Monkey power
The E90 is just one of my toys that is in daily use and requires juice to keep on functioning. I rarely carry its charger around with me and have been left high and dry with a discharged mobile phone in the urban jungle on more than one occasion. So, I called a monkey in to help out. And help out it does: it’s an indispensable addition to the gadget bag for my daily travels.
The powermonkey eXplorer is basically a rechargable battery that is able to supply its power to other devices and thereby enable their use and charge their batteries. The eXplorer package includes the solarmonkey, a small solar panel that is used to charge the powermonkey or other devices when a power socket is out of reach. Inside the box, the eXplorer package includes a storage case to conveniently house all the other bits. The other bits in the box are the powermonkey, solarmonkey, mains adapter with different plug adapters for different countries, a variety of mobile phone charger adapters, PSP charger adapter, iPod charger adapter, mini USB and USB adapter. It’s quite a collection, and the first thing I did was to dump the charger adapters I wouldn’t need to reduce the clutter in the storage case.
The powermonkey is charged to about 60% on delivery. On one side, the short cable snaking away from the powermonkey features a plug onto which any of the other adapters fits. This adapter, in turn, is plugged into the target device. To start using the powermonkey, the round button is pushed for a few seconds, causing a blue display to light up with the current battery status. The attached device is supplied with power for as long as the powermonkey is able to provide.
A single charge of the powermonkey should be enough to charge a mobile phone twice. Thankfully, I can confirm that the iPod adapter works with the iPod Touch and should therefore work with the iPhone.
When it’s time to charge the powermonkey, remove the plastic cap on the other end of the powermonkey and insert the most appropriate cable and adapter. That could be the AC power adapter, USB plug connected to a PC or the solarmonkey.
I have not used the solarmonkey as a charger for the powermonkey yet. The manual indicates that a full charge of the powermonkey using this option can take a fair number of hours and is highly dependent on the amount of sunlight available. From an AC socket, the powermonkey is fully charged in about one hour and maintains its charge for a couple of months. Over and above that, the unit is water resistant and rubberized to take daily knocks and bumps in its stride.
There are two things I would like to see improved in a future version of the powermonkey. Firstly, it is not possible to charge a device while the powermonkey is being charged. For some or other reason, the pass-through of juice is disabled in that case. That can be a bit of an issue if you have only a short time to utilize a power source and want to top-up both the powermonkey and a device. Second, the array of plugs and adapters does not include an adapter for a vehicle lighter socket. That’s a serious omission in my opinion. A lighter socket adapter to accept a USB plug would have been perfect – I’ve added one from my box of spares. Other than that, the powermonkey is a great gadget to have!
The addition of the solarmonkey option in the eXplorer package does inflate the price somewhat. I highly recommend the powermonkey (which is available by itself) as a backup power supply for your devices – the solarmonkey is probably less useful, though it is able to power certain devices directly, freeing the powermonkey up for other use with other devices.
For a real juice-boost, I’m considering an acquisition of the powergorilla.
