Groov-e 3600mAh Portable Solar Charger Pack review

Posted on by Pastor Cmentarny

If you do not bother to read the whole article, then this is a main take away points:

GOOD

  1. It is designed in the UK.
  2. You can buy pre-charged at the airport.
  3. When its charge in 2A mode then it charges quite quickly.
  4. Solar panel idea.
 BAD

  1. ‘Intelligent’ charger works randomly.
  2. Too expensive for what it offers.
  3.  The solar charging is useless in practice.
  4. It does not contain information about capacity on the charger so u will struggle to go through security check on the airport. (for example in China).
  Summary. If u want to waste your money on a toy that imitates power bank then … I hope u enjoy this product. If looking for small power bank to charge your devices via USB then it is a bad choice.

STORY

I needed small power bank to be able to charge my Phone for a long-haul flight. I didn’t  have time to buy it online so I bought precharged Groov-e 3600mAh Portable Solar Charger. My hope was that I may be able to buy it cheaper but at least I bought a good quality product.

MY EXPECTATION

It should be light and be able to charge devices quickly. That’s all.

MY DAILY EXPERIENCE

  • I was happy that you can use it out of the box as it is pre-charged.
  • It claims it has 3600mAh but I struggle to charge more than 95% on HTC Butterfly S which has 3200mAh.
  • Charging power pack was always quick. Charging devices with this power pack is a very random experience.
  • The solar panel works only one time .. bearly.

‘Intelligent’ charging.

It supposes to detect can you charge with 1A or 2A. In reality, it works …. sometimes. Nexus 9 was charged 1A or 2A depends on the day. On my HTC butterfly S it was always 1A and it took ages sometimes to charge. Samsung Galaxy 4 was charged with 1A Huawei MediaPad M3  was 2A (most of the times). When it charging at 2A rate then it charges quite quickly but it often switches back to 1A.

Solar charging.

This feature worked once but it took 2 days but It does not work indoors or outdoors anymore. They claimed it will charge in 25 hours after around 15 hours of charging outdoors and 40  hours indoors it still didn’t charge even 25%!

The idea itself sounds great. If you could charge 3000mAh for 8 hours it will be a useful feature but at the moment it is not and it doesn’t really work.

SUMMARY

It works but I feel disappointed when I was using on daily basis. Groov-e describes this as Portable Solar Charger but it isn’t.  It looks like classic branded  ‘white label’ product from China but sadly not too good one. In my humble opinion if you want to waste your money on a toy that imitates power bank then … I hope u enjoy this product. If looking for small power bank to charge your devices via USB then it is a bad choice.

Company website: http://www.groov-e.co.uk/about-us