Customer Reviews

Energizer XP8000 Universal AC Adapter with External Battery for Laptops, Tablets, and More

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have a love/hate relationship with this brand. I also own their larger 18,000mAh product.

External batteries have been around for a long time. Most of them don't rise above the level of utilitarian industrial design. These Xpal batteries (the Energizer trademark is apparently licensed) are nicely designed, which sets them apart.

As batteries, they work well. Charge them the first time for 8 hours and thereafter for about 4 hours. You won't have to charge them often if you don't use them: lithium ion batteries like this hold their charge well.

The 8,000 mAh package is much more portable than its bigger brother, weighing in at 7.9 ounces. However, the powerbrick is almost larger than the battery and as almost as heavy, a consideration if you intend to carry it with you.

Cut Xpal's estimates of extended use times in half and yo have a pretty good idea of what you'll actually get. Enough juice to run your netbook for another 1.5 to 2 hours at a price lower than many manufacturer's replacement batteries. A lot of hours of extra time from your MP3 player or smartphone.

The battery has output ports for 5vDC for use with smartphones, MP3 players and similar devices. 12v and 19v outlets for netbooks and other heavier duty devices. You can charge a 5v and a higher voltage battery at the same time.

What's wrong with this picture? The company, Xpal. They say the give you two free tips a year, but their shipping charges are as much as you would pay for the tip and shipping from another vendor. Cheap trick. On this one, they claim to include a power tip for Samsung netbooks. Uh, according to the "tip finder" on their own website, none of the tips supplied with the unit will fit any Samsung netbook. Ka-ching, their cash register rings.

They claim to offer a three year warranty. Read the whole warranty and you learn that the battery cells themselves, the heart and soul of the unit are warrantied for only six months. Another cheap trick.

The cables supplied with the unit are very short, which isn't all that big a problem with this small unit. They feel cheap and may not last for a long time.

So, are these units worth it? Yes, if you catch them when they are on sale. Do that and you've scored a useful bargain for yourself.

Jerry

The XP8000 has three power output jacks. According to the specifications printed on the box and in the owner's manual, there is a jack for:

1. 5 volts DC and is rated at 1000mA maximum.

2. 9 - 12 volts DC and is rated at 2000mA maximum (the label on the battery says 3000mA).

3. 16 - 20 volts DC and is rated at 2000mA maximum.

Be sure to check the power requirements of your device, before connecting to the XP8000.

In the box there are three "special" cords, one for each of the output jacks. Each cord has a plug to which you connect the appropriate adapter tip for your particular device.

On the box it says: "READY TO USE. Comes pre-charged, out of the box". But the owner's manual says to charge the XP8000 for 8 hours before first use.

The box says it is rechargeable up to 500 times, and that the unit uses a Lithium Polymer battery. Because of the type of battery, you should be able to charge this unit once, then put it away for several months until you need to use it, without the unit losing significant charge. Therefore, to prolong the battery life, you should not need to keep it constantly charging, nor should you need to recharge it every week or month; maybe 2 or 3 times a year if it isn't used.

The unit has a three-year warranty from date of purchase, provided you register the unit online within 90 days of purchase. This seems good, until you continue to read the warranty's "fine print" and notice that the battery has a warranty of only 6 months from the date of purchase.

Although this product is an extremely useful item if you use a net-book or smart phone extensively, especially if you do not have easy access to power, be aware that the "Free Tips" guarantee is a bit overstated. My product arrived with tips for cellphones, laptops and portable DVD players, lacking the tip needed for my net-book. I had to order a "Free" tip, for which I was charged $12.95 "shipping". My tip arrived, with $1.39 in postage stamps attached. $12.00 for? This said the product is ingenious, as a student I am frequently in need of extra power and now am freed from sitting in my car charging between classes.

The first one I got was swollen and didn't hold much of a charge. It finally gave out but I had no issues getting a warranty replacement from the manufacturer. This happens to Li-Ion batteries sometimes so I don't really blame them.
I use it mainly to keep my power-hungry android phone charged, and it works great for that. It also charges and runs my MiFi wireless data card, which has a high drain on power. Most portable chargers/batteries only provide 500 Mah of power, which this one provides up to 1000 mah through USB so it's the only portable charger I have that will provide enough power for my MiFi.

I hesitated ordering new tips due to the review that said they were charged $15.00. When I finally gave in and ordered anyway, I was only charged $2.95 shipping for two tips, and you can get two new tips every year. I now have tips for my work laptop and my netbook (which were not one of the many tips that were included in the package)

The wall adapter to charge the battery is a brick, as big as a smaller laptop power supply. Not fun to travel with, but the Q&A on the website explains that the wall adapter will supply enough power for your devices and charge the battery simultaneously. That means I can travel with with just the XP8000 charger and leave my netbook power supply at home.

One device to charge them all! I thought the price was high but I'm happy with the purchase. So much more versatile than the smaller battery packs and it will charge practically anything (with the right tip). If you want to charge a laptop (15" or bigger) and not a netbook though I'd recommend the bigger xp18000.

Bought this for long flights and keeping my phones charged while away from power outlets. So far the battery and tips have proven extremely flexible and capacious. I took this on a trip that required charging 4 cell phones with different charging tips. The size of the battery allowed me to leave 3 of the chargers at home, and only take one AC adapter for one device as a backup. The battery gave me enough juice to charge my Palm for a 14 hour flight (charging it from dead to full and keeping it topped off) and then charging the Palm and my Blackberry, Samsung, and Nokia phones for 4 more days before requiring charging.

The only downside I have with the battery is that it makes a buzzing noise as it dies (not sure if it's normal) and that it goes from 3 bars to 1 to dead pretty fast, suggesting an inaccurate charge indicator.

I was happy enough with this purchase to buy a second one. Highly recommended.

I bought this for my new iPad 2 - initially I was disappointed that it does not work with iPad out of the box - I have to request a special USB port adapter though Energizer's xpal "free tip for life" program. Fortunatel the usb adapter arrived in TWO business days - just in time for my long trip - kudos to Energizer/ xpal (only paid $3.49 for first class shipping). With iPad's own docking cable and the special USB adapter, the xp8000 works well with iPad2 and also my iPhone. Some people complain that the AC adapter is Large but what most people don't realize is that the included AC adapter is actually a 19 volt adapter that works with many laptops including Fujitsu and Gateway and Toshiba laptops. So if you already own a 19v laptop AC adapter you don't need to bring the extra AC adapter; conversely you get a bonus AC adapter that works with your Fujitsu or Toshiba notebook.
Finally, the li-polymer technology in the xp8000 holds charge well so you don't have to worrying about the battery discharge itself within shortperiod of time.

I got this battery on sale for about half what it's currently selling for so am overall OK with it, but I can't use it for 2 out of 3 of my laptops and only 1 out of 4 cameras. Energizer does offer more tips than are included, but leaves out many including the really small one for Asus and CTL netbooks and slates. There aren't any for my Canon Cameras either. I suggest you double check that it will be compatible before purchasing.

Pros
*Compact battery is easy to carry in a bag. Great for phones and MP3 players.
*Easy to use, no issues so far on any devise it can fit.
*Does include common USB type tips and many generic laptop tips.
*You can charge the battery and the devise it's attached to, so it can be used as a replacement charger/adapter (though it's a bit slow.)

Cons
*Many tips are unavailable.
*Adds less than 1.5 hours to my Asus laptop that it does have a tip for; for reference the laptop runs a full 5 hours on it's own battery.
*Charger block is as big as the battery itself.
*Ordering additional tips is a bit of a hassle and will cost you a few bucks.

My XP8000 arrived new at about 4:30pm, missing the DC cable required to use the 9v-12v port I needed for my tablet PC. 4:30pm is after business hours for the real manufacturer, XPAL. This wouldn't be so annoying, except that their contact form takes a good 45 minutes to fill out just to say a cable is missing and I waited 5 days for a response. I never received such a response. So I called. I was informed that they wouldn't be helping me with my problem because I had not registered my product. I don't know about you, but I never fill out those annoying registration forms until I find out if the product is defective (many merchants won't even let you return products after you've filled out product registrations (this includes JR)). I was certainly not going to fill it out and hope for luck getting a hold of them again for a product I'm not so sure at this point is even going to work or will ever be well-supported, especially given my experience up to this point.

Interestingly, and not mentioned by reviewers anywhere else here that I can find, the manual is for the xp8000N not the xp8000 so the manual's parts list and what very little it says are not all that accurate. However, the missing cable is not only on the XP8000 parts list in the official manual, but listed on the parts list on the side of the box. Reading the manual in 6 alternating languages, with less than two paragraphs worth of text in English spread across the entire manual is a small challenge and a major nuisance. They really don't put a whole lot of effort into the customer experience.

I certainly would think twice about buying any Energizer product after this, and XPAL is hopeless. It looked like they also expected me to register and pay money to get an additional cord if I wanted to run my 12v Asus eee 1000ha, because the 12v port apparently doesn't support 12v netbooks(say what?) and you have to get a downconverting cable to get the voltage right on the 16v-21v port. Additionally, it didn't have the tip listed for said netbook, requiring another $3.95 S&H. So the product came useless out of the box for my two devices and they weren't about to provide any useful customer support for a missing cord that is necessary to go between the device and tips.

After registering, my guess is that they would have provided support, given the other comments here, but that it could have been at a significant cost and could have taken as long as 3 months to get each request working. If you plan on purchasing this product, don't plan on it working out of the box. If you check out the Energizer Powerpacks Store for replacement parts, everything says 'out of stock' as of the time of this review, so don't plan on solving any problems for yourself either. Expect to spend $20 to $30 and a lot of phone time and effort to get the xp8000 going with your electronic device replacing free tips and adding necessary components, unless you just happen to get a unit that comes complete with the wires and tips you need. Buyer beware.

UPDATE 7 Weeks later: I foolishly let JR talk me into having them send me the missing cord because I really needed this battery. Strung along by JR for almost 7 weeks (12 phone calls over that period, left with 3 unfulfilled promises to call me back from 3 different reps and 2 left voice mail messages that were not reciprocated by first rep) before finding out that they were trying to get the cord from Energizer and couldn't get any information or responses from Energizer about their order... I would have told them not to bother with Energizer, if they'd told me that was what they were doing. After all, I was trying to return the product because I'd already been there, done that, and experienced all of the Energizer 'support' one can handle in a lifetime. It wasn't all that pleasant being strung along by JR, but they're going to let me return it for a refund now. More to the point of the XP8000: The agony of Energizer support is enough to make Mary Lou Retton fall off the balance beam. MY NEW BATTERY MOTTO: AVOID ENERGIZER..the headaches keep going and going and going.

When I fly with my toddler, I rely on her portable DVD player to get us through long flights. Typically, I would have to sit next to an outlet during a layover to charge it, as it only had a battery life of about 2.5 hours...with the power pack, I now have about 7.5 hours of battery life...which is a lifesaver! Also, I was happy to see that it came with the tip I needed for the DVD player, as well as tips that fit my netbook and my phone. Plus, you can simultaneously charge things when it is plugged into the wall...and it is so nice not to have to carry around a thousand charger cords...so nice! A great product!

Great product. Holds a charge, has a nice LED meter to indicate charge available and has 3 output voltage settings and cables with tips. The low voltage output is a super handy 5V USB. It can charge 2 items at once (not sure about 3). I use it all the time to charge my TomTom (while on my motorcycle), my phone, a portable battery operated Logitech speaker setup, a bluetooth GPS, my Kenwood radio, my GoPro camera and my samsung camera among other items. All those items are 5V except the Kenwood and the Logitech speakers which use the next one up (I think about 7V?), and it charges great. Have not tried using the high power output yet (no netbook here) but look forward to it.

It replaces a number of wallwarts and is very light and portable. It charges fast. Comes with many tips and I've received my 2 free ones already (yes paid about $8 or $12 for shipping). It's a large amount of power in a small lightweight package and it very, very handy.

I also bought the XP2000 because of this experience and love this simplified model as well. Super small and lightweight with 5V only output (USB) it's extra handy. Charges off any USB port and comes with 6 tips plus a cable. I travel with it and if my phone or camera get low on power I pull it out. I also use it to charge an old Dell Axim to improve battery life. It's saved me a few times as it is so small, light and portable. More of a one use item though.

Both models can be charged while charging up a device (or 2 for the 8000) which is very handy if you think about it.