Powerocks Magic Cube 12000mAh review
The Powerocks Magic Cube is a 12000mAh portable self-contained phone charger that can deliver about five full recharges of most of today’s top-end devices. If you’re an Ingress player, this means roughly another four hours of play, but for the average user you’re looking at a battery that’s capable of delivering a few days worth of juice.
The thing is perfect for if you’re going camping and still want to be able to watch your movies, read your e-books or make emergency phone calls with no outlets around.
Specs
- 10.22oz
- built-in micro-USB phone charging cable
- built-in USB universal plug for charging
- built-in USB-A Powerocks charging cable
- Input/Output 2A max
Where it wins
The price point to mAh is pretty decent when you consider the MSRP of one with half the capacity is only 10% less, although there are plenty on the internet that are significantly less expensive than either of these.
The capacity on this is pretty up there. Under normal circumstances this will get you through what you need to do in a day be that claiming territory in Ingress, recording your child’s first days on the planet, or simply dealing with abysmal cell phone signal coverage and needing to use your phone as a tethering device.
Where it fails
Unfortunately it’s not so perfect as a basic carrying unit. The thing is a tiny brick, coming in at over ten ounces – that’s because it’s got a big battery and some extreme armor around it. It comes with a cute little tote pouch, but that appears to be more to just keep your other items from being smashed by the Powerocks Magic Cube.
It also makes the mistake of charging off of a different style USB than it charges. It can’t be stressed enough to these companies that if you’re charging someone’s micro-USB device, chances are that someone has a micro-USB charger. As it stands, very oddly I do not have a wall-outlet USB-A charger with an extension cable accessible at the moment, which is OK because I do have a computer, but that means that the 10+oz portable charger is dangling from the front of my computer. If I had a wall converter, it would be hanging off the wall as the charging cable is only a couple of inches long.
Another fail point here goes for charging off of 2A USB. Some of these wall outlet to USB converters do not deliver past 800mAh, meaning it could take you over 15 hours to fully charge the battery.
The charging cable that goes out to the micro-USB is too short, and the door that contains the cables has to be removed each time you want to get in to it (although you can re-fit it if you’re charging a phone).
Wrap-up
It’s a decent device. I wish it were armored differently and had something different for the USB cables. It’s also such a high capacity I wish it had a wall plug so we could simply chuck it on the wall and walk away while it charged. Over six hour drained to full can be kind of a bummer.
The 10000mAh Powerocks Magic Cube has an MSRP of $109.99, or you can find it at Amazon for $95.60. Powerocks makes a wide variety of other charging options that aren’t as massive for a couple of phone charges that are a bit more portable than this.
