When I first saw the Powermonkey eXtreme listed in the ‘coming soon‘ section of the Powertraveller website I got a little excited. I had previously seen they had a larger battery called the Startmonkey200 and thought this could be a backup power consideration for campers but I somehow thought they must be developing a dedicated mobile high power solution; they were.
The Powermonkey eXtreme is a high capacity battery and a solar panel (the Solarmonkey).
I had seen that this combined unit was generating a lot of interest on twitter in the hiking circles (SocialHiking.org.uk) and noticed that@PilgrimChris was arranging a bulk deal to help others save through crowd sourcing. I knew that this was certainly a unit that I needed to get my hands on. With a little help from my friend Christian Payne I was contacted by Powertraveller and asked if I wanted to do a review.
The Powermonkey eXtreme (battery)
The battery is called the Powermonkey eXtreme it has a massive 9000mAh Lithium Polymer battery. It quotes DC OUT USB as 5V 700mA and DC 5V 2.1A via the round DC socket (now 12v, please see 2013 update below). It comes with a little adapter lead to turn this into a USB female for charging an iPad. This is pretty impressive as not many mobile batteries have the amps to charge an iPad.The battery has dust and waterproof protection to level IP67 (whatever IP67 means?).
The ‘switch’ on the battery takes a little getting used to – there is no physical switch, just a pressure pad that you swipe and tap to turn on. I imagine this is to aid the batteries waterproof qualities. I have had a couple of issues where I have struggled to turn the unit on and one morning after the battery had fully charged my iPhone I couldn’t get it to charge anything else. I got in touch with Powertraveller and they identified the unit as faulty and swiftly sent a replacement battery to the campsite within a day. This is great service and something worthy of a mention when investing in technology (think China and eBay).
The battery includes an LCD screen with a graphical charge indicator which will light up with one tap. Another indicator of the charge status is an LED bulb just at the side of the LCD screen. This starts out red and turns to green when fully charged. This can hardly be seen on the grey unit but because of the plastic density of the red unit, the outer actually glows red and I think this is a better indication at a glance.
On tests the battery fully charged the iPhone 4 in two hours and I managed to get five full charges from the unit.
The Solarmonkey
The solar panel is called The Solarmonkey and kicks out a maximum power of 5V 600mA and is variable depending on light levels. Please note, this is a different model to the Solarmonkey previously on the market.
The panel folds in half and easily slots into my ‘manbag‘ it feels solid with a rubberised coating and rubber side grips. There is an elasticated velcro strap across the back of the panel making it easy to hang on the outside of a tent. You can fold the panel into any angle without it toppling over to obtain the best angle for the light – this is a nice design feature as the base must be slightly heavier.
I was blown away by the quality of the panel. It charges in fairly low levels of light and certainly does not require sunlight to directly charge an iPhone 4. On a cloudy, rainy day it was still powering the iPhone. However, once the light levels do drop the iPhone will display the ‘unsupported’ message and stop the charging. This is not great if you are leaving the iPhone unattended (not recommended) as charging will not resume until you remove and replace the power cable.
This isn’t a big problem as I would always recommend using an inline battery, then you will be assured that every drop of energy from the sun is being harvested. I wouldn’t want to leave my iPhone directly connected to the panel anyway, and especially not in the sun.
I tested the charge times of the SolarMonkey in cloudy conditions. There was literally no sun all day with solid grey cloud cover. The panel took nine hours to fully charge my Kensington 1800mAh backup battery. This is actually really impressive as in the past the small panels I have tested require direct sunlight which is somewhat limiting in the UK.
It all comes in a semi-ridged zipped case which neatly holds all the items. When packed, It’s not far off the size of a house brick, so don’t think you’ll be able to slip it into your back pocket.
This is pretty serious kit that would suit people camping away from mains power. I confess I have a love for solar so the panel apeals to me more than the battery. I would love to see the Solarmonkey sold separately as I feel it is the shining star of the outfit. At over 400g both units make it a slightly eXtreme mobile power solution for backpackers and walkers while the 200g panel is worth the extra payload when combined with a lighter smaller capacity battery. If you are using a bicycle or kayak then weight may not be such a problem, and this will surely be the product to buy in 2011.
I was sent this unit for testing and review purposes but it can be purchased from the Powertraveller website for £120 inclusive of VAT and delivery and although It may seem a hefty price just to re-charge your mobile or iPad, the quality of the kit and service levels from the company make it a worthwhile investment.
(Post written on the iPhone, photo’s taken and processed on the Best Camera app, Video recorded and uploaded on the iPhone and the Dropbox app used to collate material)
UPDATE 2013 – BIG NEWS for 12v fans:
Quote from website:
The most important improvement for 2013 is the change to the powermonkey extreme’s DC output option. The standard 5V USB socket remains but the DC port has been upgraded to output 12V (previously 5V), meaning that the powermonkey extreme is now capable of charging SLR camera batteries, portable DVD players and much more directly from the unit. The updated model also includes a female in-car socket so if users only have an in-car charger for their device, they can now recharge it directly from the powermonkey extreme.
Which is another reason to ensure you are buying the latest model!
Try this USB battery …
I’ve had a powermonkey eXplorer for a couple of years now and have found it to be a very handy piece of kit, particuarly when travelling on trains that have no power sockets (most of them). THe ability to recharge my iPhone in particular has gotten me past a problem a couple of times. The solar monkey you were testing sounds liked it’s been beefed up, compared to the older one that I have, so I might well be considering an upgrade soon. Although my solar monkey charges my powermonkey without too many problems I find that I do have to use a mains recharge to be sure that my powermonkey is going to be ready, if I’ve had to use it.Finally the customer service from powertraveller is always excellent, I don’t think you got any special service just because you werre testing the device, they seem to treat every customer the same. Makes it worth buying direct from them everytime.
Thanks for commenting Alan. I think you are right – Powertraveller service is excellent, they even had tech support phone me – not something you would get from all manufacturers. It’s also nice to know they are a UK company and easily contactable in our own timezone.This Solarmonkey has a USB port which I don’t believe the older one has?I’d be interested in testing this panel with an eXplorer battery to see charge times. What is the weight of that battery?
So looking at their site it seems that you will get this new panel with the eXplorer.
According to our not very accurate kitchen scales it’s about 75g. The solar panel has a hard-wired plug to plug straight into the battery, but with the right “nuts” can plug straight into a device. My experience though is that except in the sunniest of condition the panel doesn’t always kick out enough power to charge some devices e.g. iPhone will display the “unsupported” error message if you charge straight from the panel, in less than direct, bright sunlight. Am looking forward to getting my hands on the newer model.
Thanks Amanda 🙂 I think if you buy a new eXplorer from them you’ll get this new panel.I think the eXplorer looks great. Especially being a bit lighter but obviously lower capacity. How many times can you charge your iPhone?
That looks like an awesome bit of kit ;)am now regretting buying a new PowerMonkey Explorer.I hope they bring out the solar panel on its own as I already have the MiniGorilla ;)Brilliant review!
I am off camping soon for 10 days, really could do with one of those
Cool Gary, anywhere nice? I’m going too and the extreme will be very handy.
Only Shropshire but after reading your review I have brought one Should be here Monday so will be testing it in the rainy field 🙂
I set up my Extreme solar panels last night, directly underneath a desk lamp. The little green light was on the solar panel but the iPhone did NOT charge, at all! It steadily went down. Is this normal?
Hi Jason, yes, for an iPhone you would need an in-line battery that will accept the lower charge and then pass it onto the iPhone.
Just a warning. I used the device to provide 12v to an older Garmin GPS 5000. It worked fine but the electronics of my 2000 Chrysler van shut down. The engine still ran but nothing else. I guess it interfered with the van based on where I had it stashed as it was not connected in any way to the van.
That sounds interesting – It wasn’t connected but it shut down the electronics on your van? It sounds like a bad battery, bad earth connection or a short. Maybe the place you put the eXtreme placed pressure on some connections? I’d be interested to hear more.