Hardware Bistro

Product: USB TurboCharger 3400
Manufacturer: Proporta
Supplied by: Proporta
Price: 49.5USD/RM175
Launch Date: July 2009

 

Proporta shouldn't sound new to you if you have been following our reviews closely. Today we will take a step further to review one of their lately launched products; USB TurboCharger 3400. Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is the successor of Ted Baker where both of these devices are a USB portable charger with internal battery storage for charging up any gadget at anytime anywhere.

 

Company Profile

Proporta has been designing and manufacturing the best PDA Cases, Smartphone Cases, MP3 Player Cases and iPod Cases as well as providing PDA Cables, PDA Screen Protectors, PDA Accessories over the past 12 years. In this time, our product selection has expanded to include both serial and bluetooth GPS Solutions, bluetooth keyboards, Smartphone Cables, Blackberry Cases, iPod nano Cases and many more mobile device accessories.

 

Features

- Charge anywhere, recharge anything; over and over
- Comes with retractable cable and range of interchangeable connector heads
- Connectors: DS Lite, iPod, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Micro USB & Mini USB
- LED display shows level of charge.
- Impressive 3400 mAh storage; enough to recharge your devices several times.

 

Package & Contents

 

Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 comes with a semi-transparent black cardboard box with an internal plastic container inside. All the connectors, accessories are stated at the back of the box; battery pack, retractable USB cable, drawstring bag and plenty of connector heads. Most of the Proporta products will comes with life time warranty but unfortunately this is not the case for USB TurboCharger 3400 since it is a sensitive device. 

 

There are plenty of connector heads included for Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 which can be used for iPod/iPhone, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Mini USB, Micro USB and Nintendo DS Lite device. Besides that a drawstring bag is included for keeping this battery pack and other accessories safely. A multi-language user's manual is included which provides very detail information regarding how to use this device properly.

 

A Closer Look: Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400

Let us explain further about this device from Proporta as we believe there are certain of people still not fully understand the functionality and capability of this device. Basically Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is an external rechargeable battery storage pack for most of the gadget devices through USB port such as mobile phone, GPS navigator, PSP, iPhone, iPod and etc; very interesting and useful functionality.

 

Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is a small device with portable dimension; 100 x 60 x 15 mm which is pretty slim enough for keeping it easily; even inside a pocket. The whole unit of Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 comes with black casing with less than 100 grams weight. The most important thing to know when selecting such rechargeable battery storage pack is the battery storage capacity besides the charging rate; 3400mAh capacity, 5V DC 500mA input and 5.5V 700mA output for Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400.

3400mAh is the battery storage capacity of Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 and such capacity is good enough to fully charge most of the latest mobile phone and other popular gadget. 500mA and 700mA are the input recharging and output charging rate; Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is having stronger charging rate than recharging rate. Besides the USB recharging method, Proporta also offers other charging methods; USB TurboCharger 3400 World Pack which includes car and world AC power adapters.

 

Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 comes with two connectors (IN, OUT) and one button. "IN" connector is for connecting to the power source for recharging up this device before it has full battery storage to charge up any gadget device (fresh unit will come with 50 - 75% pre-charged battery storage). While the button is used for checking the dynamic battery storage level when nothing is connected with it. If any gadget is connected to this device then the button will act as the start function to charge up the connected gadget.

One of the obvious improvements for Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 over its predecessor is the battery level indicators which is a set of blue LED. Each LED is indicating 20% of its battery level and if the battery storage is going to flat soon then the remaining last LED will start flashing. Once the Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is fully recharged by the power source (through computer USB port) then all these 5 LEDs will shine brightly.

 

Since Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 can support multiple of devices and due to non standardization of the connector heads, Proporta has no choice but provided six different kind of famous connector heads while the rest of the rare and unique connector heads still can be purchased separately as well from Proporta; here. The retractable USB cable (80mm length) serves two functions here which can be used to recharge up the internal battery storage or charge up the connected gadget. 

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Let's us continue with the testing and performance of Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400. First of all, we have decided to deplete all the internal battery storage (comes with 50-75% per-charged) so that we can have a better accuracy test results. After that we have recharged up Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 with our notebook through USB port and the whole recharging process takes around 3 - 4 hours which is pretty slow but it is predictable since it is just recharged by a notebook through USB port. Anyway during the recharging period, Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 will have dynamic indicators and once it is fully charged then these LED indicators will shine brightly.

Once the Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is fully charged then it can be used anytime anywhere to charge up any gadget device. For the testing purpose, we have chosen Nokia E71 with the appropriate connector head. After everything is connected correctly, remember to press the start button so that the charging will be started automatically and it takes around 2 hours to fully charge our Nokia E71 and it still have around 50% remaining battery storage since the capacity of Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is more than the battery storage of our Nokia E71. Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 will auto turn off once the device is unplugged after 30s for power saving purpose.

 

Verdicts

Overall we are quite satisfied with this Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400; a portable universal rechargeable charger with such great capability and flexibility to support multiple gadgets. Although Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 comes with plenty of connector heads which are more than enough to support most of the latest and famous devices but other rare connector heads still can be purchased optionally from Proporta as well. Besides that if you need the car and wall AC power adapters then you can get the complete set of this devide from Proporta with just additional ~ 8 USD. Besides that its LED indicator is a good feature which allows user to check the battery storage level and charging process. No doubt Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 is definitely a great rechargeable charger especially for travellers.

 

Pros:

+ Slim & lightweight
+ charging anywhere, anytime
+ Impressive 3400mAh battery storage
+ LED indicators; battery level, charging status
+ Comes with multiple connector heads
+ Retractable USB cable

Cons:

- A bit slow charging rate

Thanks to Proporta for providing this sample for us to review.

 

 

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