New Trent Powerpak 11.0 11000mAh High Capacity Dual USB Port External Battery Charger/Power Pack for Smartphones and Tablets and More

The case is made of metal. The blue light strip on the unit looks futuristic. It pulses as it charges. The size of the charger is about exactly the same size as an Apple iphone 5, but alittle thicker. Now, here's an important part: It has a mini usb charging input connector. So, the wire is USB2 on one end and mini USB on the other. It can be charged at 2.1A rate.I chose this model from many other choices on the internet for several reasons. One, it used a generic mini USB connector wire. You see, I have a battery case, Mophie, around my Iphone that changes the Apple connector to mini USB. So, now everything is mini USB connection for me.I use this external battery to lengthen the life of my iphone. How? Well, I have the Mophie 2nd battery case encasing the Iphone 5. This case keeps the iphone charged to 100% all the time. I recharge the Mophie 2nd battery case every day using the New Trent Powerpak 11.0. The Trent external powerpak is my 3rd battery. I'll say that again, the Powerpak 11.0 I use as the 3rd battery as in "third", no typos here. This Trent powerpak charges my iphone with battery case from Mophie in my jacket pocket or at home next to my bed. It is doing all the grunt work. I am using the 3rd battery to charge the 2nd battery. And the 1st battery which is in the Apple iphone is always at 100%, 100% of the time. In this way, the battery in the iphone should never wear out. Only the 2nd and 3rd batteries will wear out.The Trent Powerpak 11.0 is not "heavy", but it does have a sense of a solid item. I mean, its all battery inside, you can tell.Now I will tell you how to make all these devices not slide around on your car seat or fall out of your pocket. This is just a tip. Put aquarium sealant, color black, on the back of the iphone or the Trent Powerpak. Just alittle silicone sealant, black, will prevent the device from sliding around. As a result, you can put it on your dashboard or on the floor, where ever, and won't slip out of your hands, too. But if you do this, the sealant makes the unit look somewhat tacky. But for me, the sealant helps to prevent the unit from slipping out of a pocket or sliding around on something. It's your choice.The Trent Powerpak 11.00 did not get warm while charging.If I were to improve this model, I would have the white lettering, printed ports for 1A and 2.1A to be in a larger type font. As it is, they are in about 5 point type. That is too small for older people to see. But nonetheless, I would purchase another one of these units. One port is 1A, the other is 2.1A.The unit is "FC" and "CE" listed, made in China, but the company is in Fremont, CA The packaging of the unit is as high quality as what came with my Apple iPhone.They say it will give an additional 50 hours of "talk time".On a tablet, it will give an additional 11 hours of wifi usage.Since I only use it to charge an external battery case which surrounds and protects my Apple iphone 5, I cannot say these are inaccurate. The battery is certainly solid, It has style, "cache". It should win an award for styling in its category. I mean, I think the stylist for the unit worked for Porsche.Reading criticisms of things electronic, you will always have part failures, no matter what kind of electronic device it is. So, I ignored the 1% criticisms and listened to the other comments. I don't regret buying this unit.I looked at other cases. I did not like the fact that some other company cases use a proprietary charging input port. I don't want to carry around different cables. I also wanted to make sure that the unit I buy is safe and legal to use in the U.S. I don't want to have any bedtime fires in the house you understand. Also, because the case is metal, well, I felt that is what should be surrounding a battery. The other companies use plastic. And I felt that the price was fair for peace of mind. The case says, "Designed in the U.S., made in China". Isn't everything? But I would rather have it designed here. In that way I believe it may be safer for usage here. I don't mind paying a little more for that. Besides, it is just beautiful to look at.I believe this is a top of the line unit. I was not paid anything to write this. I felt that the people who created this device deserves a pat on the back. These days people will quickly post any complaint, and the satisfied people forget to post anything. So, here you go New Trent people, here is a 5 star review.

The package came in a soft cardboard box surrounding a plastic case. The outside packaging was a hard cardboard box, and was a good fit for the unit. It came with a little booklet of information about the unit. There was also a cable to charge the unit, but no wall outlet plug. This seems to be a standard; none of the other power banks I’ve purchased had wall outlet plugs, either. I wish there was a carrying case or a pouch for it.The unit itself is a thin, black, rectangular brick. The charge status is a line of continuous blue lights. If you look at it carefully, you can see that the line is actually four bars of lights placed side by side. My unit seems to have been about 50% charged. There are 2 outputs, one 1a and one 2.1a. The 1a output is labeled for Smartphones and the 2.1a is labeled Tablets. Obviously, that’s not the only things you can charge, and it’s just a guide.After 3 hours of charging, the unit was still only at 2 solid bars. I had to leave it to charge overnight. When I woke up, all the bars were actually lit, so overall, it took between 3 and 8 ¾ hours to make the first charge.I bought this battery pack mainly to charge my phone, the Samsung Note 3. I had purchased another charger some time back that claimed to be a 10000mAh charger. It was at a price that was too good to be true. It didn’t even last an hour. The old saying is true – you get what you pay for. Now, I’m really interested to see how this battery pack holds up.To charge your device, you have to plug into either the 1a or the 2.1a output. On my first charge, I used the 2.1a output. I had to press the power button and keep it depressed about a second to turn the unit on and to start charging. I’ve had units that automatically turn on when I plug a device into the unit. I’m on the fence on whether it’s better to have the unit automatically turn on or require the user to manually turn it on.This unit emitted a high-pitched whine when it is charging. I imagine it can get quite annoying if you were in the same room while the device is charging, and the room is quiet. The whine changed a little bit when I jiggled the USB connector, but I could never get it to go away.The first complete full charge took almost 3 hours (2 hours 57 minutes to be exact) to charge the Note from 5% charge, and took out one bar (and probably half of another one, but it’s either on or off so we’re left with 3 bars). I also had to manually shut off the unit. Compared these results to the 10400mAh Lumsing power pack, which took a little over 2 hours to charge the Note on the 2.1a port, and which also turned off automatically after the device is unplugged. Round 1 goes to the Lumsing.The second charge took between 3 hours and 3 hours 20 minutes (it was at 94% at 3 hours, and the next time I looked at it at 3 hours 20 minutes, it had completed charging) with the 1a port. This was done from a fully drained battery, and took out the second and third bars of lights. I am pretty sure it will not fully charge the phone next time before the power bank itself drains. Curiously, the power bank turned itself off this time, so maybe I just didn’t wait long enough the first time. Also, even though the high-pitched whine was still there, it was not noticeable, and I was in a quiet room.The third charge took about an hour and 45 minutes, and charged the phone from 4% to 41% before the power bank drained. This time, the whine was barely noticeable. I then re-charged the power bank, and it took almost 11 ½ hours to charge (11 hours 24 minutes to be exact).Summary: Nice looking unit and works as advertised. The unit made a whining noise when charging devices, but not annoyingly so. An interesting observation – the amount of time it took to charge my Note 2 ½ times (totaling about 8 hours over 3 charge cycles) was more than the total amount of time it took to charge the power bank from drained (11 ½ hours). I would recommend this unit to anyone looking for a high capacity power bank.