Green Gear Review: SuperBattery Hand-Crank Gadget Charger

You’re in the middle of nowhere, miles from a gas station, and your car breaks down. You pull out your cell phone to call AAA and – oh, great – it’s dead, too. What, exactly, do you do in this scenario? Well, if you’ve got a Datexx SupeBattery hand-crank gadget charger, you simply pull it out and start cranking. After a few minutes, you’ll have enough juice to power your cell long enough to make the call.

The SuperBattery can charge up to 1,200 different devices, including cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras and handheld game consoles. Two minutes of cranking gives you six minutes of talk time on your phone or 50 minutes use of the built-in flashlight – just enough for emergency situations. It can also be used as a portable charger for camping trips and other situations in which a wall outlet is not available – just charge it up with the AC adapter before you leave and bring it with you.

I decided to test out the SuperBattery with my iPod, to see just how well it met these claims. I brought it with me on a long day hike and when my iPod power started getting low, I plugged it into the fully charged SuperBattery and got approximately 4 extra hours of play time.

Later, when the SuperBattery charge was up, I tested the hand-crank function, turning the crank for about two minutes. I hooked it up to my iPod and, indeed, got right about two minutes of listening time before the charge wore out.

The caveat: Datexx recommends always keeping your SuperBattery fully charged, which means constantly leaving it plugged in to an electrical socket when not in use, to prolong the battery’s life cycle. It does meet EnergyStar requirements and consumes very little electricity, but for people who are trying to cut back on the amount of gadgets plugged in around their homes, this might be a no-go.

However, the SuperBattery does successfully harness a source of renewable energy that we sometimes overlook: the power of our own strength. For an average cost of $35, the SuperBattery is definitely worth the cash to have a relatively green gadget charger on hand at all times.

Link [Datexx SuperBattery]

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