The charge of the portable brigade

Asupercharger that can juice up your phone in 30 seconds? No, we kid you not. Eesha Khare, an 18-year-old Indian-American science student based in California, came up with the idea of a small, portable device that you plug into your phone, and in less than half a minute, your phone battery would be fully recharged. Khare won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award in May because she didn’t want her smartphone dying on her. Currently, Khare is working on getting the device ready as a commercial product. But if you are not too picky about the half-a-minute deadline to charge your phone, here’s a selection of new portable chargers that can revive your phone battery anywhere, anytime.

A nifty looking emergency backup, the Fuel doubles up as a keychain and is about the size of a Rs.10 coin. Its 220mAH battery is designed to give you around 20-30 minutes of talktime or a few hours more of standby. The battery can be refuelled with its supply cable or any micro-USB wall charger and it can store the charge for a month if unused. After getting successfully funded on Kickstarter (a crowdfunding micro-investment platform), the company is about to start distributing its first batch of pre-orders.

Order at www.devotecindustries.com for $26.98* (around Rs.1,700).

Now here’s a case that would not only protect your phone from life’s bumps, but also give it a 9-hour talktime boost. The stylish TYLT Energi Sliding Power Case comes with an inbuilt rechargeable 2,500mAH battery to power your phone throughout the day. The case protects your phone from scratches and bumps and lets you charge, sync, transfer data and listen to music easily. All this with barely 9mm added thickness to your phone. Once you plug in the power case, it fully charges your phone first and then charges itself. It takes about 8 hours to fully charge both the phone and the case. Launched in August, the pack comes with two cases, a black and a coloured one to change according to your mood.

Order at www.amazon.com for $99.99.

Launched early this year, this elegant solar charger from XD Design latches on to any windowsill to refill itself directly through the sun. The port’s 3.3-inch diameter has five small LED lights which light up green when it’s fully charged. The device’s integrated USB charging cable folds on its side. When fully charged, for which it takes about a day in the sun, the port can supply 1,000mAH of juice to any of your smart devices. But be aware that its size is not enough to fully charge any smartphone, so it’s best used as an emergency top-up charger.

Order at www.xddesign.eu for €59.59 (around Rs.5,100).

This case wirelessly charges two of the most expensive and popular phones in India, the Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone series. Launched in June…

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