When I saw the Gizmodo announcement of the Brando iPower iPhone battery extension with Speaker, I knew I had to check it out. I use some small, inexpensive Cyber Acoustics Speakers
Like any good Hong Kong-early-adopter-must-have, it took over 2 weeks to arrive, via registered mail so I could wait in line at the post office, and the manuals were just as Engrish-y as one would expect.
Fortunately there isn’t much you need to know about the iPower.
The iPower came in a very iPhone-like box and is well packaged. I was also surprised at the workmanship and finish, it holds up nicely attached to my 3G iPhone. Installing the iPhone into the iPower was very simple, it is spring-loaded and holds the iPhone very securely.
Once in the iPower, the unit is obviously heavier and larger than the iPhone alone, but it has a good feel – in fact, it feels more like using a real telephone. I would absolutely bring this with me anytime I needed more power on the train or in the car. Walking around with it in your pocket might be a little much for some people – I am a big guy with big pockets, so it fits ok for me.
iPower functionality – the supplemental battery and the speaker.
Let’s get this out of the way first: the speaker is lame and poorly designed.
1. It is tinny and mono-ish – rather than adding decent sound, it really just offers a louder speaker than the iPhone’s built-in speaker.
2. The speaker is on the back of the unit, and the unit cannot stand upright, so you can either hear the speaker well with the iphone face-down, or hear it very poorly with it face-up. This was a very poor design choice.
3. I have sometimes heard GSM noise over the speakers, which would indicate to me that they are not properly shielded. This is inexcusable. To totally avoid this, you would need to run the iPhone in airplane mode, which would obviously make calls or listening to internet radio impossible (iPhone should have a wifi-only setting imho).
4. The speaker volume controls are a bit hard to press and there is no volume indicator. This could be a problem if the speaker was inadvertently turned way up and you didn’t know it.
5. If you ‘mute’ the speakers by downing the volume all the way, but your iPod is still producing sound, the speaker will produce noise. ARGH!
In short, I would not use this speaker for small get-togethers with friends, as I do with my other speakers, and I don’t suspect I will be using it much in general.
I have not had the opportunity to do a full test on the supplemental battery, but I do like the way the battery is designed to work.
Think of it as the external fuel tanks on the space shuttle – the shuttle uses these for launch, then discards them when done and runs on its internal engines. This is exactly how I wanted to use it – take it on the train in the morning in the iPower, run the iPower down, then take it out and use it the rest of the day without the iPower.
The iPower has a 3-led indicator on the front to indicate charging status. Unfortunately, they are blue LEDs, which I dislike because they are too bright on the nightstand.
When plugged into the standard iPhone charger, the iPower will always charge the phone first, then it will charge itself – the iPhone’s battery always gets precedence. When in use, the reverse is true – the iPower will run and charge the iPhone until it is at 5% power, then it will switch over to the iPhones’s internal battery.
The iPower saves the last 5% so that the speaker can continue to be used – the speaker can run for 7 hours with this small charge. Since the speaker is pretty worthless, I would have suggested they give the iPhone everything it’s got.
Of course, you can certainly use it the other way, and click the iPhone into the iPower when your iPhone is out of juice – the iPower will charge the weak iPhone battery.
In short, I cannot recommend buying the iPower for the speaker, have not tested the battery yet, but am happy with the form factor overall.
Most supplementary batteries are about 1000 mh or less, and jut out precariously underneath the phone. The iPower holds the phone securely, with nothing jutting out, with a 2400 Mha battery.
In my opinion, every little bit helps, so I doubt I will be disappointed with the battery performance – it is rated for 3 hours. I could test it, but as we all know, testing the iPhones battery is pretty ambiguous – it can do so many things, on EVDO, 3G, and WiFi (or none) – and all of the possible combinations of usage will result in wildly different battery life results.
You can buy the Brando iPower here. They also have a version with no speaker and smaller battery, as well as a surprisingly affordable ‘traditional’ iPhone add-on battery.
8 responses so far ↓
1 George Michalopoulos // Sep 20, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I should have read your review before ordering! I just got the iPower for the iPhone 3G and I fully agree with you that the form of the battery is very good. The speaker has some additional complications. First of all, it works intermittently, about 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off, roughly speaking (timing is unpredictable). Even when the speaker is not being used, somehow the arrangement with the iPower cuts off the keyboard and other standard clicking sounds. I tested the usual charging sources and they had no such effect. As soon as I remove the iPower everything goes back to normal. I am curious whether you also noticed this after you started using it and whether you were able to find a remedy. I would very much appreciate it if you could let me know of your observations with problem.
Thanks for any comments!
2 Chris (Admin) // Sep 20, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Yeah George I have started to notice the intermittent speaker problem and the other problems you mention.
As for the battery, my iPhone was dead the other day while the iPower was charging – charged it right up to 100% pretty quickly and the iPower still showed 2 lights of power left.
So, the battery seems pretty kickass so far, the speaker is a mess as you mention.
3 Lightbrazer // Oct 4, 2008 at 10:26 am
The iPhone DOES have a wifi only mode. You put it into airplane mode (this toggles everything off) then while still in airplane mode go to settings/wifi and turn it back on. This will leave everything BUT the wifi off and violla you’re in wifi only mode. Yet another of the undocumented iPhone features.
4 Chris (Admin) // Oct 4, 2008 at 6:32 pm
lightbrazer thanks for the tip I will use that one alot!
5 Triste // Oct 8, 2008 at 8:31 pm
just wanted to find out if any other person had this experience like me and from all the reviews I’ve read, no one seems to have this issue.
To quote “When plugged into the standard iPhone charger, the iPower will always charge the phone first, then it will charge itself – the iPhone’s battery always gets precedence. ‘
When I do this, sure, the iphone 3G gets charged fully first, but then the iPower 3G just has its LED lights blinking together furiously and does this the ENTIRE night, it never ever seems to “automatically” switch to charging itself fully.
I’ve tried leaving it overnight to charge but no dice- the iPower still only has 2 bars of power remaining, as if it never has been charged at all!
It is only when I either switch off and on the iPhone that, the iPower actually charges itself by having the lights blinking in succesion as if the iPhone isn’t there, OR if I remove the iPhone.
Oh oh, and why does it seem that the iPower takes forever to charge even though it has 66% at least of battery life left?
Can anyone please help me on this?or at least tell me if my unit is faulty or not so I can bring it back for repairs.
Oh yea, my speaker died after 1 week of use.
6 Chris (Admin) // Oct 11, 2008 at 12:43 pm
yeah the speaker has pretty much stopped working on mine too – its a joke.
as for charging the iPower – if the lights are all blinking together, its not charging, if they light up in sequence slowly 1-2-3 in a loop, it is.
I learned this only after finding it uncharged overnight when plugged in and didnt know why.
This is definitely one flaky product, but it definitely keeps my iPhone running twice as long – as long as I check to make sure its charging correctly.
7 suggestions for battery extender or ways to make the battery last // Dec 4, 2008 at 6:08 pm
[...] to the Incase and Mophie versions, but for that price, i think it will be fine. Here’s one: Brando iPhone 3G “iPower” Review (First Impressions) | StationStops It’s cheaper at the website that I gave above than at the one in the [...]
8 Chintan // Dec 8, 2008 at 11:22 am
DON’T BUY THIS!!!! The first one I received worked great for two weeks. Then one day the clip on the receiving end (where you would connect a wall/usb plug to charge the iPower) loosened and fell back INTO the unit. So now there is no way of charging the iPower. Basically it is just a thick case now. I emailed the distributor and then agreed to send me a replacement. Awesome.. until 2 weeks of having this new one, and the same thing happened.
Its just not put together properly. Spend $20 more on a better product.
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