Thanks to the battery crisis that our smartphones suffer everyday, battery packs are becoming an essential part of everyone’s kit. Featuring the ability to charge most devices in use, they act as life savers or just little bursts of boost. Shaped like bricks, these are often dull looking devices, which are never really shown off.
Case Power are trying to buck the trend by introducing the Urban Big, which brings with itself a slim sleek design, and the kind of look that is made to be shown off. A smart flat cable and a pouch accompany this device.
Look and feel
This device is all about the look and feel. Less than a cm thick and roughly the size of a mobile phone, this seems to have taken a page out of the Sony design book. Encased in black anodized metal, it features a curve at one end and a flat side on the other, featuring the two USB ports and a micro USB port to charge this. The cable that comes with this is arguably designed to support the charging.
Also on this side are four LEDs that let you know the state of the charge for this device. The cool thing is that you just need to touch the device to enable those LEDs, rather than having to press any button. Very clever!
The words Case Power appear on the battery pack, as well as the cable.
The cable itself seems to be encased in tough rubber, giving it a good comfortable feel. USB on one end, micro USB on the other, it lets you charge the device from an available USB source, or use this to charge an Android (or similar) device.
Output
2.4A is the new 2.1A when it comes to device charging, and this is the first battery pack I have tried that comes with the capability. While I am not sure if this can allow smart charging or not, as I haven’t got a device to try that on me right now, 2.4A should give you enough power to charge any device you may plug in, for now.
However, it only offers 2.4A, as in, if you plug in two devices, this will be divided between the two. How the balance may work could be interesting, but I imagine it will be at least 1A per device.
So you won’t be able to charge two iPads with this, but it should be able to handle two phones easily.
As far as the capacity goes, it offers 8000mAh, which should charge most phones at least 3 times, and any tablet almost twice.
More information
More information on this device can be found on the Case Hut website:
It retails for £35 and can be bought directly from their website.
Verdict
This battery pack makes a good effort at going beyond what is a dull device, and achieves it in style, quite literally!