Customer Reviews

Energizer XP18000 Universal AC Adapter with External Battery for Laptops, Netbooks, and More

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Ever been frustrated when you bought a toy for the kids or maybe one for yourself, opened it and then learned you needed things that weren't in the box, like perhaps batteries?

Well, here's a twist: a battery that comes without the accessories you need to make it work with your devices.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that Energizer's offer of the "free" tips you need to make the device operative is more or less false. They claim the adapter tips are free and that all you pay is shipping and handling. Guess what folks: the "shipping and handling" brings the cost of the "free" tips of what other power supply vendors charge. There's nothing "free" about the offer. Of the 15 supplied tips, only 4 were for devices I owned. I had to order 3 others. What is interesting is that each of the tips carried its own "shipping and handling charge". Adds up quick that way. In my opinion, the offer of "free tips" is utterly bogus.

To their credit, they do have tips for Dell and HP computers which some of their competitors don't. Of course, no tips for the Dell and HP computers I have access to were included.

The battery itself seems to work. I have no means of accurately measuring its output and how long it will power various devices, so I have to go with the manufacturer's estimates. It is a cleanly designed unit, well constructed, relatively compact and weighs just over a pound. It will add some weight to your travel kit, but if you are stuck somewhere and need power, this is a good alternative.

Energizer claims you can charge three devices at once. This is another dubious claim. You can charge three devices at one time IF a) one of them uses 5vDC, b) another uses between 9 - 12vDC and c) the third needs 16 - 20vDC. More realistically, you'd charge two devices at a time, let's say a laptop computer and an MP3 player (if you have the right tips). That' a nice feature, but headlining "charge three devices at the same time" is a bit of a stretch. It is unlikely you'd be toting devices using 9 - 12vDC and another requiring 16 - 20vDC. Not impossible, but unlikely.

Initial charging takes about 8 hours. Subsequent recharges are supposed to take about 4. The AC adapter is a good size brick and adds another 11 ounces to the package, bringign the total weight to over 2 pounds, a not inconsiderable burden in a shoulder bag.

Three power adapter cords are supplied, one each for 5v, 9 - 12v and 16 - 20 v DC. All are short. The USB cable is of the coiled variety and feels very stiff when extending it. I don't know if that means the material is cheap, but the cable does not recompress to its original length. The USB cable, fully stretch, extends just over 30 inches which means that in most cases, you could not put the battery on the floor while your device is at table height or greater. Think about that in relation to sitting on a airplane or someplace where no table surface is available. It is, in my opinion, too short.

The higher voltage cables are pathetically short: just over 2 feet. That means in most circumstances, you are going to have this battery in your lap or tucked awkwardly nearby. As it happens, on fairly frequent occasion, I use an external battery to power a laptop and I can assure you that you don't want it in your lap. You want it on the floor.

The Energizer/Xpalpower site does not seem to offer longer cables as an accessory.

Finally, with this and other external batteries you have a lot of stuff to carry. The battery itself, the AC adapter brick and its necessary power cord and the tips. You need a case. Energizer provides a cheap velveteen bag. Yes, you can cram all of this into it, but it is not pretty. Nor is it convenient. If you want a better solution, plan on buying another case or carrying bag. Yep, another added expense.

Seemingly a good product, but frustrating in its lack of completion. The "free tips" are anything but free. The cables are too short. (The argument of the manufacturer might be that this device is intended to recharge the batteries of your device and it the device should not be in use at the time. Think that one through: it makes no sense.) You'll probably want another carrying case.

In all, figure on spending another 25% or so about the cost of the unit on accessories unless you're lucky enough to find all the tips you need in the package and can make do with supplied carrying case.

Overall and subject to acquiring long-term experience, the XP18000 battery appears to offer good value. But the false promises of "free tips", the short cables and cheap carrying case have made my experience far less than exhilarating. To the good, I got the unit on sale. If I had paid full price, I might be a lot more unhappy. If nothing else, this battery provides an interesting twist to the old cliche of "batteries not included". You get the battery with this unit: but not necessarily the accessories to make it useful.

Jerry

I was trying to decide whether to buy a second battery for my laptop but then decided to buy this instead. Keep in mind that when you eventually upgrade your laptop, all the extra batteries probably wont work with the new machine. There are a couple of things I like about this unit.

1. Once you charge it up, it seems to HOLD the charge forever. I charged it up when I received it in November....and then went on a trip in January but forgot to put it on charge right before my trip....no problem it had a full charge already. I've heard from others that it stays charged up for months at a time. If you're like me, you cant always predict exactly when you are going to need the extra power.

2. The unit is sleek, not too heavy, and very compact. I only travel with the cables required to connect to my laptop.

3. It seems to power my laptop forever. My original laptop battery lasts maybe 1.5 to 2 hours.....and with this power pack, I can take that to 4+ hours.

4. Great for international flights in economy....you can tuck this unit into the seat-back pocket and tap away on your computer.

5. There is a USB charging port that you can use for pretty much any type of mobile device out there.

6. I can take this from laptop to laptop and it will stay with me long after I upgrade my laptop.

I truly cant think of a downside except the high price. Everyone seems to be whining about paying $4 shipping for a new tip. If you cant afford to spend $4 on a tip, you shouldnt be buying a $100+ battery for your laptop. The purpose of the $4 charge is to ensure that the people dont abuse the "Free" tips service. It is designed to serve as a 'hurdle' that requires people to ask themselves if they really need the tip before placing an order. I doubt that $4 even covers the administrative/fulfillment costs for Energizer.

I bought one of these on January 10 on [...] for [...]...a real steal considering the regular price.
Apparently it has been offered there before at [..]. Who knows if it will come up again.

I bought it to carry in my laptop bag to recharge my blackberry or extend the run time of my laptop in case I find myself away from AC for too long...like on a cross-country flight.

Although it came with a lot of different tips, the mini-usb and micro-usb are the ones I will probably use the most.
It came with a tip that fits my Dell Latitude E6500, and appears to power the system just fine, but Dell, in it's infinite wisdom, has some technology that refuses to charge the battery if you use a non-Dell power supply. I did check online with the Tip Finder, and discovered that the site recommended that I get the AB14 tip (the one supplied with the unit is AB08). I went ahead and ordered one in case that would make the laptop a bit happier with the XPal.
My sense is though, that to get the most run time out of the laptop, I should run the laptop battery down completely, then plug the XPal in and set the laptop to NOT charge the battery so that all of the energy from the XPal will go to running the laptop rather than the much-less-efficient task of trying to recharge the laptop battery (a function key combination can set it to not charge...on my Latitude it's Fn+F3)

Some reviewers have complained that the 'free tips for life' carry a shipping and handling charge of $10.
While that may have been true in the past, after I registered the unit for warranty, then went to the tip finder, at checkout I was only charged $3.95, which seems pretty reasonable to me.

I haven't had a chance to do extensive run-time tests yet, but if I can get an extra hour out of my laptop, and resurrect my phone from the dead, I'll be happy.

My one gripe, is that the carrying bag supplied will only hold the unit and a couple cables. The separate power brick and cords will have to be tucked into my computer bag somewhere else.

The size of the battery pack is similar to an external hard drive (bigger than the USB-powered ones that use laptop drives, smaller than the bigger AC powered ones).

Total weight of battery + power brick and AC cord + laptop charging cord and tip + USB charging cord and tip + carrying bag
is almost exactly 2 pounds...so if you're used to carrying just your netbook around, it will add significantly to the weight.

This should work for any laptop up to 15.4." If you have a 17" with a power-hungry graphics card, it may not have enough juice.
If you use a 90-Watt AC adapter, you're probably good to go...if you need a 135 Watt adapter, I wouldn't try this device.

You should be able to recharge your iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, etc. off of the USB port multiple times before having to recharge the battery pack.

I'll report back specifics after I've had more time to test.

db

Read most of the reviews, took the really bad ones with a grain of salt - since we all know that most reviews of anything are going to be negative, anger makes folks write while happiness makes most folks get on with their lives ;-) - and prior to paying about the same for a full new laptop battery for a notebook that I probably wont have for another year I tried the XP18000.

Very happy. Very.

Out of the box the brick was powered, the instructions said to fully charge it eight hours but I actually thought I might need it that day so I went with it and all of the included tips.

When my Fujitsu t4220 was down to 20 percent I tried the blue cord and the notebook instantly reported it was plugged in. I kept on working since it wasn't losing power anymore and in about a half hour I noticed that my laptop batteries (main and module pack) were both reporting fully charged. Kept working. A few hours later I was again down to 20ish so I plugged it in again and once again I was fully charged while contining to work. I didn't plug the XP18000 in when I got home, just left it in the bag. Next day, I used it again and it fully charged my batteries while I was working. At that point the little blue indicator was down to one bar so I charged it.

That is my main mobile machine so I was happy... out of the box. But then because of the negatives (and comments form people who admit that they don't even own one) about the box having no tips for real users I played around with the included tips and for my common-use units here were the results:

Fujitsu T42xx series convertable (as noted above) 19w, works with the included blue cable, no added tip required.

Acer Ferrari 4000 linux box, same as above. Charges right up while working, Ubuntu tells you the charging status.

WiBrain B1 (an odd tiny computer used for general XP testing), used the green cable and included tiny tip NB05.

MSI Megaview 566 and 588 media players (old but timex-tough hard drive units that nicely directly record av in a pinch), charged up fast with the green cable and included NB06

Fujitsu P1510d convertable charges and runs directly using the blue cable and included AB06 tip.

Sony Vaio F Series also works with the blue cable and tip AB06 (not that anyone takes such a quad core drainer out of the house).

Of course the brick has a 5v usb so it charges my EVO, TouchPro2 and my wife's BBerry. Just plug your mini or micro to USB cable in and the charge starts. If you forget your own charge cable, they include a cable and tips for micro (CB31) and mini (CB04).

BYTEC BT555 usb-powered mobile ethernet switch. No problem directly into the USB port.

Zune HD, no sweat usb.

>>added March 2011: PSP (which does not itself directly take a USB cable, but a thin round male plug) charges right up by using the USB port and the standard Energizer 2 go cable.


What I don't get power for:

There is a tip that appears to be for the iPad, it fits and when connected to the USB port the iPad knows it is ther and reports "Not Charging", makes sense as the iPad takes 10v so even plugging the OEM iPad cable into the USB port does nothing but chirp and say "not charging". Using this included MB02 tip in the correct voltage green cable port shows nothing happening at all. As a Mac owner for over a decade I chalk that up as typical Apple-user's inconvenience...

...my MacBook Black and Pro, as noted in other reviews do not get anything out of the box. Again, a realistic mac owner has to learn to accept this as an Apple-corporate design and control decision issue, and with it clearly brought up in the reviews and online specs it is to be known up front. They say that you can do it with an Apple fifty buck airline adapter plus a pay-for-shipping tip. No biggie, it is our lot to overpay for our looking good at starbucks :-) :-) :-).

So... there's a list from a real world user with a handful of things that typically run out of juice at just the wrong times.

This little, exactly-the-size-of-a-308-page-paperback-book, unit is so far a good buy. (Anecdotally, in the hand it feels to weigh a little smidge less than a T4220 main battery.

I haven't yet figured out if the unit needs to be conditioned (draining it to empty 3 or 4 times) before it gets to full performance. Online folks seem to be fifty fifty about it being useful or harmful. I also don't yet know how long it will continue to accept charging (the instructions say 500 times). But my initial needs were completely satisfied to the point that when I spotted the unit on sale recently at an office supply store I grabbed one just for redundancy.

p.s. 1: I found the instructions adequate. You look at your device and read its power needs, you match the needs to the green, blue or USB ports on the box, then you try the color coded tips to match the color of the power cable/port. Not brain surgery.

p.s. 2: As to the cords are "too long" or "too short", I can't say. WHen you're a mobile computor you learn to wrap long cords and "cocktail party knee table" the less lengthy gear ;-). THe main thing is that it does the job and fits in the bag.

Hope some of that helps.

I got this off [...] for [...], which is quite a steal if you ask me. The sad thing about it is, it doesn't work for my laptop. I own an Asus N61JQ, and for some reason when I plug this in it just switches back and forth between a/c mode and battery mode, as if it's incompatible or something. I tested it on a few other laptops like a sony vaio sr220j and a dell xps and it worked fine on those. Oh well, at least it can charge other stuff like my phone and ipod. Anyway, good luck. I advise double checking with the manufacturer to see if your laptop is compatible.

I bought this on Woot to provide extra power for my HP-dv7-1285dx laptop. Unfortunately, it didn't come with the right tip. I went back and forth with customer service and they told me to order a specific tip....I ordered it..it arrived...and it still didn't work. Again..went back and forth with customer service, and they told me that "At this time the XP18000 is our most powerful unit but it is not enough for these entertainment style laptops." Sure wish I knew that before buying it! On the upside, it does power my 3G wireless router, my acer netbook, and my iphone...so all in all, great concept, it just sucks that it can't take care of my big laptop. I also own one of their iphone chargers, and although I had a problem with a couple of them, their customer service was great and took care of replacing them quickly.

I purchased the Energizer XP18000 as a companion to the ASUS Eee EP121 Slate, which only has 3- to 4-hours' battery life. Then the fun begins: 1) None of the tips included in the XP18000's package fit the EP121. OK, that's expected. So I go to Energizer's website to order a tip: 2) the EP121 isn't listed. OK, so we go from there. Energizer wants measurements of the ASUS-supplied tip: 3) I don't own a micrometer, and the ASUS' power tip is so small, I cannot determine whether it's 1mm, 1.25mm, 1.5mm or 1.75mm in diameter (I know it's not 2mm, because a 2mm tip I have is too big. And Energizer wants to know the inside diameter, too ... like I can get that measurement. The best I can do is take a photo to submit to Energizer and "guess-timate" the dimensions. I send the web form off to Energizer: no acknowledgement, no reply. I wait five days and do it again -- no acknowledgement, no reply. I attempt a phone call to Energizer: give up after nearly 2 hours listening to, "You call is important to us... please stay on the line." THE BOTTOM LINE: customer support on this item stinks! The only up-side is that I now have an external power source for many of my OTHER devices, just not the one I needed it for. Another case of an excellent product being blown out of the water by poor support: don't make the claim if you're not going to live up to it, Energizer!

This device charges my laptop and my cell phone, but it does not charge the iPad (even when using the Apple cable that came with the iPad). This surprised me because the XP4000 battery has no issues charging the iPad, however, the XP18000 will not work.

Hello All,

I figured I would share my experience with the Energizer XP18000 Portable battery.

I made this custom cable from the cable part # WI-12 from Xpal. It was $ 6.99 US. It steps downs the output of the XP18000 from 16-19 volts to a solid 12.3 volts.

I tested over the last several days and found the following results:

1) The XP18000 can fully charge the Asus TF from a dead battery to full in 2.75 hours.
2) The XP1800 can charge the Asus TF 2.25 times before needing a recharge itself.
3) If both the XP18000 and the Asus TF are fully charged you can get approximately 23 hours straight usage out the two before both batteries are completely spent. (Auto Brightness, Wifi on and a movie playing.)

I hope this helps some of the road warriors like myself out there.

I ordered this external battery as a supplement for the ASUS EP121 tablet computer. The external battery is a great match for the tablet or other light notebook. It allows me to extend the usable road life from 3 hours of the internal battery to 8 or 9 hours of the battery plus the XP18000. The battery charges quickly and works as advertised.

What doesn't work as advertised is the customer service. The battery comes with a large number of plugs or "tips" that attach to wire leads and allow the battery to power various devices. If your product is covered, fine. The battery is supposed to come with "free tips for life" for registered users. It did not come with a tip that fit the ASUS EP121. Not surprising because the tablet is brand new. I went to the online site for the battery. There was no tip available, but there is a mechanism for ordering a new tip. You have to upload photographs of the tip you want and its dimensions, which I did. They acknowledged the request but gave no time for delivery. After a couple weeks I called them and was told that they had lots of requests for that item and "a few" available for testing. They said they would send one out to me. Another week went by. Nothing. I finally gave up and went to Radio Shack and pieced together a cable that would work for about $20. Using this cable I have made use several times a week of the battery.

Today I received an e-mail that the tip I requested was now available - more than 3 months after my request. Working through their web site to place the order, I had to pay $3.95 for the "free" tip (this is a tiny item that will surely cost no more than $1 in postage).

Then, just to make sure that I clearly understood the message that this company does not give a *@#$ about customer service or good will, the closing message was:

PAYPAL succeed! You do finish paying with PAYPAL. Please waiting ....
(to see the message, click here:
[...] )

These guys don't have a clue.

The battery, however, is fine. Just make sure it ships with whatever adapter tips you need.