External Battery Roundup: Amstron, Brunton and Digipower

First up, we have the MedXP 140 and 300 from Amstron. These two models are the upper-end of the company's external battery lineup.

There is a MedXP 66, but this wasn't available to us for testing. These are the two heaviest batteries in our roundup, and that heft is each to see in their durable construction.

The MedXP 140 is encased in aluminum with a rubber bumper. Comparatively, the behemoth-sized MedXP 300 is encased in a very thick ~1/8" shell of what seems to be ABS plastic. Both come with a full set of tips for a wide range of laptop vendors. However, only the MedXP 300 has a USB port for charging smaller devices.

These two external batteries are intended for industrial applications, particularly in the medical field. Amstron envisions its products placed on medical carts to drive mobile computers, which hospital staff can use to interact with other medical equipment.

Because of the large capacity of its batteries, Amstron provides beefy AC adapters to charge them.

Using these devices is easy. Just select the correct tip and you're good to go. The only major complaint we have is that the angled plug on the MedXP 140 makes it hard to charge without removing the output cable. The MedXP 300's charger plug is on the other side of the unit, so there is no plug conflict. Ideally, both batteries would have an off state, but this only exists on the MedXP 300.

If you are an avid outdoorsman (or outdoorswoman), than you are already familiar with Bruton. It sells a lot of its camping products through REI. But the company also makes solar- and battery-based products. If you want a battery specifically designed for use outdoors, Bruton’s Sustain and Impel are the way to go. Both are encased in a thick shell of ABS and rubberized plastic.

These are the only batteries in our roundup that are water resistant. For all other batteries in our roundup, water will void your warranty. This doesn’t mean you take a Bruton battery underwater, but it does mean exposure to rainwater, white water rafting, and occasional splashes at the beach are all permissible. Because water may cause a short circuit, the company provides a pin to reset the tripped circuit.

Each battery comes with a charger, output cable, and seven tips. Notice that one of the tips is on a slightly longer extension. This cable is used specifically for Dell notebooks that use the PA-12 charger. Just plug a tip into the output cable, connect it to the battery, hook it up to a notebook, and press the On button (default state is off). While there is a degree of overvolt protection, these batteries do not use sense resistors. You must correctly select the right voltage or you could potentially harm your notebook.

Digipower's Universal Notebook Battery was a bit hard to track down for several reasons. Digipower is a brand of Mizco Electronics, and our inquiries to the company initially went unanswered. To expedite the process, we pulled this unit from Amazon. As a roundup, this story should reflect the full range of available buying options.

Unfortunately, our initial battery pack turned out to be a dud after one week into testing, which we chalked up to an anomaly. We tried to contact Digipower directly, but there is no phone number listed on its Web site. Furthermore, we submitted multiple messages via the company's comment form that went unanswered.

After tracking down the parent company's head office, we ran into even more issues. We were informed that Digipower wasn't interested in press (whoops) because its products weren't intended for the US market. Instead, it sells into overseas markets like China. The representative promptly informed us that she would hang up within three seconds and requested no further contact. As we were trying to explain our situation, we heard an immediate click. Subsequent efforts to contact the company were unsuccessful.

As a result, we can't really say if we ran into a bad batch from Digipower, or if the company's products are simply as terrible as its customer service. We did try another unit from Amazon, but ran into the same issues. According to a user-based Amazon review, we aren't the only ones experiencing problems with Digipower's Universal Notebook Battery. It just doesn't hold a charge at all beyond the one-week mark.

Unfortunately for Digipower, not only is it actually selling products in the United States, but we're also a global organization reviewing hardware for multiple countries. We take issues with the company's belief that it can ignore press. Good products are good products and bad products are bad products. Until we experience otherwise, this is a bad product supported by a manufacturer that seems to know it's selling garbage.

For the purposes of our quantitative measurements, we're excluding the results of this product due to the limited number of available test runs before it ceased working entirely. This is really unfortunate. The build quality of the aluminum shell is actually pretty good: solid, durable, and with smooth lines. The only thing we didn't like was the On/Off button, which seems to stick and has little to no tactile feedback.