New Trent iCruiser IMP1000 10,000mAh battery pack review

I have been away for a week camping in the Lake District. As you know I am somewhat a mobile geek. Among the gadgets we brought were a HTC ChaCha, Motorola Milestone 2, Apple iPod Touch 4G, Three MiFi and Nokia N8. All these needed charging and we weren't going to find a charger point in the woods.

So here it is - a New Trent iCruiser IMP1000 battery pack with a massive 10,000mAh battery rated at 3.7V. This is significantly larger than my previous battery packs, the Motorola P793 and Proporta Ted Baker charging kit. Our previous camping trip to Wales was a nightmare when it came to sourcing power for our phones (despite having a SolarGorilla panel with us), so this will alleviate some of the issues, at least for the first couple of days.

The charger weighs 280g, which is lighter than it looks. There is a charge button which you must press to start charging. It is rather hard to press down, but is a good thing as you wouldn't want it to activate when you do not want it to. LED indicators on the button indicate the remaining capacity of the IMP1000. If there is a complain about the iCruiser, is how ugly it looks, though I guess for a product like this, looks isn't important.

Inside the glossy plastic resides a 10,000mAh battery rated at 3.7V. After voltage conversion and without factoring efficiency this translates to about five or six recharges for a typical smartphone. It outputs at 1A so charging most devices took about as long as it would be from a wall charger (roughly about an hour). In my informal tests, I managed to get about five charges from the iCruiser before it goes dead.

A USB cable is included with miniUSB and microUSB tips for charging most modern phones. In fact the charging adapters that came with the aforementioned SolarGorilla is compatible with this cable. For iPhone and iPod, you will just need the standard USB cable that came with it and you are set. An AC adaptor wall charger is also included which we brought along for the trip to charge the iCruiser whenever in cafes or restaurants. It accepts 2A input, taking about 4-5 hours to be fully charged.

Overall I am pretty happy with the iCruiser IMP1000. If you only have a single device, this will even allow you to last a week in the wild. It is compatible with a wide range of devices (cable permitting). For around £40 on Amazon, it also good value for money. If you are a traveller with an appetite for staying connected, do get this!