Last year, I was approached by an American brand of mobile accessories called Tech Armor, who asked me if I would like to review their powerbank. I said, “sure” and after looking through their product range, I asked them to send any one of the dual USB powerbanks as those are the ones I would find useful, especially when travelling.
Unfortunately, when the package was shipped from the US just before Christmas, the description stated that what was being dispatched was the single USB 3000mAh powerbank. To make things worse, the package was stuck at Indian customs for over a month!
I eventually got the package delivered after calling up the Bengaluru Customs office, sending emails and asking what the hold up us. Just two days ago, the door bell rang and the postman had arrived with the package! I was told I needed to pay Rs. 249 in customs duty. I didn’t hesitate to pay up as what I really wanted to was to finally receive the package in my hands.
To my surprise, when I opened it up, I found not just the 3000mAh powerbank but also the dual USB 6000mAh powerbank!
I mounted the lens attachments for my mobile phone camera and began taking photos right away!
Time to un-box!
As you may have noticed, the charging cable for the 3000 mAh powerbank is considerably shorter than the 6000 mAh version.
Before testing the charging capabilities of both powerbanks, I had to charge them first.
In under an hour, my GoPro (1180mAh battery) was fully charged and my phone, the Sony Xperia Z1 (3000 mAh battery), was charged upto 50%. I had to unplug the devices after I found the Tech Armor 6000 mAh powerbank was quite hot. The LED indicator was now flashing the second last light implying the battery was now holding less than 50% charge. I stopped and let the powerbank cool before using it again.
I completed charging my phone using the Tech Armor 3000 mAh powerbank and I must say it charged the remaining 50% pretty fast, in less than 30 minutes. But the biggest negative with the 3000 mAh powerbank is that it has no buttons and so you cannot tell how much charge is left in the powerbank.
The 3000 mAh powerbank also didn’t heat up as much as the 6000 mAh did. I’ll need to test both devices more, in various conditions and on other devices, but just based on first impressions, I’d say these are fairly good powerbanks. I must stress that I really like the designs, especially the 6000 mAh powerbank. It’s nice that Tech Armor invested in decent industrial designs as supposed to the many ‘Made in China’ powerbanks that look like absolute crap.
The 3000 mAh powerbank weighs 65.2 grams and 6000 mAh powerbank weighs 131 grams, which makes both powerbanks quite light.
If you had to pick between the 3000 mAh and 6000 mAh powerbank, I’d definitely recommend the 6000 mAh. Mainly because it has indicator lights which really helps. It also comes with a LED light, and looks really nice. The 3000 mAh powerbank is plain vanilla in comparison. Then again, it is just $14.95.
The Tech Armor 6000 mAh powerbank is $24.95, and along with the 12000 mAh and 20800 mAh powerbanks, are all available on Amazon.com.
