The bottom line on the Kayo Maxtar battery is this: it works. In the past I’ve tried several different reserve power supplies for my gadgets, and I have had mixed results. However, there is no ambiguity about this battery: it’s large, effective, versatile and well designed. It’s on the higher end of the external batteries I’ve tested in terms of capacity (with more than respectable 13,000 mAh of charge), and yet it’s much smaller in size than some of its larger near-competitors.

In order to test this battery charger I decided to completely drain my small electronic devices so that I get as clean of an idea of this battery’s efficiency as I can. (As an aside, when you really want to discharge them, the consumer electronics has become really robust in recent year. It took me much longer than I thought it would. I had to blast music from my iPhone for hours and hours …) I discover that I was able to fully charge all of my small electronic devices with plenty of power to spare. Most of them I was able to charge several times, and thanks to dual USB ports, was able to charge up to two devices at once. Full charging usually takes between one to two hours. I’ve tested this battery with iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 plus, Kindle Voyager, Mobee Magic Bar, Jabra SPORT Bluetooth Stereo Headset , and iPad Mini. Oftentimes I was able to fully charge four or five devices with just one fully charged Kayo battery. I was also able to charge my iPad Mini completely twice. If there was an easy way of connecting this battery to an ultrabook I would not be surprised if it would be possible to charge it to a decent amount as well.

This Kay battery has a very workmanlike design, so it will not wow anyone with its appearance. Nonetheless, its utilitarian form factor is all that I need in an external battery.

The battery features a small LCD display that indicates power level. This is a great feature to have, since it will help you determine how much charge you have left and if it’s time to recharge the battery.

I am very pleased and impressed with this rechargeable external battery. It is effective and portable. It is also very competitively priced – the price of external batteries has been steadily coming down for years, and now they have become a very affordable and necessary accessory. Hope that this trend continues, and that in the near future we have even more better, smaller, and cheaper power banks to choose from.

***** Review product provided by the manufacturer. *****