Monday 3 March 2014

Portable Battery Review: Neptor NP056K-BL Dual Port Battery Charger Review

The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack is a highly portable external battery charger that can charge both smartphones and tablets. The battery offers dual charging ports, a high quality 5600 mAh Lithium battery and the ability to charge two devices at the same time. The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack comes in five bright colors.
Design

The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack comes in a small form, measuring 3.97 x 1.93 x 0.98 inches and weighing less than 5 ounces. The battery pack has a curved body that looks like a travel-sized soap and has soft touch coating. The five bright and saturated colors make the Neptor NP056K eye-catching, and the included USB/micro USB cable matches the color of the battery. The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack offers two USB charging ports on one end along with a built-in flashlight, and a charging port on one side and a power on/off button on the other. There are four LED lights in the front of the battery that indicate battery level. The battery pack comes with a lanyard that you can attach to the lanyard holder on the back of the battery pack.

Features

The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack has a rechargeable lithium polymer battery, made by Samsung, that's 5600mAh in capacity and offers over 500 recharges. The DC/DC converter ensures smooth charges to mobile devices and provides protections against over-charging and over-temperature. The power on/off button saves the battery power when it's not in use. You can charge the battery with the included USB charging cable via either your computer or an AC outlet, and it takes a few hours to fully charge the battery from empty.

The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack can charge smartphones and tablets as well as small mobile gadgets, such as MP3 players, Bluetooth headsets and more. The battery offers a 2.1A charging port for devices that require higher voltage output and a 1.0A for most smartphones and small gadgets. It's also capable of dual charging and on most devices, fast charging as well. We tested the Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack with several smartphones and tablets and found it worked well with most of them.

Using the 2.1A charging port, the Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack charged the Sony Xperia Z1s from nearly empty to fully charged in three and a half hours and used 80% of its power. The battery pack charged the iPhone 5s speedily and efficiently - it charged the iPhone 5s from 10% power to 100% in an hour and a half and only dumped a quarter of its full power. The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack wasn't compatible with the LG G Flex's fast charging feature and it took many hours for the battery to dump its full power to charge the LG G Flex from empty to 100% charge. It's worth to note that the fast charging incompatibility appears to happen only with the LG G Flex, and not to other Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU powered devices. While the battery can charge tablets, it only provided about 40% battery power to the iPad Air.

Conclusion

The Neptor NP056K Portable Battery Pack is small and attractive battery pack that's great for those who travel with several devices. Its dual charging ability means you can top up your tablet and juice up your smartphone at the same time. The battery supports fast charging on most devices and it works particularly well with the iPhone 5s. We like the color options for the battery and the matching USB cable.

Editor's Ratings (1-5): 4
What's Hot: Small and attractive, fast charging on most devices especially with iPhone models.
What's Not: Slow charging on tablets and some large smartphones.
Price: $49.99
Web site: Neptor


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