TUAW’s Kelly Hodgkins
touted the Energy Station 10000’s long lasting power, saying “On more
than one occasion, I charged my iPad to an acceptable level and then
handed the Satechi to my husband who used it to charge his iPhone while
he was away for the morning. When he returned, I could then finish off
the iPad charge cycle and still have 20 percent left on the power pack.”
GottaBeMobile’s Kevin Purcell
was also impressed by what the Energy Station 10000 had to offer,
noting that he “…I tested the Satechi 10000 mAh Portable Energy Station
by charging up my Samsung Galaxy Note to 100 percent and charging the
Satechi to 100 percent. I plugged my Note into the Satechi and then used
it heavily. With the Note’s battery and the Satechi’s battery my phone
lasted for over 30 hours. My Note normally lasts 6-8 hours by itself, so
the Satechi gave me another 22 hours of battery life. That’s saying
something since few charging solutions can charge the Note when used the
way I normally use it.”
Gadling’s Kraig Becker called
the battery a great travel option and said it was “small, lightweight
and highly packable.” There were also favourable reviews for the Energy
Station 10000 from Gadget Review, Tech Reaction, AppAdvice.com, and travel site Vagabond Dish.
The Wirecutter’s own Brian Lam owns one too. In one of the
emails he shot me after finding out that the Energy Station 10000 proved
to be the best pick out of everything I tested, he told me “I love the
Satechi, by the way. It packs really well. The square ones piss me off.
The other great thing about the it is that you can stand it up in a bag
pocket and the plugs hang out the top.” So there’s that.
But it’s Not Perfect
There were a few things about it that I didn’t like.
For starters, the battery’s relatively light weight comes
at a cost: Its shell is made entirely out of plastic. While that’s not a
deal-breaker, the fact that the plastic is of a particularly light and
cheap feeling variety makes me wonder how well it’ll stand up to wear
and tear. I can tell you that its shiny black and silver surface are a
fingerprint and scuff magnet. But this doesn’t negate any of the thing’s
functionality, so not a big deal.
Slightly more annoying is the fact that it uses mini USB
instead of the now-ubiquitous micro USB. It's better not to have to
carry multiple different types of cables and if your cables work
interchangeably between devices, all the better in case you lose one.
I also don’t like the fact that the charging adapters that
it comes with are so small and easy to lose. Satechi includes a
drawstring pouch that’ll hold the battery and all of its various cables
and bits, but meh, it feels cheap. It likely won’t matter though. If
you’re anything like me, you’ve got more than one cable to charge your
favourite devices with, so the cable and adapter heads that the Energy
Station 10000 ships will will likely wind up in a drawer a few days
after you buy one.
Furthermore, in dim light, and in direct sunlight, I found
it hard to read the text under the USB ports that tells you which was
the low-powered port and which was the high-powered one. But I think we
can file that under nit-picking.
It should be noted that while I didn’t have any issues with the Energy Station 10000 during testing, iLounge’s Nick Guy
did. He had a hard time getting the battery to take a charge with its
included accessory cable, had issues with its charge indicator lights
and felt, given the Satechi’s charging time, that it wasn’t actually
providing a full 2 amps of power from its USB ports. I reckon Nick must
have wound up with a defective unit, given that the rest of the
editorial reviews for the Energy Station 10000 are overwhelmingly
positive. I did manage to find an Amazon customer who
felt that he was only getting maybe 5000mAh out of the battery, but he
was willing to admit that he may very well have received a unit with a
dud cell or two.
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