Wednesday 23 April 2014

Lumsing 11,000mAh Power Bank Review!



   The Lumsing Power Bank is a reasonably priced solution to the problem which a lot of people face of not having removable batteries from their phones. If you have an iPhone or a HTC One or something like this something which would suit you down to the ground!

    As far as power banks go there's a lot of choice on the market; you can go for super cheap solutions which will give you a slight top up if your phone needs one half-way through the day, or you can go for something slightly more expensive like this Lumsing which promises to give you multiple charges from it's larger battery.

Performance:

   Obviously the main thing with this sort of device is how long it lasts and whether or not it actually comes through on the promise of recharging your devices. With an 11,000 mAh capacity theoretically this battery pack could charge my LG G2, with it's 3,000 mAh battery, three times with a little bit of juice to spare. As we know though, theory and practice are not the same things. People normally say you should expect to get about 70% of the total capacity out of the actual battery bank, so you can think of this as a 7700mAh unit, which is actually quite respectable. With that in mind, it's good to know that the actual transferable capacity of this device is probably somewhere close to the target 7700 mAh. We managed to get 2 full charges of the LG G2 and there was enough to top the phone up to 60% again, so the performance was slightly better than we would have expected, which is fantastic given the price!

   It's also nice to know that you can simultaneously charge the power bank and charge something else at the same time, so if you only have one charger then you're still good to power your battery pack and phone or tablet at the same time.

   Another nice addition is that the five USB ports which you can charge from all offer varying outputs. So you have a 1.3A output for your Galaxy Tab, 2.1A for the iPad line, 1A for your typical mobile phone and then 0.5A for a smaller battery bank or perhaps an MP3 player. It's great because it adds an extra bit of versatility to your power needs and we're sure you could give charging your laptop a go from this if you really needed an extra bit of juice too!

   Some people have asked if you can use the power bank while it is charging and you definitely can, it works really nicely!

Build quality:

   Some of you out there might have been stung by cheap battery banks before and thankfully with
this one we have no concerns over the quality of it. The bank feels nice and dense, which if nothing else is reassuring. The plastic which Lumsing has used feels nice and sturdy - it reminds us of the plastic which LG employed on their G2 and which Samsung have used on their older generations of the Galaxy S.

Ease of use:

   You might be asking yourself why we bothered to talk about ease of use - surely you just plug it in and go. To a certain extent you do, but with some battery banks you have to flick switches for different ports and it can get a bit messy. The Lumsing on the other hand chooses to keep things simple. You get one off and on button. Press it once and it shows you how much charge there is and turns the whole unit on. Press it again and everything will shut off. It's simple and elegant and that's the sort of no thrills performance you want from this sort of accessory.

Extras:
   In the box you get a plethora of connection options; there seems to be an adaptor for almost every type of proprietary charging jack which we could think of as you can see to the right.

   The little bag which Lumsing threw into the box is a nice touch and although it's undoubtedly cheap and cheerful, it's actually a good extra layer of protection if you throw the unit into your bag. You know that people often say it's the little things which matter, we definitely think helps when it comes to things like this.

   It's also worth bearing in mind that this power bank comes with a 12 month warranty and that promise of longevity is also so a sign of Lumsing's confidence in their product which is great to know as a buyer. Especially as most phone companies recommend changing the battery in your mobile phone every six months if that's an option!

The Wrap Up!

   So is the Lumsing power bank worth your hard earned cash? In a word, yes. It does exactly what it says on the tin, it's solidly build, Lumsing has convinced us that they're offering a good quality product and as far as we're concerned you shouldn't be disappointed with what you're buying.






Opinion: The OnePlus One lottery.


   The beautiful device which you see pictured above this text is the OnePlus One. The company is made of a few people who used to work for Oppo, you can probably tell given the similarities between this device and the Find 5. But, looks aside the OnePlus One is a powerhouse with the Snapdragon 801, Full HD 1080p 5.5" screen, 3GB of RAM, 16 or 64GB of internal storage and a 3100mAh which should last you pretty well. 

   The best thing about the phone though is the price. £229 for a 16GB version or £269 for the 64GB variant which simply blows everything out of the water in terms of price to performance ratio, especially when you consider that the device will be kept up to date by the guys over at CyanogenMod, this thing becomes a very interesting beast for people who like to buy their phones sim free.

   So what's the catch? Well seemingly nothing with regards to the phone, the problem though is that it's nothing short of a lottery to get hold of one! We know the problems that some companies (I'm looking at you Google) have when they try to launch a new device and people can't wait to get their hands on the shiny new toy as soon as possible. To alleviate this issue OnePlus have decided that they will release a very limited stock onto the market and then from there you will be able to get hold of a phone by invite only.

   On the surface this is a good way of managing demand while the early production issues, which there will inevitably be with a new company and new device, get ironed out. But, where does that leave the consumers, the people who actually want to buy this phone. Well, in a bit of a predicament. Why would someone who wants a new phone try desperately to get hold of this phone by bribing someone for an invite or smashing their old phone when they can just walk into the nearest Carphone Warehouse or navigate their browser straight from here to Google Play or Amazon to pick up the Nexus 5 or any other device they want? 

   Yes, the price is the only reason why you would wait for this phone. The problem for OnePlus is how quickly they can go from these 100 phone smashing incidents to taking the money from everyone who wants to carry one of the 'Ones' in their pockets. If they take a few months something better will come out, but they have a couple of months to scale things up and if they can do it fast enough, then they'll stand some sort of chance of having a successful product.

   I think the phrase to finish this off with should be slightly ominous, so I suppose 'time will tell'.

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