Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile Review

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Product: C1 Mobile
Manufacturer: Arctic Cooling
Supplied by: Arctic Cooling
Price: 24.6USD/RM77.40
Launch Date: April 2010

Today's mobile phones are drawing more power than ten years ago due to largest screen, greater speed, wireless, Bluetooth, GPS and etc hence most of the internal batteries will not able to last long. To resolve this issue especially for mobility users, an external battery pack is recommended; just like Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile, a 4400mWh lithium-ion battery pack with solar panel recharging method.

Company Profile

ARCTIC COOLING is a privately owned company founded in 2001 with headquarters in Switzerland, offices in Hong Kong and the USA and production facilities in Asia. The ARCTIC COOLING team consists o f international highly educated people with business, technical and communicational skills. The attitude to work is based o n Swiss principles of innovative spirit and high standards of workmanship for which it is recognized internationally. This striving for excellence is integrated in all processes as a matter of course.

ARCTIC COOLING´s core competencies are multifarious including systematic noise reduction,copper and aluminum heatsink development, customization of thermal solutions, as well as designing quiet fans. More recently quiet and cool PC Cases and Power Supplies have been developed.

Features

• Built-in 4400 mWh lithium-ion rechargeable battery
• Ideal for high-powered devices everywhere
• Fast and save charging by the USB cable provided
• Adapter for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola included

Specifications

Package & Contents

Most of us may not aware that actually Arctic Cooling has started their power related products in year 2009 such as USB DC adapter, USD car adapter, recharger battery as well as charger. Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is packed with a transparent plastic container; sealed and compact.

Features, specifications and how-to-use guides of Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile are stated at the back of the packaging container. To gain better confidence from the consumers, Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile comes with 2-year limited warranty; pretty attractive for such value product.

A Closer Look on Arctic C1 Mobile

External battery pack is not a newly launched device as such devices have been selling pretty well especially for iPhone users. However something unique about Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile than other external battery packs is the solar panel where it gives additional method to recharge the Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile when normal power source is not obtainable.

This is pretty interesting as Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile can be recharged under sunlight or other light sources (slower recharging process); very suitable for outdoor usage such as jungle trekking, camping and etc. Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile's size doesn't get impacted with its additional solar panel where its size and weight are well maintained at 110 x 43 x 12 (L x W x H) mm and 52 grams.

Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile comes with 4440 mWh Li-ion rechargeable battery pack but don't be confused with that as the right capacity measurement for battery is mAh instead of mWh. 4440mWh is equal with 810mAh with 5.5V output and this explains why the Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is lighter than others.

810mAh is not a huge capacity but with its unique selling point (solar panel), Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile has its own market. The black surface of Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is the solar cells which convert the sunlight/light into electrical energy and store it under the internal battery pack. On top the Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile where we could not find its real usage except hanging the device.

Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is able to provide DC power with 5.5V at 500mA; a standard requirement for most of the mobile and USB devices. In term of recharging method, Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile has two recharging methods as we mentioned previously but both of these methods has different charging speed; Solar Panel (5.5V, 80mA) or USB (5V, 300mA).

At the bottom portion of Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile's front panel, there are three LED indicators which are used to indicate the internal power capacity; 3 LEDs on (70-100%), 2 LED on (30-70%) and 1 LED on (10-30%). Two ports are available for Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile; mini USB port is used for recharging the internal battery while the normal USB port is used to charge up the connected device.

Here are the bundled accessories for Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile; there are total four connectors for Sony Ericssion, Nokia & Samsung mobiles and a mini USB adapter for any USB devices which is also used to recharge the Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile. A single USB extension cable is given so that the charging and recharging will not occur at the same time.

On the Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile' packaging, iPhone devices are supported but we could not find the required cable/connector at first but after some investigation then we only found out user has to use their own iPhone's cable for connecting to Arctic Cooling Arctic C1; we prefer an additional iPhone cable/connector is given since it does not cost much.

The provided USB cable is a coiled cable which can be extended at least up to two feet. Here are the ways to setup the Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile for recharging and charging; we have no idea whether both of these charging and recharging can be done at the same time or not but it is better not to do so due to safety concern.

Installation, Testing & Performance

It is not difficult to setup Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile as it is a plug and play device. The recharging process can be done through two methods; direct under sunlight which will takes at least 12 hours or more with other light source. For faster recharging method, it will only take 2 hours with DC recharging; either through USB port or through DC adapter. However during our test, the first initial recharging process took around eight hours for fully charging up the internal battery pack.

Now let us discuss about the charging process where we have tested Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile with couple of devices such as iPhone 4 and Arctic Cooling P311 Bluetooth headset. Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile has no problem to charge up the P311 Bluetooth headset since P311 just requires very minimize power. However for iPhone 4, Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is not able to fully charge it up due to limited capacity. This is not a real issue of Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile as it was designed to be used as an emergency backup source rather than a powerful external battery source; furthermore solar panel is the real unique selling point of Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile although it takes longer time to get it recharge.

Verdicts

Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is not an ordinary external battery pack as it comes with additional recharging method; solar charging either direct under sunlight or other light sources. Arctic Cooling Arctic C1 Mobile is a pretty affordable device although it comes with solar panel; just cost less than 25USD so getting it for charging some low-power USB devices or acts as an emergency battery pack for your mobile phone is not a bad idea. Hopefully Arctic Cooling will release another higher capacity model in future for heavy-usage users.

Pros:

+ Light weight & compact size
+ Solar panel recharging method
+ Support any USB devices
+ 2-year warranty
+ Affordable price

Cons:

- iPhone's cable is not bundled

Thanks to Arctic Cooling for providing this sample for us to review.

Innovative