Stay Charged with Juice Review

Reviewed by David Savage

As a nation, we own millions of devices such as smartphones, tablets, eReaders and portable speakers. While the different technologies are excellent, they all have the same flaw – the battery life is limited, need constant charging and often depletes at the most inopportune moments.

Charging batteries can be quite time consuming and you are not always near a power socket or even a laptop to plug your phone into to get a bit of charge. Fortunately, Juice have a number of options for fast battery charging for the home and portable charging. I was lucky enough to be sent two of the different options – a super-fast USB mains charger and a portable power bank, both suitable for this techy-savvy age and the most power hungry of users.

The first item I eager to try was the Super Juice Super-Fast wall charger (RRP: £21.99). This is supplied is a rather funky looking carton (think orange juice carton) and even comes with a soft drawstring carry bag to protect the charger should you want to take it with you. It doesn’t come supplied with a cable but can be used with your existing cables (I know we have a drawer full of them here!).

The Super Juice charger is an 18-watt 2 port wall charger. It features a dual USB ports (USB-A and USB-C) so that you can charge two devices at one time. With is 18-watt power output it can charge a device like your smartphone to 75% in just 45 minutes, rather than 2 hours for a standard charger. Its supports Power Delivery and QC 3.0 charging (quick charge) and has Super Smart which intelligently detects your device and delivers the optimal charge for that device.

It is also packed with safety features:

• over current protection
• over voltage protection
• short circuit protection

It also has another rather unique feature with a ribbed rubber Sure Grip around the plug to make it extremely easy to remove from a wall socket.

So does it work? I have a rather power-hungry Samsung Note 9 (which I often forget to charge overnight) and this was deliberately let run down to 10% – and it charged to 50% in just approx. 25-30 minutes. So yes, the charger does charger super-fast and I can charge mine and my partner’s phone at the same time.

I am really pleased with the speed of the charging and the fact that it also offers protection to safely charge and protect the device itself and the device being charged.

The second item I had to try was a power bank from the 12345 Power Bank range. This range features 5 different power banks with different power levels (3,350mAh to 15000mAh) – #1 contains enough juice for a single charge, #2 holds power for two charges and so on. I received the Juice #5, which is the most powerful with a 15,000mAh battery and offers up to five charges (depending on your device).

I travel by train a lot and the easiest and quickest way to by my tickets is on by phone but I do worry about my phone running out of battery while travelling and not being able to show my ticket when asked or being able to use it to get out of the train station. So having a fully charged battery or the facility to charge it while travelling is a must. The Juice Power Banks are the perfect way to ensure that you can always keep your phone or other devices topped up.

The Juice #5 (RRP: £39.99) comes in a variety of colours (black, white, pink and blue) and like the Super Juice wall charger, it comes with a soft drawstring bag to protect it. As already mentioned, it has a 15,000mAh battery which is enough for approx. 5 charges of most new smartphones. It has Micro USB, USB-A and USB-C connectors to ensure that it will work with all devices. With USB-A and USB-C connectors, this enables you to charge 2 devices at once (cables for this are not supplied but it is compatible with the cables from your devices). There is a very short length Micro USB cable to enable you charge the power bank from your laptop, but this isn’t really long enough to use to charge the power bank itself  from a wall socket.

As this has a bigger capacity battery than the other Juice power banks it means that the device is slightly larger and heavier than the others in the range – it measures 137 x 68 x 26.5mm and weighs 342g.

This is a superb power bank and fully charge a phone or tablet in approx. 100 minutes (device dependant). This is a high-capacity power bank and is ideal to leave in a backpack, if you wanted something smaller keep in a pocket or handbag then the Juice #1 would be ideal as much smaller and lighter (but only offers a single charge).

This power bank also features a LED display that clearly displays how much charge is left in it so that you know when to charge it and not find that is flat when you most need it.

Both these items feel and look very high quality and do a superb job of charging all those portable devices that we just can’t seem to do without.

Either, or both, of these chargers would make an excellent Christmas gift idea for men who love tech, teenagers (as they are never off their phones) and a fantastic alternative gift idea for women who are fed up with receiving beauty items year after year.

Rating: 5/5

For more information visit www.juice.co.uk. Juice wall chargers and power banks are also available to buy from www.argos.co.uk.