Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, Peripherals, iPhone
TUAW Review: Richard | Solo Smart Backup Battery for iPhone / iPod
That's why there are a growing number of manufacturers who have extended battery packs for the iPhone on the market. For example, I looked at the Kensington Mini Battery Pack and Charger (US$49.99), but the website doesn't show that it works with the iPhone 3G.
My next choice was the Richard | Solo Smart Backup Battery. This US$49.95 lithium-ion battery pack has saved me from running out of juice prematurely more than once!
Read on for more information about this must-have sidekick for the iPhone 3G.
In case you're wondering about the company name, Richard | Solo is the new retail startup of Richard Thalheimer, the man behind Sharper Image. That's why you'll also find the Smart Backup Battery wedged into the website between the 3 in 1 Travel Groomer and a radio-control Ferrari. Don't let that bother you, though -- the Smart Backup Battery works very well. It's also certified by Apple as "Made for iPod" and "Works with iPhone", so you know it's going to work well with either type of device.
This is a small add-on, although most of the current battery extenders for iPhone add a lot of length to the iPhone's dimensions. The dimensions are 1.77" wide x 2.83" high x .49" thick (4.5 x 7.2 x 1.25 cm), and the 1200mAh battery weighs only 1.76 ounces (50 grams). The Smart Backup Battery comes with a retractable cable USB AC adapter (above) that has a mini-USB connector on one end that fits into the socket on the battery. What's nice is that you can unplug the AC adapter, plug the USB cable into an available port on your Mac or PC, and then charge the Smart Backup Battery and your iPhone simultaneously.
Another cool feature is that the case of the battery is made out of aluminum rather than plastic, so worries about scratching or cracking the case are eliminated. I often put the included plastic cap over the iPhone connector and drop the Smart Backup Battery into the back pocket of my pants, and the aluminum case withstands the pressures of sitting very well. Wondering about the warranty? There's a 30-day satisfaction guarantee upon purchase, and a materials and workmanship warranty for 90 days. My one complaint is that the warranty should be longer, as the Kensington product offers a one-year warranty for the same price.
The Smart Backup Battery takes about 3.5 hours to charge, although Richard | Solo recommends that you charge the pack overnight for the first two nights to "top it off." The battery's capacity is about 70 - 80% of the iPhone's battery capacity, so if you are still in the green on your iPhone battery, plugging in the backup battery will bring your iPhone up to a nearly full charge. Richard | Solo warns that if your phone is already below a 20% charge, you won't get a complete recharge. If you top off your iPhone with the backup battery while the iPhone still has a good charge, the backup battery automatically shuts off when the iPhone is at 100% charge and retains the rest of the charge for later use.
There are three LEDs on the face of the Smart Backup Battery. The first is a blue light that turns on when the Smart Backup Battery reaches a 100% charged state, the second is a blue light that shows when the backup battery is charging the iPhone or iPod. Finally, there's a third LED that changes color depending on what's going on. If you're charging the Smart Backup Battery, the LED is solid red. If you have the iPhone or iPod connected and charging at the same time, the LED doesn't light up until the device is fully charged and the Smart Backup Battery begins to charge up. If the Smart Backup Battery is just about completely discharged and needs to be recharged, the LED flashes red. Finally, if it's hooked into an iPhone or iPod and the LED turns green, the device is fully charged.
According to Richard | Solo, the Smart Backup Battery is good for about 300 charge / discharge cycles. They do not recommend frequent complete discharges, although they suggest that you do it about once every 30 charges to calibrate the battery.
Real Life Situation
Here's a standard situation that I run into frequently. I charge up my iPhone 3G and the Smart Backup Battery every night. I make calls during the day, check stock prices and weather info, and send a few texts and Tweets. Later in the day, I find myself playing games on the iPhone, so after about 2.5 hours of that my battery decides to go into the red zone. I plug in the Smart Backup Battery, and just let it charge the phone up while I'm using it -- this is not the optimum way to use the battery, but it does let me continue working with the iPhone for about another 2 - 2.5 hours.
I found the Smart Backup Battery to be indispensable with my iPhone 3G and unlike my American Express card, I don't leave home without it. If any TUAW readers have tried this or other iPhone battery extenders / chargers, please leave a comment and tell us your experiences.
This is a small add-on, although most of the current battery extenders for iPhone add a lot of length to the iPhone's dimensions. The dimensions are 1.77" wide x 2.83" high x .49" thick (4.5 x 7.2 x 1.25 cm), and the 1200mAh battery weighs only 1.76 ounces (50 grams). The Smart Backup Battery comes with a retractable cable USB AC adapter (above) that has a mini-USB connector on one end that fits into the socket on the battery. What's nice is that you can unplug the AC adapter, plug the USB cable into an available port on your Mac or PC, and then charge the Smart Backup Battery and your iPhone simultaneously.Another cool feature is that the case of the battery is made out of aluminum rather than plastic, so worries about scratching or cracking the case are eliminated. I often put the included plastic cap over the iPhone connector and drop the Smart Backup Battery into the back pocket of my pants, and the aluminum case withstands the pressures of sitting very well. Wondering about the warranty? There's a 30-day satisfaction guarantee upon purchase, and a materials and workmanship warranty for 90 days. My one complaint is that the warranty should be longer, as the Kensington product offers a one-year warranty for the same price.
The Smart Backup Battery takes about 3.5 hours to charge, although Richard | Solo recommends that you charge the pack overnight for the first two nights to "top it off." The battery's capacity is about 70 - 80% of the iPhone's battery capacity, so if you are still in the green on your iPhone battery, plugging in the backup battery will bring your iPhone up to a nearly full charge. Richard | Solo warns that if your phone is already below a 20% charge, you won't get a complete recharge. If you top off your iPhone with the backup battery while the iPhone still has a good charge, the backup battery automatically shuts off when the iPhone is at 100% charge and retains the rest of the charge for later use.
There are three LEDs on the face of the Smart Backup Battery. The first is a blue light that turns on when the Smart Backup Battery reaches a 100% charged state, the second is a blue light that shows when the backup battery is charging the iPhone or iPod. Finally, there's a third LED that changes color depending on what's going on. If you're charging the Smart Backup Battery, the LED is solid red. If you have the iPhone or iPod connected and charging at the same time, the LED doesn't light up until the device is fully charged and the Smart Backup Battery begins to charge up. If the Smart Backup Battery is just about completely discharged and needs to be recharged, the LED flashes red. Finally, if it's hooked into an iPhone or iPod and the LED turns green, the device is fully charged.
According to Richard | Solo, the Smart Backup Battery is good for about 300 charge / discharge cycles. They do not recommend frequent complete discharges, although they suggest that you do it about once every 30 charges to calibrate the battery.
Real Life Situation
Here's a standard situation that I run into frequently. I charge up my iPhone 3G and the Smart Backup Battery every night. I make calls during the day, check stock prices and weather info, and send a few texts and Tweets. Later in the day, I find myself playing games on the iPhone, so after about 2.5 hours of that my battery decides to go into the red zone. I plug in the Smart Backup Battery, and just let it charge the phone up while I'm using it -- this is not the optimum way to use the battery, but it does let me continue working with the iPhone for about another 2 - 2.5 hours.
I found the Smart Backup Battery to be indispensable with my iPhone 3G and unlike my American Express card, I don't leave home without it. If any TUAW readers have tried this or other iPhone battery extenders / chargers, please leave a comment and tell us your experiences.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Joshua Whitver said 8:49AM on 8-11-2008
300 cycles?! Doesn't seem like a whole lot to me.
Reply
puhsitch said 8:59AM on 8-11-2008
Well, that's about what you'll get out of typical laptop batteries. The key is to charge as often as possible in order to avoid going through cycles too quickly.
Christina Warren said 9:06AM on 8-11-2008
Well, it's about a year's worth if you charge daily (skipping a day here and there) - 10 months anyway. That's not horrible for $50.
DistortedLoop said 10:00AM on 8-11-2008
@puhsitch - that is not accurate. You're suggesting that if you do a partial charge it doesn't count as a "cycle"?
Per Apple's own battery information, partial charges count as partial cycles. Think of a cycle as so many electrons moving in and out of the battery. A "full cycle" is one million electrons (number pulled out of the air) - so if your battery is rated for 300 cycles, you can move 300-million electrons in and out of the device over its lifetime. If you move 500k out of it in one session, that counts as half a cycle, and you still only have 299.5 million moves left.
A half charge of the battery counts as a half a cycle and won't save you from running out the battery's useful life just because you didn't deep cycle.
There's nothing wrong with charging every night; with the iPhone 3G you really need to to make it through the next day, but your battery won't magically last forever because you're doing that.
Apple recommends occasional deep cycles, but this is more to reprogram the controller chip for the battery than to actually affect the battery's condition.
puhsitch said 1:23AM on 8-12-2008
@DistortedLoop:
I'm a little confused by what you're saying is inaccurate. Indeed, I'm suggesting that a partial charge is not a cycle -- because it's a partial cycle. Some people still think that they need to completely discharge a battery before they can start charging it again, and of course nowadays this will lead a battery to age more quickly than it should. If they instead charge it as often as they can, they will be more thrifty in moving through cycles and thus maximize the life of the battery.
markus said 9:43AM on 8-11-2008
I bought the same thing over here in Germany :)
One picture in my blog http://preview.tinyurl.com/6d53ya
They just sell it under another brand. Smells realy nasty at the beginning. Some poor people in China glue this stuff together :(
It costs 35 Euros, around 52 Dollars.
Reply
Judi Sohn said 9:47AM on 8-11-2008
I have the Kensington mini battery pack charger and it works just fine with the iPhone 3G. I prefer it because of its much smaller footprint, compared to the Richard Solo device.
Reply
DistortedLoop said 10:02AM on 8-11-2008
How many mah does it have compared to the Solo? Generally a smaller battery means less battery life... In some things, size really does matter.
Judi Sohn said 10:09AM on 8-11-2008
It's 1000 mAh vs. the Richard Solo 1200 mAh. Not significant enough (at least to me) to make a huge difference and warrant the larger size.
DistortedLoop said 9:53AM on 8-11-2008
I'm sorry, but I just can't stand any of these "dongle" type battery packs. It is totally ridiculous to hang something almost as large as the phone off the bottom of the phone like that.
It looks stupid and is totally impractical for carrying around. Try sliding that thing attached to your phone into your pants pockets. Impossible. Also, is the iPhone's dock connector jack designed to stand the stress of something that big and leveraged hanging off of it.
The dongle thingies might be okay for a some situations, but I think the two battery-in-a-case solutions out there (Mophie is the one I have for the Edge phone) are much more practical for everyday use, less cumbersome, and offer more battery life on top of that. The cases aren't the cheapest solution, but they're winners, hands down, in terms of battery life, appearance, and functionality.
Reply
Odog4ever said 10:48AM on 8-11-2008
I bought this battery pack a couple of weeks ago. I wait for the battery to drain to 20%, attach the batter pack then slip it in my pocket. I don't have freakishly small pockets on my pants so the whole thing fits.
I wait for it to charge for a while usually but I have continued to play games I was in the middle of. I just got a really nice case from Switch easy so I don't like the idea of having to pop that off every time I need to give my phone some extra juice while I'm out. (The Mophie case solution)
I've never talked on the phone while using the batter pack, because I haven't needed to yet. I would though because I'm not worried about looking cool (I'm not in high school anymore)
mr. Obsession said 11:01AM on 8-11-2008
I'm not concerned with something "look(ing) stupid" since I'm no longer in High School...and my pants pockets aren't so tight that they can't fit an extra inch or so connected to my iPhone.
Performance trumps being flashy any day of the week. But I certainly understand people's obsession with how they appear to others. ;)
pmup said 2:33PM on 8-11-2008
Is that an iPhone with battery dongle in your pocket or are you just happy to see Steve Jobs?
Mack said 10:03AM on 8-11-2008
Funny, that when Apple introduced the original iPhone and Steve was asked why it wasn't 3G - he replied that 3G killed battery life - and no one believed him.
Now the iPhone 3G has the best battery performance of any 3G smart phone on the market - and the biggest complaint - lack of battery life.
Reply
Bender Bending Rodriguez said 11:30AM on 8-11-2008
It's pretty pathetic that even TUAW is jumping on that bandwagon.
cheetahkayak said 10:22AM on 8-11-2008
Bought a Kensington Mini Battery Pack and Charger and it works great with my iphone. totally recommend.
Reply
Gabriel said 11:23AM on 8-11-2008
Does anyone know of any good airplane adapters for the iPhone, so that I can charge it during flight?
Reply
Lem said 9:59PM on 8-11-2008
I just bought an AC to DC adapter at walmart for about $30. They had cheaper ones, but this one not only had an outlet for a standard plug, but a usb port as well. So I can charge the iphone via either method and also charge another device. I use it in the car all the time, and just tested it on the plane this past week, works great!
I can't find the exact one I bought online, but this one looks even better. 2 usb ports, DC and AC slots.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=7934345
Athtart said 12:02PM on 8-11-2008
Agreed. I too have the "Kensington Mini Battery Pack and Charger" and it has saved me several times. If I go out for any extended day trips where I won't be near an outlet I always carry. It works Wonderfully with the 3G and I like it footprint better as well.
Reply
Odog4ever said 2:03PM on 8-11-2008
The foot print on the Kensington Mini is definitely nice. Deal breaker for me was that it didn't come with a wall charger like the Solo. I don't own a laptop (for usb charging) so I would have no why to get the battery pack juiced up if I'm out of town for several days.