Just Mobile Gum Max portable charger

Price: £99.95 

Contact: www.xtand.net

Keep a portable charger in your glovebox and your mobile phone will always have some power in case of emergency – even if your car’s battery is flat. We tried Just Mobile’s new Gum Max.

The idea is that you charge the device at home via the mains, then stow it away in the glovebox until you need it. However, there’s no mains charger included – you’ll need your own iPhone wall plug. Considering the £100 price tag, that’s a bit disappointing.

The Gum Max charger is also large, at 11cm by 8cm and nearly 3cm thick. It fitted easily in our car’s glovebox, though. There are eight LED lights to indicate battery life, as well as a cloth bag with a separate pouch for the included iPod and mini USB charging cables.

We connected an iPhone 4 with only 15 per cent battery life and the Gum Max recharged it fully in two hours – the same as a standard Apple mains charger. Yet the device still had about 80 per cent battery life left, so we connected our fully depleted iPad. It charged this to 100 per cent, too, although by this time the last LED was flashing, which indicated that the Gum Max had less than 10 per cent charge left.

A great showing, but this would be better if you could charge your iPhone and iPad simultaneously.

Verdict

Rating: ★★★
What is it?
Portable charger that works quickly but can only charge one device at a time.
What's good?
Can recharge up to six flat iPhones, fits easily in glovebox, includes case and cables.
What's bad?
No mains charger supplied, bulky, can only charge one device at a time, hard to use, pricey.