INTRODUCTION

     My smartphone is dead, it run out of battery again! This is a phrase that i can't really begin to count the how many times I’ve heard it from people sitting next to me in a cafeteria or at the beach. The same people are also the ones who ask all the time about the things they can do in order to prolong their smartphone's battery life and the answer is not that hard. You see right now technology progresses at such fast rates that naturally some things fall behind, one of those things are batteries (although not for long according to scientists) and so when you have a vast number of functions embedded in a smartphone along with a rather huge LCD screen it's to be expected that today’s batteries can't last long. Because of that i always carry along with me a portable battery pack just to be on the safe side of things and so far i haven't found myself in a position where one of my smartphones has completely run out of juice. Today we are taking a look at yet another such portable battery, this time it's the ICY BOX IB-PBa7800 7800mAh Power Bank by RaidSonic.

   RaidSonic Technology GmbH was founded in Hamburg 1999. To realize our future visions and the rising requirements, RaidSonic moved to Ahrensburg (20 min. away from Hamburg) in May 2004.The capacity of our new warehouse, our permanent improving logistic and the expanded technical support lets us look into the future very optimistically. Our vision in a constantly growing IT market is to develop products, which will become your future dreams. Our extensive product portfolio, which we distribute Europe-wide, combines all internal and external solutions for the application of mass storage, for industrial and professional applications as well as for the private sphere, too. Through our all along increasing know-how, good results in research and development and our good cooperation with our long-time customers we could achieve a dynamic growth.

   Currently in the market most portable battery pack solutions range from the basic 2000/2200mAh models which can only be used to recharge your smartphone/iPhone once, the mid-end 6000/7000mAh models that allow for slightly less than one recharge for your tablet and 3-4 recharges for your smartphone/iPhone and the high-end 10000/12000mAh models which can be used to either recharge your tablet slightly more than once or your smartphone/iPhone up to 5-6 times (there are also a couple of 13000/18000 models available). Of course although the battery capacity matters a lot what matters even more is the quality of that battery which is responsible both for the possible recharge cycles (300-400-500-600) and also for the amount of battery life lost after long periods of time. RaidSonic seems to be well aware of that naturally and so for their latest ICY BOX IB-PBa7800 Power Bank model they used three 2600mAh lithium battery cells by Sanyo that can be recharged for a total of up to 500 times prior to needing replacement which means that this device should last for a very long time. Specs however are just that so let's move forward to see just how good the ICY BOX IB-PBa7800 Power Bank really is.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The ICY BOX IB-PBa7800 arrived inside a small box with a clear plastic area at the front right next to the battery capacity and its electrical requirements and features.

On both sides RaidSonic has printed the features of the IB-PBa7800 both in English and German.

The key features are also available at the rear in 10 languages right next to a drawing showcasing with what kind of devices you can use the product.

Only the basics are inside the box and so aside the IB-PBa7800 Power Bank you are just getting a USB to micro-USB charging cable and the user’s manual.

THE ICY BOX IB-PBA7800

Although certainly not the smallest Power Bank out there the IB-PBa7800 is quite small for its battery capacity and measures 106mm in length, 66mm in width and 24mm in height with a weight of 200g.

To get a better idea about its size we placed it right next to two of the smallest battery packs around the Sandberg PowerBar and the Antec PowerUp6000.

Thanks to these 4 small blue LEDs placed at the top of the IB-PBa7800 you can check the current charge state of the battery.

The ICY BOX logo is also placed at the top of the device.

At the front we see the micro-USB port and two 5V USB charging ports one used mostly for smartphones (1.2A) and another primarily used with tablets (2.1A). There are also two holes right beneath the USB ports that can be used with a lanyard.

The power button is placed on the right side of the device and is used whenever you want to charge a device.

A small sticker at the bottom of the unit advices you of caution issues and also includes the electrical requirements of the device.

CONCLUSION

   Although only 2 portable battery pack reviews have made it into our gadgets section (3 with this one) during the past 2 years we've had quite a few models land on our test bench some of which stopped working after a very short period of time while others simply didn't output the advertised battery capacity no matter how many times we tried and thus since we can't really know for certain whether or not these were isolated incidents those reviews never made it online (we never received replacements so this was the only option for us). Regardless after using the ICY BOX IB-PA7800 Power Bank for just over 2 weeks (and after 10 recharge cycles) it can now successfully recharge the Huawei Honor (1900mAh battery) for roughly 3 full times (more like 2 full times and 90% of the 4th) and the LG Optimus 2x (1500mAh battery) roughly 4 times (again just slightly less than 4) so real capacity must be at around 5500mAh. Unfortunately we didn't test the IB-PA7800 with a tablet to see if that would make any difference but from our regular tests it seems that the Sanyo battery cells work as advertised. Whether or not however these can withstand a recharge cycle of up to 500 times is something we naturally can't comment on as I’m sure all of you can understand.

    With a current price tag in the market set at USD80.81 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 42Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) the ICY BOX IB-PBa7800 Power Bank by RaidSonic is quite cheaper compared to the Antec PowerUp 6000 (at least inside the EU) and other similar devices which don't actually offer neither the same battery output nor the same build quality. Of course if you are willing to spend slightly more you can find several 10000/12000mAh solutions which unfortunately are not based around Japanese made battery cells and thus are not as effective especially after long periods of inactivity since these tend to bleed significantly higher battery levels. Overall the IB-PBa7800 feels a lot more expensive than it is both thanks to its build quality and weight and since it's also small and works as advertised it receives our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality (Housing/Japanese Battery Cells)
- Size/Weight
- 7800mAh Battery
- Electrical Protections (Short Circuit/Over-Charge/Over-Discharge/Over-Heat/Over-Current)
- 1.2A & 2.1A 5V Outputs (Can Be Used To Charge Tablets As Well)
- Price (EU)

CONS

- Price (USA)