14 DAY TRIAL // While the tech revolution has gifted the mobile phone industry with massive upgrades in terms of cameras and performance, there’s still so much more to improve when it comes to the battery life offered to customers.
I mean, it’s true, a high-end device today is fully capable of replacing a desktop computer in some regards, but the main drawback continues to be the battery life that all these smartphones come with.
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the evolution of the mobile industry in the last decade, it’s pretty clear that the focus of most device makers out there hasn’t necessarily been on battery life. And the iPhone 12, a model that was launched earlier this fall, is the living proof in this regard. It has a battery capacity of just 2,815 mAh, which is barely an increase from the 2,750 mAh unit used on the iPhone 6s Plus launched in September 2015.
The main reason for this lack of focus on battery life is partially the typical usage behavior, as most customers are just fine with one full day per charge, simply because they can actually plug in their devices every night. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that having to charge your phone every day is the most convenient thing to do, and it certainly becomes a huge pain in the neck if you’re away.
Just imagine you’re going on a trip and you need to spend a day off the grid. A phone that barely gets through the day would definitely use a battery upgrade, but since this isn’t possible, the only way to go is an alternative source of power. And in most cases, the solution is a power bank.
I already use a 10,000 mAh power bank for my two phones every time I’m out for a full day, but the main drawback is that I always need to make sure I recharge it the night before. And it’s all because recharging such a large power bank takes up to several hours, which means it must stay plugged in during the night to make sure I’m ready to go early in the morning.
The engineers over at Real Graphene, however, have found a way to deal with the whole thing. It’s a battery that can recharge fully in just 17 minutes, which means that you can just plug it in when you wake up, and then it’ll reach 100 percent battery level by the time you’re ready to leave the house.
And this is exactly how I tested the G-Lite 60W with 5,000 mAh. I woke up in the morning at 7 AM with the goal of leaving the house at 7:30 AM. I plugged in the battery the minute I woke up and went to brush my teeth and do my typical morning routine. 13 minutes later, the fourth LED light was already flashing, which means it was already charged over 75 percent.
I barely had the time to make a cup of tea and then I checked the battery again, and it was already at 100 percent. According to my timer, it took 19 minutes to fully charge.
A few days later I conducted a second more accurate test to determine how fast Real Graphene’s battery can actually recharge, this time while keeping an eye on its progress. It took a little over 18 minutes for the G-Lite to go from 0 to 100%.
How’s this possible? you could ask.
It’s all based on an innovation that comes down to graphene being used in a typical lithium-ion battery. Thanks to its properties, as the graphene is a super-fast conductor of electricity, is 6 times lighter and 200 times stronger than steel, this compound brings a series of massive improvements to a regular battery.
First of all, it increases the life span of a battery, which is likely 5 times bigger in terms of charging cycles (the parent company estimates G-Lite is good to go for 1,000 recharges). Then, graphene improves the cooling efficiency and generates less heat.
“When a device is charging, heat is generated based on resistivity of conductor. Generated heat increases the resistivity of lithium. Since the lithium is hotter, the resistivity is higher, which means the device charges even more heat. All of this heat creates a positive feedback loop that can spiral out of control and cause the battery to literally burst into flames. As you can imagine, this isn’t ideal, so to prevent from catching on fire, batteries will regulate the speed of charging, but this results in battery charging speeds to slowly crawl,” Real Graphene explains.
In real life, I can confirm that you barely feel the battery is getting warm when it’s plugged in, and this is such a big change from charging a standard battery. According to the official specs, the highest it gets is 45 degrees Celsius, and this is impressive, to say the least. Not to mention that the whole thing happens super-fast, and this is clearly what sets it apart from the rest of the batteries out there.
It’s true, 5,000 mAh may not be enough for multiple recharges, but it can deal with the power needs of most devices out there. And look at the whole thing this way: if you’re out of battery power, it’s actually faster to recharge this device and then transfer the power to your handheld than to actually plug in your phone and wait until you get a full charge.
The design of the G-Lite is really premium, and it tips the scales at just 200 grams, so it’s super-easy to carry it around, even in your pocket. It comes with one USB-A and one USB-C port, with the latter being used for both input and output. You can check out the full specifications in the box at the end of the text.
One of the best things about this small yet super-capable power bank is the support for pass-through charging, which means that you can charge the power bank and the smartphone at the same time. This is mostly useful in those cases where you can’t let your devices plugged in for more than a few minutes, so theoretically, this allows you to get some extra juice rapidly.
At the end of the day, Real Graphene’s innovation isn’t about building the world’s fastest charging power bank. It’s actually a lot more than that. This new technology paves the way for a new generation of products that would eventually change the way we recharge our batteries on a daily basis. This is the future, and the faster more companies embrace it, the better for consumers.
And trust me, once you try out a graphene-based battery and see how fast everything works, going back to a standard power bank feels like from downgrading from an iPhone 12 all the way down to an iPhone 4.
