twister6
Android Expert
This is a Review of PortaPow USB Power Monitor v2 and another Premium USB/DC Power Monitor in addition to their PortaPow premium USB cables. http://www.portablepowersupplies.co.uk/ . Despite their location in UK, the products I'm reviewing here are available on Amazon, USB Power Monitor v2: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NTU18KY/?tag=vectron00-20, Premium USB/DC Power Monitor: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LZ07BG0/?tag=vectron00-20, and Premium USB 20AWG gauge cables: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RQ5AZ6Q/?tag=vectron00-20
When it comes to a smartphone or a tablet or any other mobile gadget, usb charging is the most important function to keep your device running. Luckily, the days of proprietary connectors are gone and everybody uses usb chargers with micro-usb connector. Without a doubt it's a blessing since you can share the same charger and the cable between various devices, but the problem is that a lot of people continue using their old chargers with old cables intended for a slow lower current operation. Furthermore, cables age due to wire bending, connector pins wear off, and connector housing latching becoming loose.
All of these "aging" contributing factor are not show stoppers preventing charging of your device, unless wire is damaged and overheats, creating a fire hazard. The problem here is that your device will no longer be charging at its maximum optimized speed. Back in the days of 750mA or 1A chargers it wasn't a big deal. Now with so many new smartphones and tablets with high capacity non-replaceable batteries supporting over 2A and new rapid chargers with Qualcomm QC2.0 chipset - you want to be sure charging is fast enough. So how do you do that? PortaPow has a nice budget friendly solution to help you with this.
USB Power monitor is not a ground breaking idea or the only available product. I have reviewed similar and even cheaper solutions in the past, but they were of a lower quality, had inconsistent reading (due to their own internal power draw), and had hard to read small led display. PortaPow USB Monitor v2 is very compact, about 70mm x 50mm x 20mm, it has a full size heavy duty cabled male usb port that stores in the back, and a full size female usb port built into the device. The display is big and easy to read, and has a backlight which you can activate with a button. The operation is very easy, you disconnect your usb cable from a charger, plug the cable side of the Monitor into the charger, and your usb cable into the monitor - instantaneously you will see a multi-line display with a reading of the voltage, current, and power.
Design.
An example of monitoring the charging of my Note 4 with Rapid Charger (QC2.0) charger:
So the big question: what does these numbers mean to you? And also, how accurate is the reading. In theory, I would like to see current closer to advertised 2A charging, so when I see readings of 1.75A some of the loss could be due to internal power draw and also due to a typical 5-10% of reading inaccuracy and sensing resistor tolerance. But the importance of measurement here comes from a relative comparison. You have multiple chargers all offering 2A output and you have dozens of USB cables that look good from outside. But when you start comparing different combinations, you want to find a pair that will give you the maximum charging speed.
For example, I tried 4 cables with one common usb charger and found 3 of them with 1.74A reading and one with 1.31A reading. All cables looked like high quality, but one obviously gave me a slower charging - I made a note not to use this cable in the future.
Or for example, I had another charger that show a reading of 5.02V @1.53A in comparison to my Samsung charger with 5.44V @1.74A. This is another example where I will be using my original Samsung charger with one of the cables that yielded 1.74A of current.
Recognizing importance of cables, PortaPow also makes their own 20AWG gauge thicker cables to allow fast charging even with QC2.0 rapid charging. The way how it works, the thicker cable you use - the smaller gauge wire number it has. Most of the budget cables are 26AWG, some expensive premium ones are 22-24AWG. This is a truly premium high quality cable at 20AWG to enable the fastest charging without bottlenecking a current flow while still being priced on a budget level.
Furthermore, the cable comes in 2 flavors, one with both Power and Data wires so you can charge and sync the data (that one has green connectors), and another one with Power only wires to prevent data transfer (that one has red connectors). If you are traveling or on the go, and only have access to USB connector from another computer, there is a risk when you plug in your phone or a tablet, the host will start syncing your data in the background without you being aware of it. I mean, it's an extreme situation, but still nice to have an option for a power only usb cable. What I find amazing, these cables cost about $7 for a standard length and a few dollars more for an extended version.
When it comes to a smartphone or a tablet or any other mobile gadget, usb charging is the most important function to keep your device running. Luckily, the days of proprietary connectors are gone and everybody uses usb chargers with micro-usb connector. Without a doubt it's a blessing since you can share the same charger and the cable between various devices, but the problem is that a lot of people continue using their old chargers with old cables intended for a slow lower current operation. Furthermore, cables age due to wire bending, connector pins wear off, and connector housing latching becoming loose.
All of these "aging" contributing factor are not show stoppers preventing charging of your device, unless wire is damaged and overheats, creating a fire hazard. The problem here is that your device will no longer be charging at its maximum optimized speed. Back in the days of 750mA or 1A chargers it wasn't a big deal. Now with so many new smartphones and tablets with high capacity non-replaceable batteries supporting over 2A and new rapid chargers with Qualcomm QC2.0 chipset - you want to be sure charging is fast enough. So how do you do that? PortaPow has a nice budget friendly solution to help you with this.
USB Power monitor is not a ground breaking idea or the only available product. I have reviewed similar and even cheaper solutions in the past, but they were of a lower quality, had inconsistent reading (due to their own internal power draw), and had hard to read small led display. PortaPow USB Monitor v2 is very compact, about 70mm x 50mm x 20mm, it has a full size heavy duty cabled male usb port that stores in the back, and a full size female usb port built into the device. The display is big and easy to read, and has a backlight which you can activate with a button. The operation is very easy, you disconnect your usb cable from a charger, plug the cable side of the Monitor into the charger, and your usb cable into the monitor - instantaneously you will see a multi-line display with a reading of the voltage, current, and power.
Design.
An example of monitoring the charging of my Note 4 with Rapid Charger (QC2.0) charger:
So the big question: what does these numbers mean to you? And also, how accurate is the reading. In theory, I would like to see current closer to advertised 2A charging, so when I see readings of 1.75A some of the loss could be due to internal power draw and also due to a typical 5-10% of reading inaccuracy and sensing resistor tolerance. But the importance of measurement here comes from a relative comparison. You have multiple chargers all offering 2A output and you have dozens of USB cables that look good from outside. But when you start comparing different combinations, you want to find a pair that will give you the maximum charging speed.
For example, I tried 4 cables with one common usb charger and found 3 of them with 1.74A reading and one with 1.31A reading. All cables looked like high quality, but one obviously gave me a slower charging - I made a note not to use this cable in the future.
Or for example, I had another charger that show a reading of 5.02V @1.53A in comparison to my Samsung charger with 5.44V @1.74A. This is another example where I will be using my original Samsung charger with one of the cables that yielded 1.74A of current.
Recognizing importance of cables, PortaPow also makes their own 20AWG gauge thicker cables to allow fast charging even with QC2.0 rapid charging. The way how it works, the thicker cable you use - the smaller gauge wire number it has. Most of the budget cables are 26AWG, some expensive premium ones are 22-24AWG. This is a truly premium high quality cable at 20AWG to enable the fastest charging without bottlenecking a current flow while still being priced on a budget level.
Furthermore, the cable comes in 2 flavors, one with both Power and Data wires so you can charge and sync the data (that one has green connectors), and another one with Power only wires to prevent data transfer (that one has red connectors). If you are traveling or on the go, and only have access to USB connector from another computer, there is a risk when you plug in your phone or a tablet, the host will start syncing your data in the background without you being aware of it. I mean, it's an extreme situation, but still nice to have an option for a power only usb cable. What I find amazing, these cables cost about $7 for a standard length and a few dollars more for an extended version.
