Shiny Review: Proporta's Mobile Survival Kit

Katherine Hannaford reviews an emergency gadget survival kit...

I have been stuck with a suddenly-dead mobile phone or iPod more times than I care to remember, and I’m sure there’s plenty of others who’ve made the same mistake, thinking there’s enough juice in their 'pod for a trip from Amersham to Holborn and back. Oh, the pleasant experience of being forced to listen to parents admonishing their pollywaffle-smeared kids on the tube.

We've discovered the joys of Mobchargers before, those handy disposable single-use chargers for most mobiles under the sun, but as mentioned, they're single-use, plus only give you an extra four hours of stand-by time. Just not good enough unfortunately, when your tube line suffers from inevitable delays. Proporta's Mobile Survival Kit is the perfect, well, survival kit.

Not only does it come with every mobile attachment available, it also includes an iPod adapter too. I've spent the past week carting it around in my handbag, deliberately letting the juice drain from my gadgets, and charged them up whilst on the go in London. These are my findings...

Coming with a USB to mini USB cable, and a retractable cable compatible with a Nokia classic, Nokia universal, Sony Ericsson and iPod connector heads, there's a lot of choice available for your charging needs.

The charger actually comes about 80% pre-charged, which is perfect, as I desperately needed to charge my mobile phone when I first received the package! I charged my HTC Touch for about half an hour, and received a full battery life in return, which is better than I normally get with the charger the phone comes with.

Charging the actual charger is easily done, with the mini USB slot on the unit, and the mini USB to USB cable it comes with. Popping it into your computer to juice-up doesn't take too long, I mostly charged the unit for not more than half an hour at a time and that had given my mobile two full charges, on average. A full charge of the actual unit gives it 3,400 mAH of power reportedly, but I'd be lying if I pretended to know whether that's a lot!

Once the unit is all juiced-up, it can give power-hungry phones such as the Nokia N95 3.6 full charges according to the website. I actually found the number to be a bit lower for my HTC Touch, but that could be because I have so many programs running on it at once, plus push-email never helps! 5G Video iPods are said to be allowed 8.5 full charges with one fully-charged unit, however having only had the charger for a little over a week, I'm still yet to test that claim - eight full charges in a week is slightly out of my reach I'm afraid, and I probably use my iPod more than anyone else I know. I'm a tad bit antisocial to say the least!

This mobile survival kit from Proporta is quite simply amazing, and has saved my life several times in just the week I've had it. If the kit doesn't come with a connector head for your specific mobile phone, you can apparently purchase spares, from Proporta's website for 95 pence. I recommend this kit wholeheartedly, and would've been lost without it on many occasions recently. At £29.95, it's worth the public transport trips ensconced in a lovely Jarvis Cocker session courtesy of your fully charged iPod. [KH]

Proporta's Mobile Survival Kit