We live in a very mobile world, cellphones and MP3 players are a common accessory for most people, but with that comes the responsibility to keep that device charged all of the time. If you’re like me you’ve forgotten more than once to charge your phone or Mp3 player, and it’s not fun when the battery dies. Of course I went and got a car charger for just such occasions, but that only charges my phone, then I got a cigarette lighter power adapter with a USB port on it so I can now charge anything that can be powered by USB, but that’s just more expenses and more stuff to worry about losing.

Today for review I’ve got an interesting and very useful little gadget called the Powerstick, it’s from a company called Ecosol that makes many other types of power related products, by their name you can see they are an environmentally conscience company as well so this product should strike a chord with the green in you. Green aside though, this product is something that surprised me with it’s function and form, it truly works as advertised. The main purpose of the product is to provide portable power for your portable devices like MP3 players and cellphones, it comes with several tips for popular devices. The Powerstick charges its internal battery from any USB port quickly, and there’s even an LCD display to let you know the status of the battery’s charge. The Powerstick works and works well…

Many products like these are more of a gimmick than anything and normally don’t hold up tot eh claims made by the manufacturers, but the Powerstick is different, for the basic charging purpose of this device it performs exactly as claimed, it’s easy to use and it’s very portable.

I’ve got a brief unboxing video for you, and below that are some still pictures, check it out and continue on:

 

Specifications:

POWERSTICK – USB POWERED PORTABLE CHARGER

THIS IS NOT AN ACCESSORY.
THIS IS AN ESSENTIAL.
USB POWERED PORTABLE CHARGER
CHARGES ALL YOUR MOBILE PHONES, PDA’S AND MP3 PLAYERS ON THE GO.

The Powerstick is the winner of the CES Award for Best of Innovation. It charges mobile devices such as BlackBerrys, cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, iPhones, iPods, digital cameras, GPS and MP3 Players. It is simply charged from any USB port including computers and laptops and then used to charge mobile devices; no disposable batteries or wall chargers are required.

The Powerstick fueled by Ecosol transcends the traditional battery-in-a-case charger. Over two years of research and world class engineering have led to the most sophisticated, smallest and alluring portable charger yet. Designed to be reliable and to fuel your mobile lifestyle.

FEATURES
* The Powerstick is the greenest charging solution – no disposable batteries, and no wall chargers.
* The most convenient solution for charging – charge it by using any USB port including your laptop.
* The most convenient charger to carry with you. The size of a stick of gum, it fits easily in your pocket or purse and weighs only 40 grams.
* Provides you with the freedom of not worrying if your mobile devices are running out of power.
* Introduces to the market a top-notch, essential, trendy, and innovative product.
* And finally, the Powerstick is safer for mobile devices, as it has a micro-controlled processor that provides power only as needed.

The Powerstick comes with 9 connectors to charge most popular cellpphones, pda, mp3 players and gps devices. Check the compatabilty section to see if the Powerstick charges your device.

SPECS:

Battery Type: Lithium Polymer
Output Voltage: DC 5V max
Output Current: 700mA max
Operating T°: 0 to 40°C / 32 to 104°F
Storage & Transportation T°: 20 to 50°C / – 4 to 122°F
Charge Time (to 90% capacity): 0 to 90 minutes
Discharge Time: 0 to 60 minutes
Dimensions: 25x110x14mm / 1.0×4.3×0.55″
Weight: 35g / 1.23oz
Cycle Life: 1,000+
Charge Input Voltage: 4.5 – 5.5V
Charge Input Current: 10 – 500mA
Capacity: 750mAh

Price: $55.00 – 65.00 (Depending where you look)

Charging the Powerstick is easy, just stick it in any available USB port, sit back and wait. There are bars on the LCD display that blink, eight of them actually, and when all eight are blinking that means the Powerstick is fully charged and ready to go. It took about 90 minutes to charge the first time, after I used it though it seemed to take a shorter amount of time to charge, I’m guessing because the battery wasn’t fully drained.

What’s nice about charging via USB is that you can charge it most anywhere as long as there’s a USB port, you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues, no matter where you go in the world you’ll be able to charge this device and then of course charge your devices off of it. I also like the USB idea as you can just plug it in while you’re working and basically forget about it, but if it’s in your computer you aren’t apt to leave it anywhere, especially if you have a laptop.

I recently got a few iPod docks for review and I was testing them with my iPod so it gave me a chance to play with the Powerstick that way. So I charged my iPod with the Powerstick, it worked perfectly and it seemed to take the same amount of time as it would if I were charging my iPod normally.

To charge a device you simply attach the adapter you need, plug it into the device and hit the power button, the Powerstick then starts charging your device. The LCD display shows the same eight bars, but this time counts backwards as the battery is drained on the Powerstick. Here’s some shots of charging the iPod:

   

When the iPod was charged I noticed there was still some juice left in it, the Powerstick, so I proceeded to charge my phone as well, it was only down 1/4th at the time as I charged it recently, but the Powerstick fully recharged the battery of my AT&T Tilt in a matter of 10-15 minutes.

 

There’s not much to this device really, so there’s not too much more to say about it’s functionality and how it works, it just works like it’s supposed to.

I do have one small complaint though about this device, it won’t charge my Zune, rather unhappy about that as I truly expected it would. I didn’t visit their site until after I unboxed it, and just read the box, the box says ‘Charges all your mobile phones, PDAs and MP3 players on the go’ well that’s not quite true, it should be charges ”most of your” and not “all”, but oh well on that one. I did email them and they said they’re adding more devices to their compatibility list all of the time with the addition of new tips. The main reason I’ve got to complain about it is that I use my Zune everyday now, I got a new car and it has and Auxiliary port in it for audio, so I can use my Zune in the car to carry a lot of music with me and now I don’t even have CDs in my car.

My suggestion to them would be to create a female USB port style tip, that way the Powerstick could be ‘almost’ universally compatible. Most every portable device comes with a USB cable and can be charged via the USB cable, adding this USB tip would solve many problems with compatibility issues, my Zune could have been easily charged via the USB cable. The tip could actually do double duty, say if you lost the tip for iPod charging, well you could use the iPod cable and the USB tip to still charge it, so you won’t lose that usability.

This product could have gotten a perfect score were it not for that little incompatibility and wording issue on the box. Seriously though the name suggests USB charging, and the description suggests universal compatibility, I honestly thought it could charge USB powered devices, I thought wrong…

Conclusion:

I ran into no real issues at all with this product, it works exactly as advertised, even better than I expected really. Most times things like this are quite gimmicky and usually don’t work as well as the creators claim them to, but the Powerstick worked fine.

Overall I feel the Powerstick is an excellent product and well deserving of your money if you’re like me and quite often forget to charge your portable devices.

I can honestly recommend this product to anyone with a need for something like this.

Pros:
Very easy to use
Quick charging
Very portable
Relatively inexpensive
Comes with many tips
Seems well made

Cons:
Not fully compatible with all devices (yet)

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance