Introduction:
Xiaomi is new entrant in smartphone world launched last month. Xiaomi presented its latest flagship in the market Mi 3 last month and gathered huge attention of the world. Xiaomi is Chinese Smartphone Company with promising innovation line up of smartphone. Xiaomi has long term strategies to hold the market and to ground the market, company is targeting smartphone segment as well as other accessories segment. Mi3 smartphone was full of resources like good display, hardware, camera and battery and this features helped this company to collect global attention. Xiaomi has planned to diversify the market and so it has come up with power bank accessories.
Now you don’t have to worry about the low battery backup of the smartphone, plug your smartphone in to Xiaomi’s power bank and continue using your smartphone at any place. Xiaomi has launched two power banks with different power backup capacity of 5,200mAh and 10,400mAh. Depending upon the usage we can choose among these two ranges of power bank. Xiaomi knows the competition in the market and so it has priced this power bank smartly. Xiaomi 5,200 mAh power bank can be owned at 799 rupees whereas 10,400 mAh power bank at 999 rupees. It can only be purchased from most of the online ecommerce Portals, such as MeriMobiles. We are going to review both these power bank in detail to know the pros and cons associated with these devices.
Design and Packaging:
Looks and feel of this device is stunning as Mi has introduced its device wrapped with anodized shell which adds premium looks to it. Body built is curvy from both the sides portraying elegant looks and has Mi branding on the front side. Parts inside is assembled from different manufacturers, design concept is delivered by Texas Instruments whereas cell inside the body is given by either LG or Samsung. Color variant is market dependent as Indian market gets only silver colored device but other markets has different color variant to choose from.
Silver body crafted with help of aluminum material, though the body is made up of aluminum it is scratch resistant and feels solid in hand. Body is quite tough to bear number of bruises easily but can result in dent on the sides of the body. Another essential feature found in this device is body is water and corrosion resistant which is very useful because most countries has climate very humid, so this device will be the best under severe conditions too.
Mi power bank with 5,200 mAh is compact and very easy to carry it in the pocket. One with 10,400 mAh power is little heavier and little bigger compared with other variant. Power bank with 5,200 mAh is only 5.5cm wide and weighing just 155 grams equivalent to the weight of smartphones. Power bank with 10,400 mAh is little heavier weighing 245 grams and is easily adjustable in the pockets.
Coming to the power supply of both the power bank, 10,400 mAh power bank has input of 2.0A but outputs 2.1A and is capable of charging iPad but 5,200 mAh power bank offers only 1.5A output which is not sufficient to charge iPad. Power banks comes with only accessories of USB cable this means to charge these power bank we need to purchase wall charger. Wall charger should have charging capacity with 2A, if you use 1A charger then you will have to wait for long hours to get these power bank fully charged. Power banks are given with LED indicators, ordinary USB slot, microUSB charging slot and power button on the top. LED indicator helps to identify the charge remaining and is easily visible under normal lighting conditions. Body design and built-up is smartly assembled which provides tough as well as good looks.
Performance:
We noticed that design section of these power banks is stunning but rather than design of the device performance is given great importance. Power bank of 10,400 mAh is capable of charging iPad device for more than one time but smartphones like Moto G and Mi 3 can be charged for five and 3 times respectively. With one full charge of this power bank you can charge your tablets for more than one time and smartphones for more than 3 times which is good backup for any power bank.
Problem faced by most of the power banks are power loss during voltage conversion but Mi power bank assures to get 93% charging conversion rate for 10,400 mAh power bank and 85% voltage conversion for 5,200mAh variant. Heating of the power bank is normal while supplying power to smartphone but Mi power banks are exceptional, we didn’t notice any heating issues of the device while charging smartphone for hours.
Mi power banks has only one demerits that only one device can be connected for charging, we were expecting atleast two device to be connected in the power bank for simultaneous charging of both the smartphones. Connecting two smartphones will lead to decrease the efficiency of performance so Mi has planned to go with only one device charging at one time.
