Duracell GoPower Charger

Duracell Powermat’s GoPower is an external battery pack that can work as a standalone solution to charge any of your USB-powered gadgets or one that integrates with a PowerSnap Kit. The GoPower is available in three different configurations, depending on how much added power you’ll need on the road. At the basic, a GoPower Day Trip($60) provides 1850 mAh of additional charge time. A mid-sized GoPower Overnighter ($80) packs in 4400 mAh of battery power. The most robust GoPower battery is the Long Haul, which Duracell Powermat markets as good for multi-day use, comes with a whopping 8800 mAh battery.
The Long Haul comes with two USB ports so I can simultaneously charge two of my gadgets at the same time, whether they be phones, cameras, tablets, or any other battery-powered devices that can charge over USB. The Day Trip, on the other hand, comes with two pull-out cables that are affixed to the battery pack itself, with one cable being a Lightning cable and the second a micro USB. And then the mid-range Overnighter comes with a single USB port.
This inclusive system is convenient as it doesn’t require you packing your own cables with you to charge your gadgets, though you may still need a cable to charge the Day Trip itself.
For review, we got the GoPower Long Haul and Overnighter in for testing. With these units, the GoPower sport a rectangular brick-lick design with a matte black plastic casing. On the front end, where the USB ports are located, you’ll find Duracell’s signature “Copper Top” color scheme, which serves a dual purpose. The Copper Top is a button that you can press, and there are four LED lights on the right top side that light up to indicate how much power is remaining in the battery itself–if no lights come on, then you’ll need to recharge your fully depleted GoPower.
On the front side, you’ll find two full sized USB ports to plug your cables in. A smaller micro USB port is also situated here so that you can charge your GoPower battery via micro USB, similar to other traditional universal battery solutions. However, as no wall charger is included in the box, you’ll need to reuse your phone’s wall charger if you go this route of recharging your GoPower.
A second way, which is convenient especially if you already have a PowerSnap Kit, is to use the Powermat wireless charger to recharge your GoPower.
Powermat uses a different magnetic inductive charging technology than the Qi chargers that are employed by Nokia, Google on the Nexus line, and others are using on the market today, so the GoPower will not work with those Qi-powered wireless chargers. However, if you do have a Duracell Powermat wireless charging pad, all you would need to do is drop the GoPower on top of the PowerMat wireless charger.

CONCLUSION

The GoPower is competitively priced with other universal battery power solutions. For example, the Mophie powerstation XL, which comes with a slightly larger 12000 mAh battery, retails for $130. However, the advantage of the GoPower is the tight integration into Powermat’s and Duracell’s wireless charging ecosystem as the battery can also be wirelessly recharged on a PowerMat wireless charger. This is a nice benefit if you already have bought into the PowerMat ecosystem through wireless charging cases and shells.