Powermat Power Dual 1200 Rechargeable Backup Battery product reviews

I am a huge fan of portable, rechargeable power storage devices such as this, but what every device needs - but few have - is a power meter showing the status of recharge/discharge. This one has that! I was so happy when I found out that the four tiny little green lights will light up and turn off in order, indicating current charge levels at 25% increments - 0/25/50/75/100% - 0% being no lights, of course.

"Dual" by name, dual in almost every aspect - you can recharge Apple devices with the built-in old-style Apple plug, but you can also recharge most other small devices using the built-in microUSB cable too... you can charge it on your PowerMat or you can use the microUSB socket too... all good, all round.

While it only stores 1200mAh worth of charge - enough for small music players, iPhones/iPods and most low-end smartphones - this device is not suitable for high-drain devices such as iPads and Tablets. The difference in battery strength - in terms of Amps drawn - means that this battery will attempt to GAIN charge, even from a nearly-flat tablet. You could think about it thus... most small devices have batteries like a balloon - easy to fill. This powerpack is a bit like a hot-water bottle - able to hold a lot of pressure and discharge it into 'weaker' devices. Tablets and iPads are like a car tyre - WAY too much pressure to gain anything useful from this unit, but more likely to dump some of their pressure into this instead.

Having a PowerMat for the resident iPhone, recharging this is just a matter of waiting for the phone to be off the mat and dropping this onto it - no cables to worry about thanks to magnets 'grabbing' each other and creating an electrical induction circuit automatically. An hour or two later I wander past and just pick this up and toss it into my car glovebox again, ready to give me about a "40% of full" charge if my phone starts to die on me when I need it.

Overall, this unit is compact, stylish and discrete... certainly a dinky little unit and while I would love to see a version that carries double or more charge - 3000mAh would be ideal for me - this little beauty can mean the difference between making that urgent call in time, or missing your window of opportunity while you wait for your phone to recharge off the car's system.