Review : GMATE 25,000 mAH PowerBank
No, I'm not trying to start a tech blog. I just want to share my personal experience about this product. Several months ago, I bought a Gmate 25,000 mAH powerbank from an online seller. At 2.4k (I think), which came along with a couple of charging cables, a plug, and a Samsung earphone, it's already okay. Along with it, I also bought my guy a Moyou 20,000 mAH powerbank in Red Ferrari version. On the outside : Since I love pink, I went ahead in buying the darker pink version. I'm actually more of a fan of carnation pink, but the old rose pink version of this powerbank just fell short of my expectations, so I bought the darker pink one. The plastic, well, to be direct, looks cheap. Thin, brittle, and looks something that can be easily cracked. Matte. Looks pale in comparison if put alongside with the other one I bought (Moyou). It is slim and tall. It fits perfectly to those black pouches that comes along with sunglasses. You can carry this together with your other stuff in a shoulder bag, or doctor's bag, and it won't look awkward, or you won't find things harder to organize when it is in your bag. Its shape and physical dynamics makes it a winner on these aspects. Charging time : Initially, my Gmate charges for more than 12 hrs. I mean, I get to work around 9am, charge it there, leave around 7pm, with it still charging, but with a current battery charge of 2 bars out of 4 that time. It will only get full by the time I go back to work the next day. I am using my Samsung S4's charger, if not the Belkin wall charger with an old Samsung phone's USB charging connector. However, lately, it now only charges less than 12 hrs. Energy capacity : I heard from a techie colleague that generally, powerbanks use 30% of their charging capacity to enable them to do their device charging work. So that leaves us 70% of the charged energy to power our draines devices. But, there are also other factors that must be considered. The factory battery life (usually, u can find this behind your phone's battery. For non-iPhone users, you may remove your battery and look for the mAH detail from the side facing the device), the *actual* battery life (just like any other thing on this planet, batteries, by nature, deteriorates too, over time. So this depends on how many charging cycles or how old your mobile phone battery is.), the cable being used (the voltage it allows), and the outlet in the powerbank the device is plugged to (powerbanks always have two different DCVs, but in Gmate's case, it only had two 5DCV USB outlets). So before, when it was still new, I am able to charge my Samsung S4 for ~4-5 times. (Btw, my S4 battery is somewhere around 2.3k I think). But now, it can only charge ~2-3, with the third charging already incomplete. My say : I am disappointed with how Gmate performs on this one. The way it was performing before, for me, is the least that I can expect from a 25kmAH powerbank. Also, the online seller fronts the brand to be using Samsung batteries inside, hence, its huge and reliable capacity. I am not saying that I believed it, as I don't really see Samsung as a reliable party when it comes to batteries with large capacities (Galaxy S1, S2, S3, Note 2, hello?), it's just that generally, for a 25kmAH, that costed the same as Moyou, this product really stank. It deteriorated too quickly. My boyfriend's Moyou is still performing perfectly up to this date, and he's got no problems with it. Supposedly, my Gmate is capable of charging more phones. But it seems like his 20kmAH is capable of yielding more devices than my 25k mAH powerbank. So in short, DO NOT BUY powerbanks of this brand. It's gonna break your wallet, and it's gonna crack by itself in just a matter of months. Literally. That's what's happening now with my unit. So please consider getting other brands for now, than getting the same one that I had.
