JUMP Cable is an interesting product from a Kickstarter project by Native Union. It’s basically a charging cable for our gadgets, but it has built-in battery. One main problem with “traditional” powerbank is that they need to be charged. I had few experiences carrying an empty powerbank. Did not aware that it’s already empty, so did not charge it the night before. I use my iPhone normally, thinking that I have a backup power, apparently not. JUMP Cable will charge itself while we use the cable to charge our device from computer or wall charger, so we don’t need to charge it separately.
I ordered two JUMP Cables from Native Union. One with lightning connector for my iPhone 5S and another one with micro-USB connector for my other devices. There are 2 colors available: slate and smokey grey. The slate version has a solid dark-grey color. The smokey grey version has semi-transparent greyish color. I choose slate model for my JUMP Cable with lightning connector and smokey grey model for my JUMP Cable with micro-USB. The connector for lightning cable is white, the connector for micro-USB is black.
There are two parts of cables: one comes from the battery unit to our gadget (lightning or micro-USB) and another one from the battery unit to power source (full-sized USB). Each part is around 20cm long. When not in use, we can roll up the cable around the battery unit. This is theoretically a good trick for cable management. But when I actually have the product, the cable is sort of too big for the rolling channel. So the process of taking out cable (and rolling it back) always require some time, which usually equal to the time I needed to tidy up my powerbank cable. So it kinda defeats the purpose. Let’s see if this issue gets better over time or not.
Pulling out the connectors from the housing is another issue. The fit is too tight in my opinion. Last night it damaged my nail when I tried to pull it after taking a shower. Again, MAYBE this will get better as we use it more often. But for now, it makes me think twice before using it.
The JUMP Cable with lightning connector’ weight is 43 gr. The micro-USB model is 42 gr, slightly lighter. They’re both very compact and easy to carry (5 cm x 5 cm x 1.4 cm), but somehow I feel that they are heavier than what I expected. Nothing wrong with the product itself though. Perhaps I just had unrealistic expectations.
The battery capacity is rather small, “only” 800 mAh. However, we can’t just compare it with other powerbank out there because the concept is different. This is an extra battery that is attached to or cable. The idea is to never worry about charging our powerbank, and it delivers. According to its packaging, the battery in micro-USB cable is rated +20% extra charge to Samsung Galaxy S4, which equal to 2.5 hours talk time. The battery in lightning cable is rated +30% extra charge to iPhone 5/5S, which equal to 3 hours of extra talk time.
There are one button and three indicator LEDs on the battery unit. The button is used to check the remaining power as well as starting the process of charging. The LED indicators in slate model appear as three small white dots, the ones in smokey grey model appear as three big yellow LEDs.
So far I like my new charging cables. Will probably use it for a while to get a feel whether 800mAh is actually sufficient or not for my specific needs.
Hi
How long does it charge for empty Samsung’s4 phone n iPhone5?
Froms4 Samsung… How many percentage
?
Regards, lara
It provides around 30% extra battery life for iPhone 5S and around 20% battery for Samsung Galaxy S4.
About the charging time, I haven’t measured this as I usually use this battery on-the-go while working outside, so I didn’t have time to actually note down the time.
I’ll post back as soon as I have time.