Just a heads up for anyone who wants a cheap usb battery pack they have a 5000 mAh New Trent one on daily steals for $29.99 dropped from it's retail price of $99.99. It's only available for the next 17 and a half hours form this post. Here's the link for people who want it:
http://mobile.dailysteals.com/
Thanks for pointing this out -
Here is the product at amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/New-Trent-iDu...0Q42/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1332954846&sr=8-5
Here is a quote from a review on amazon:
I do want to point out one advantage to this product that may not be apparent. When compared to some of their other external batteries, you do not need to use a wall charger (power brick) to charge the battery itslf. This is a HUGE advantage if you want to travel light with as little extra junk as possible. The IMP50D is packaged with a small coiled USB to mini-USB cable that is used to charge the unit. This means you can charge this battery from any usb port (if traveling with your laptop). You can also charge it from the little charging cube that came with your iPhone, like this one Apple USB Power Adapter for iPod/iPhone . This means that the only thing you need to carry is the battery and this little cord. This is a very well thought out design.
I am on a kick to minimize the amount of extra BS I need to carry with me.
My current energizer battery packs are 4000mAh but require a proprietary A/C charging cable - so their portability is somewhat compromised by being able to re-charge them on the road.
I've had them for a long while, longer then i've had this phone, and at the time simply having usb battery available was the concern and the price was right to not quibble over details.
Now, though, buying something new has new requirements, which this item is near to meeting. One of which is standardizing of cables.
I have a retractable mini-usb cable, so i'm ahead of the game on the recharge cable for this battery pack - but it's not quite the micro-usb that the doubleshot uses and that would eliminate having another cable entirely.
( The redeeming factor that makes this an okay consideration, or at least an acceptable exemption for this ONE situation with cables - PS3 controller is mini-usb so when I get that working it'll be the same cable anyway... )
...at the price on the daily steals website, not getting this I think would be a mistake on my part. Being able to recharge it out in the wild (because I don't bring the energizer AC with me unless it's an actual trip, so aren't part of my daily arsenal) is a step forward.
It says compatible with all apple AC power blocks, so that'll work with the slim HTC AC/USB power block we have, it's the smallest one i've found and should work with my car adapter so I can keep it topped off.
Browsing through tha Amazon reviews leads to the notion that the power button is raised a bit and turns itself on if bumped, but I don't carry things like this out in the world without it's own case anyways so that just means it needs a hardshell one. Figure that out once I physically have it.
I don't like that it doesn't stop discharging on device full, but you can't win them all and in my experience I rarely actually fill the device while it's on the battery pack, it more turns into a cord running into my pocket until I get back up to 80% or so.
I used the doubleshot all night at a wedding I was the best man in, pictures and video, and what I did was to feed the power cord through my belt loops and into my back pocket, where I had the energizer battery pack. That kept it close to my body so people didn't get caught up with it, and I was able to work my way through the crowd of dancing people taking pictures and video using the battery pack in my pocket, having run the stock battery into the ground long before.
Reviews also lead to the notion that you can't charge a device with the battery pack while charging the pack itself, so that's a point of contention to be handled on the next upgrade after this one.
After having passed on the Mugen extended battery this week, too, this seems like a workable compromise on the road to consolidation.
9 hours left before it's a much less attractive options...
Thanks for letting us know about the deal!