Lumsing 10400 mAh Portable USB Charger Review

For the past few weeks I have been testing the Lumsing 10400 mAh battery bank. The product is a stylish portable charger that uses a bank of rechargeable batteries (hence the “battery bank” moniker) to simultaneously charge up to two 5V USB devices. The battery bank charges via a micro USB port and features two full size USB ports for charging other devices while away from a power outlet.

The Lumsing LUM-008-01 is the model I am reviewing today. It weights slightly over half of a pound (8.35oz) and measures 5.43″ x 2.35″ x 0.86″. In practical terms, the battery bank is twice as thick, 3/4″ as wide, and just as tall as the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone without a case. The battery bank is rated at 10,400 mAh and can theoretically charge the S4 up to four times (which has a 2,600 mAh battery). On the box, Lumsing claims that for the average smartphone, users can expect to get five to six full charges.

The 10400 mAh battery bank comes in white, black, and champagne gold colors with silver accents. The top of the battery bank has a bit of plastic that looks like brushed aluminum. Lumsing packages the charger well using thick foam padding. The package includes the battery pack, a short micro USB charging cable, a brown soft-touch carrying pouch with drawstring, and a small instruction sheet. The model I received for review was the white version, which is shown in the photo below.

The Lumsing LUM-008-01 10400 mAh battery bank is currently being sold on Amazon (non-affiliate link) for $22.99 USD. Lumsing is relatively new to the US and Amazon marketplace, and in addition to portable chargers, the company also produces Bluetooth speakers and iPad keyboards. The MSRP of the 10400 mAh battery bank is currently $24.99 per the Lumsing website which has fallen quite a bit from the previous $49.99 MSRP and $34 Amazon list price. Note that I reviewed the product with the $34 price in mind, and the new $22.99 price is a nice bonus for what is quality hardware.

The Hardware

The battery bank is a harmonica style design with a micro USB port on the left side and two full size USB ports on the front. A set of four blue LEDs (which indicate battery level and charging status) and a power button sit to the right of the USB ports on the front of the device. A plastic accent strip resembling a piece of brushed aluminum resides on the top edge  and hosts the Lumsing logo.

The battery bank is all plastic in construction, but it feels quite solid. There is no flex or creaking in the plastic even when squeezing it tightly. The white casing is not a single piece, but is actually two with a seam on the curved back edge. The mating between the two edges is not perfect, but it does not interfere with the function or rigidness of the device.

Charging can be done via the included cable and a computer USB port or any other 5V USB AC charger such as the one that came with your smartphone or tablet. While you can use a 2+ amp charger, the battery bank will actually only draw a maximum of 1.5amps to charge the internal Samsung 18650 3.7V 2600 mAh Li-Ion cells. As far as charging other devices from the internal battery, there are two options. The leftmost port provides a maximum of 1.0 amps while the other USB port provides a maximum of 2.1 amps. Devices plugged into these ports will draw up to those maximums with the exact amperage dependent on your particular device.

Notably, both USB ports can be used simultaneously. Users can charge two devices while also charging the internal battery though once the Lumsing Power Bank’s battery drops below 25% it can be a little finicky as far as charging goes–you need to plug in the external devices and hit the power button before plugging in the power bank’s micro USB charging cable for it to work. I only noticed that issue when the internal battery level was low, however. When it is more that 25% charged you can plug stuff in in any order as one would expect. Note that the input is limited to 1.5 amps while the two USB devices can draw a maximum of 3.1 amps which means that unless you have a good buffer of battery, charging is going to take longer than usual.

Pressing the power button will light up the LEDs to indicate the current charge of the internal battery bank. If USB devices are plugged in, they will begin charging. If no devices are connected, the device will return to a sleep state after five seconds. There are four blue LEDs and each lit LED represents 25% charge, so when all LEDs are lit up the device is 100% charged and when only two are lit up the device is approximately 50% (50-74%) charged.

Lumsing claims several safety features of the battery bank in relations to charging and the internal battery including overcharge, overvoltage, overcurrent, and short-circuit protection.

The internal battery is rated at 500 full charge cycles. In theory, I should be able to get a theoretical maximum of 2,000 full charges on my Galaxy S4 which seems respectable.

Charging and Usage

My Galaxy S4 has decent battery life, but once I add in streaming media and web browsing on my hour lunch and breaks I would be in the single digits of battery life by the end of the day (eek). That situation where I have but 3% of battery life to call for a ride or to add money to my Ventra card (and not wanting to give up being able to use my phone on my breaks of course) led me to search for a portable charger to extend my phone’s battery life.

During my testing, I put the Lumsing battery bank through its paces by taking it with me to work each day and using it to charge up my phone during my lunch hour while I used the phone normally.

The battery bank does have some heft to it, but the weight more-so speaks to the build quality than to portability. At slightly over half of a pound (plus the charging cord and carrying pouch), the battery bank is noticeably heavier than my S4 but overall was not a burden and, really, the extra weight was trivial once it was in my bag. Technically it is even pocket friendly in that it will fit but not to my taste as it pulled on my pockets too much when walking around.

As mentioned above, the theoretical maximum of the 10,400 mAh portable charger is four full charges of my Galaxy S4’s 2,600mAh battery. There is some overhead and inefficiencies to account for, however. In all though, I have to say that I was impressed with its performance as it came very close to delivering four full charges. If you follow the conservative advice of keeping your smartphone battery as 20% to 80% charge, you can get four recharges while away from an AC outlet, actually.

During my testing, I wanted a way to measure and graph the charging and discharging of the battery to see just what kind of battery lfie I could get before needing to find a wall outlet to charge up my S4. I ended up finding a Play Store app called Battery Graph that comes close to the functionality I wanted. The app allows you to zoom in and out on a line graph of battery charge percent over time. Unfortunately, when compiling media for the review, I discovered that it is not actually possible to zoom out far enough to get all of the Lumsing-powered charges in one screen grab (d’oh). The app does support exporting the data so I am looking into graphing it in another program on my computer to get a cleaner graph, but in the meantime I was able to stitch together the complete graph from multiple screenshots.

After nearly-fully discharging the phone, I was able to use the Lumsing charger to charge the phone four times before the battery bank completely died. Further, i was able to get about four days of usage out of the phone without needing to use the AC wall charger! I will definitely be bringing this to next year’s GPU Technology Conference if I can convince Ryan to let me go again as that kind of portable power i!

Editor’s Note: (The battery graph test is something that I want to work on and improve upon for future reviews, including a continuous rundown test if i can find a way to make it repeatable and comparable to other devices/chargers).

Note that ”typical usage’ for me includes YouTube streaming, web browsing, and music playing in addition to a bit of email, texting, and brief phone calls.

Warranty and Pricing Information

Lumsing offers a 1 year (replacement or refund) warranty for  the battery bank should the hardware fail from a manufacturing defect. It is available for purchase in Gemany, Japan, the US, and the UK.  The MSRP is currently $24.99 USD according to the Lumsing website, but Amazon is selling the LUM-008-01 for $22.99.

Conclusion

In all, the Lumsing 10400 mAh battery bank is a stylish and well-built portable charger  that lives up to its promises. It is an incredibly useful device for road warriors and mobile device enthusiasts (every teenager ever? heh) alike. At the time of publication, the battery bank is available from Amazon.com for $22.99, and at that price it is well worth the money.

Below is a TL;DR-style breakdown of the review following the format of my previous reviews along with a special note about the hardware used in this review (and as my previous reviews were of free software such a legal notice was not needed). Of course, my words are all my own as is my conclusion, but transparency and honesty is a good thing so I felt it was worth a mention.

What I loved: The build quality and design is solid. It is light enough to carry with you but with enough heft that it stays put when sitting on the desk with devices plugged in. The included carrying pouch and charging cable are nice touches for a low-price battery bank.

Issues and/or what I’d Like to see improved: The included USB-to-Micro USB cable is charging only and does not support a USB data connection, so if you need to connect your smartphone to your PC you will need to bring along a different cable.

Review considerations: I received a free review sample of the Lumsing LUM-008-01 battery bank in exchange for a review on Verry Technical. Lumsing had no financial or editorial control over this review and was not provided an advance copy prior to publication.

The verdict: If you are looking for a portable charger/battery pack, the new Lumsing 10400 mAh battery bank is definitely worth considering. It is a great value for the money.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned to Verry Technical for future reviews! 

Further Resources:

Manufacturer Contact Information:

• Website: Lumsing.com
• Email: support@lumsing.com

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