At SXSW, I attended the Groupon brunch at the Iron Cactus. Some of the attendees, myself included, received a Griffin TuneJuice portable iPhone charger as gifts for coming to the brunch.
In the TuneJuice package came the TuneJuice unit itself, a iPhone/iPod charging USB cable and 3 AA batteries. The TuneJuice itself is a small puck shaped device that is as wide as an iPhone, two-thirds as tall and about 1.5 times as thick, and it fits comfortably in a pocket. It is powered by three AA batteries, the first set of which are obviously enclosed with the TuneJuice, and has a type A USB port on the front, with a green light above it that illuminates when a device is charging.
Although the TuneJuice came with a cable for the iPhone and iPod, I tested it out with my Motorola Droid, since it happens to be my phone and I have the USB cable for it. When testing, I was able to keep my phone alive for a couple hours longer with light usage. I wasn’t doing much web surfing or talking on the phone, but was able to receive and respond to email far longer than I had planned to.
One one complaint about the TuneJuice is its use of batteries, but I see it as a strength and a weakness. I don’t like that it uses disposable batteries as opposed to a built-in rechargeable battery, but it’s nice to be able to just purchase batteries at any store and bring my phone back to life as opposed to finding an outlet somewhere to charge, which is what I am occasionally forced to do with my phone.
The Griffin TuneJuice is a convenient device to carry to charge a device when out and about. Whether carrying an iPhone, iPod, Android, Blackberry or other device that can be charged with a USB cable, a small portable battery like the TuneJuice is a good tool to carry in one’s arsenal to keep the device going after the battery is near death and the party isn’t ending any time soon.
