What’s a typical day for you and your device of choice?

For me, 6.00 am start, power up the Tilt, and check email, it’s a reflex action these days, on a good day, as few as thirty something to wade through. On a bad day, well, it can get up really high depending on what the JAMM team have been rambling on about and getting off topic on while I’m asleep. Fifteen to Twenty minutes of device uptime, working out what I need to get back to and what can wait, then shower shave and shampoo to get out the front door and walk the dog, whilst checking Twitter, before I’m out the door again to get the train to work. train ride consists of answering urgent email, and trying to wade through the feeds in NewsBreak for anything that seems like urgent news, or at least of interest, for the site. 9.00 am, I’ve already run the phone for maybe an hour and a  half, needless to say, sometimes I go home with a dead device.

Any time I’m left out of contact like that, is unproductive and definitely an anxious time, [am I sounding like a web addict yet] any possible alleviation of that anxiety is welcome. So the aptly named Universal Emergency USB Charger from Proporta, is probably better than a tranquilliser for me. I’ve been trying it out for the last couple of weeks and I’m feeling a lot calmer, check out why

For any mobile device whether it’s a game console, media player, or phone, running out of power when you’re on the go, is always a bummer, but this charger can actually charge any device that can charge via USB, as long as you have the appropriate cable connection.

Starting to sound like a better solution than just carrying spare batteries isn’t it, this sleek self contained unit claims to offer you 300 percent more power than your devices native battery. We’ll see about that a bit  later, but for now

What’s In The Box?

The charger is nicely presented, and of course as usual with Proporta, in the shipping parcel, a lovely Teabag, English Breakfast this time, nice to sip whilst the package disgorges its contents.

So as a device that charges via USB, it only charges via USB itself, thus the USB charge cable on the bottom left, bottom right, bag of tips for various devices, and a retractable USB cable, very nice adaptive unit. Top, paperwork, which contains little information about the device itself. A very rudimentary description of how to charge the device if you are going to use a plug in USB charger to charge it. If it’s not in the box, why do I need instructions to use it?

Any way, let’s move on, what’s in that bag of charger tips

The choice of connector plugs is pretty random, and really, with all of the random hardware charging, and combined charge/sync combinations, it would be pretty hard to keep all of the people happy all of the time with a combination of connectors. Then again, four of the included plug adapters fitted devices I have lying around gathering dust, so Proporta have done their homework. Still though an example like this really illustrates the need for a standard/common to all devices for a charging connector.

As for the extendable portable cable that the charge pods connect to, it could be a bit tricky. You have to use two hands pulling with equal pressure to extend it to it’s full length, and the same to return it to it’s stowed away state, and then, it’s not always that smooth. it takes a bit of practice to use.

Oh, and the actual portable battery/emergency charger itself. It is such a rudimentary, minimalist design, weighs nothing in hand, and has straight forward controls, that are intuitive, any reservations I hadabout the lack of information in the box were allayed.

So above you can see the physical interface of the charger, on the left the USB power outlet, bottom center, the DC input port and in the centre the LED status display, with power status button in the centre.

There are really only two functions for the check button and display, press the button and check the power level of the charge unit, or below, to let you know you are charging a device.

For a size comparison of the unit see the images below

So that’s the Tilt and the Charger together. Probably the definitive question here is really going to be

How Does It Perform?

Now performance of any device like this is going to be personal, qualitative and subject to usage conditions if not done with a scientific blind to compare to. That being said, let’s just say I’m, for the most part blonde [typo]blind to pure science.

Proporta on the packaging of the charger say plus 300%, logical test, tether the Tilt to the charger on low charge[under 10% charge, getting notifications from WinMo].

The claims made by Proporta may work if a device is powered down, if you are using it, you can expect anywhere from twenty four to twenty eight hours of, no mains connection use.

That’s actually… 300% percent more use on a single charge, utilising the Proporta charger for a backup when the Tilt battery starts sending me WinMo tension inducing messages.

What Do I Think?

Awesome, and I don’t say that often, this is an impressive little unit that will get you out of trouble, a personal power saviour if you will, It’s available from the Proporta Portal [I just like the way that rolls off the tongue] for some foreign money, and I think it’s worth it!