complex rewiring required, and that the instructions are easy to follow.

We’ve got a review copy on the way, so we’ll let you know if those boasts pan out, but we’re tentatively excited. The new batteries and the modification kit should be available at the end of the month, with prices starting at just $100.

HyperMac’s Back… But Bring Your Own MagSafe

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Earlier this year, Sanho — makers of the super useful Hypermac line of batteries — found themselves in a pot of hot water boiled by Apple’s legal team, who objected to Hypermac’s use of repurposed (and patented) MagSafe cable connectors to juice up hungry MacBooks.

You can’t keep a good product down, though. HyperMac has just relaunched the HyperMac line, this time working around their reliance upon old MagSafe cables so as not to draw Cupertino’s ire once more.

Apple Launches Patent Infringement Suit Against Sanho Over MagSafe HyperMac Batteries

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Much to the chagrin of consumers who want a cheaper alternative, Apple is notoriously protective of its MagSafe patent… so much so that they have a rich history of suing the third-party builders of MagSafe knock-offs.

Now it appears that Cupertino is going after another one, having filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the Sanho Corporation in the California Northern District Court. Details are still sketchy, with the actual complaint part of the lawsuit as yet unrevealed, but Patently Apple speculates
that this is all about the MagSafe connector baked into Sanho’s third-party HyperMac batteries.

Sanho seemed to think they’d dodged Apple’s MagSafe patents with the HyperMac line, since their products are actually made of recycled official MagSafe products… but Apple may well see things another way… a shame, given the amazing charging capacity and stellar quality of the HyperMac line, which can juice up a MacBook Pro for up to 34 hours.

If you’re looking to buy a HyperMac, then, best get one now. If previous MagSafe lawsuits are anything to go by, they’ll be C&Ded into extinction soon enough.

Double Your iPhone 4’s Talktime With Morphie’s Latest Juice Pack

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Morphie’s venerable line of iPhone-charging Juice Packs were bound to get an update with the new iPhone 4 redesign, we’re just surprise it’s taken them this long. All’s well that ends well, though: Morphie has just announced their next-generation Juice Pack for the iPhone 4, doubling your handset’s battery life while slightly expanding your iPhone’s waistline.

The Juice Pack comes in the form of a hard-shell case, shielding the edges from accidental death-gripping and protecting the glass back from accidental shattering. Inside is a highly condensed lithium-ion battery that Morphie says will give you an additional six hours of 3G talktime, 12 hours of 2G talktime, 36 hours of audio playback or 9 hours of video. You can see how your Juice Pack is keeping up thanks to a handy power gauge on the bottom of the device, and if you’re worried the case will obscure your iPhone 4’s clear sound, Morphie even claims the case will act “as a virtual speaker box.”

If you’re interested in owning Morphie’s latest Juice Pack, it can now be purchased over at the official website for just a nickel short of $80.