le Mophie XXL Powerstation is a 20,000mah portable universal battery that you can use to extend the life of any device capable of USB charging such as smart phones and tablets. It’s not the highest capacity battery on the market, but it is at the larger end. For comparison, most of the battery packs you can pick up in vending machines and at airport newsagents are around the 2,000mAh capacity.
It’s built solidly with an aluminium upper and lower panel and sturdy plastic rim around all four sides. There is a micro-USB charge port on one side with charge indicator lights and button on the other side.
The four indicator lights give you a decent indicator of the remaining charge available, and on one end are the 3x USB-A outlets.
One of these is a 1 amp outlet, the other two are 2.1 amps with one being a priority charge port. Some batteries will charge while allowing you to charge other devices off them all at the same time. This allows them to function as a charging hub. Some batteries will not let you charge anything while they are charging themselves. The Mophie XXL Powerstation has 2 ports that won’t operate while the battery is charging. The priority charge port will, however, charge the attached device before continuing to charge the battery itself. This is important to note because if you plug a device into the priority port, the Mophie XXL WILL NOT charge until the connected device ceases charging. I’ve noticed that some devices, particularly higher power devices like tablets never permit the Mophie to charge even though their own charge may be full. So this is a caveat to beware of when using the priority charge port.
While the capacity is sufficient to get almost 2 full charges for an iPad Pro or 6 full charges for an iPhone 6 Plus, in my use I’ve found that is not the case. I found I can charge a 12.9″ iPad Pro (10307mAh battery) once and an iPhone 6 Plus (2915mAh battery) twice off a full charge on the Mophie XXL Powerstation with a little bit left over. Alternatively, I can about get about five charges for an iPhone 6 Plus. So while there is some definite power loss along the way, it can still really help extend your phone or tablet battery life in a pinch.
A huge caveat though that is a big downer for me is that it takes an eternity to charge. It is one of the slowest charging batteries I’ve encountered. It makes virtually no difference whether I use a 1 amp or 2.1 amp USB charger for it, or even if I plug it into a computer to charge. The shortest time I’ve recorded for a full charge from completely flat was 18.5 hours, starting at 5:30 pm and finishing just on 11:00 am. I suspect this is because the input charge port is only rated at 1.5 amps instead of 2.1. It will discharge much faster than this through the dual 2.1 amp outlets and single 1 amp outlet. So, while it is great for extending your battery life, it’s not great at all for travelling since it is impossible to fully charge it overnight unless you are arriving at your accommodation early and departing late.
The RavPower 26,800mAh battery I used to have (until one of the USB pins on the charge port snapped off) charged fully in around 7 hours. That’s less than half the time for a 25% larger battery. So while the Mophie XXL Powerstation will do the job, its own charging performance is a major let down. If I had to choose again, I would not get it purely because of that.
The priority charge port is a great little feature since it does allow you to charge two devices from one USB port, the Mophie XXL Powerstation, and an attached device. Plus once the Mophie XXL is charged, it will continue to charge devices on the other two USB ports. However, it’s ultra-slow charging makes this really impractical. Comparing again to the RavPower 26800mAh battery which would pass-through charge on both ports while charging itself, it was a far more useful device. It charged fast enough to practically function as a 3-device (itself and 2 attached USB devices) charging station on a single USB port.
Overall, it charges other devices quickly and provides a lot of extra power. The priority charge port is useful but limited due to the overall charging speed. So it’s perfect for getting you out of a bind but limited in usefulness as a portable travel charger if you don’t have enough time to fully charge it. I will admit that I find I generally don’t fully discharge it in one day unless I’m doing a lot on my iPhone or iPad, but it has happened enough times in the two months that I’ve had this battery for it to be a concern when travelling.
I hope you’ve found this useful and if you have any questions about or thoughts on the Mophie XXL Powerstation let me know in the comments below. I’m also keen to hear if you’ve had similar experiences in charging speed and power loss.
For more information, you can check it out on Mophie’s website Ici.
If you think it will work for you and you want to buy one, you can use my Amazon referral link here or my eBay referral link here to help support this blog.
6 réflexions au sujet de “Mophie XXL Powerstation Portable Universal Battery Review”
Thanks Matt for the detail info. Very helpful. 18 hours charging time is just too crazy is just too crazy. No wonder I can’t find that information any where on the company site. Joson
No worries, I’m glad it helped you out! It works out ok if you are charging it every day – Like I am now running it at home on RavPower solar panels. So every day that’s not raining, it’s out there charging. Most of the time, it’s enough charge to keep my devices charged up, and get the battery close to a full charge (it gets about 25%-30% a day on the solar panels depending on the weather), but that’s not heavy use like when I’m travelling. In that instance I find you have to plug it in ASAP to get as much charge into it as possible before you are away from a charging source again. I’d recommend one of the high capacity RavPower batteries over it, they have much faster charging. I’m disappointed I broke the USB charge connector on mine (make sure it’s unplugged before putting it in a bag).
Thank you Matt.
I just purchased Mophie XXL Powerstation . I charged it overnight and yet it’s only shows 2 lighted bars . I was about to return it- thinking probably was malfunction- now I know , need to charge it longer . Thank you for answering my question.
No problem at all Bo, I’m glad it helped you out!
I had the same issue as Bo. Thought I had a faulty unit as it only ever seems to charge to 2 bars. Now I know im not leaving to charge long enough. For me that’s fine… just need to plan for it.
Hey Roger, glad to hear it’s helped you out. If it takes more than 20 hours to charge, it may well be faulty. Definitely give it that long though. Like you said, it’s just something to plan for when using the battery while you are out and about. It’s a pain if you have limited charge opportunities, which is often the case for me in the circumstances I bought it for, but knowing how it behaves, I can still work with it. I just expected it to charge like my old RavPower battery did 🙂