MobileTechTalk Since the idea of a removable battery went the way of the Dodo if there is one thing in the modern world we can empathise with its battery death anxiety. Yes, your fancy smartphone is awesome but without power it’s useless. If you have to travel (I’m stuck in Beijing) then you may not be 20 min from home and your charger. In steps the Moshi IonSlim 10K, a rather lush looking power bank, with a special twist; it can charge your USB-C laptop too. Road warriors rejoice, but is it actually any good? Read on and find out.
- Looks gorgeous
- Has USB-C Power Delivery
- Portable
- Pricey!
Visit the Moshi Store – IonSlim 10K – £95
First Impressions
Well as always it’s over packaged but nice. The warranty card thing is super lush! Insanely matte black soft-touch plastic coated with embossed coppered text. It’s outrageously nice a bit of card; total overkill. Still, I digress. The rest is nice too, and the power bank itself naturally is also. It’s a metal outer casing with plastic on the ends. A little bit of rounding wouldn’t go amiss here; the long edge is round and feels very nice in the hand. You also get a couple cables, should you need some little short ones which you will, for your phone on the go. It might feel a little uncomfortablr to have your brand new Glass-backed smartphone rubbing up against this metal beast though so perhaps seek our a case for your little precious when charging.
Aesthetics
As power banks go this one is a real looker. All a monochromatic, metallic grey colour with black ends and the super nice looking gentle white LED’s to indicate charge rather than a gaudy red or blue. Very slick looking for a battery. Very pretty.
Performance
Well while the charging up of the pack seemed to take strangely a long time, its capacity was great. I got the best part of 4 phone recharges out of it (with the phone still running while charging on it) but really what separates this power bank form many other is that its USB-C socket isn’t just an input but an output too, and an output with power delivery (USB-C to USB-C) meaning it can charge your computer. Yep you read that right. The USB-C socket can be used for charging and it supports up to 15v and 2A so you can plug in a computer with USB-C charging up to 35w. Now I will grant you right now that not so many laptops currently will be able to take advantage of this feature, but many are moving that way so you have a standard socket across multiple brands, including my little Dell Latitude Tablet with a keyboard. So yes, if your stuck in an airport departure lounge for what feels like 6 months you can use this to keep your baby laptop going. One small niggle is that the cable they give you is super short so if you may need to get something a bit longer.
Still, the power output is impressive, being able to actually charge my little Dell is something none of my other power banks can do. This means that it’s always there as an emergency laptop boost, not just for phones. Whilst phones are useful, you trying doing real productivity work on one versus even the smallest of laptops.
Value
Well if there is a downside, here it comes. The Moshi IonSlim 10k costs £95. Yes that is not a typo, ninety-five pounds. Sure it’s the most pretty power bank I have and it can charge my little tablet/laptop but that’s still a chunk of change for a battery pack no matter how nice. If you absolutely need your little USB-C charging computer and need its ability to top it up then it costs more than a regular one. It’s got to be able to handle the much higher power draw without cooking itself and exploding but, if you don’t need that, if it’s just for your phone, then it’s a very expensive option for a power bank that looks pretty.
Conclusion
It comes down to this; do you need to be able to give your USB-C charged laptop a top up on the go? If yes then great, it can do it and for the that requirement, it might well be worth the price when taking into account the portability versus something like this more expensive and bigger RAVPower unit that Craig lugs around with him. If all you need it for is to top up your phone for playing Candy Crush on a commute home or trawling the streets for Pokémon Go, then this is a super expensive option. Yeah, it’s very pretty but it’s a power bank, I don’t really care if it’s that pretty.
So would I buy one? I don’t know. If my little laptop dies it’s usually because I’m stuck in an airport and I don’t especially mind as it means I can stop working. On a serious note, if you must have that extra power because you have something you desperately need to be finished, and you value portability and form, then it’s a great work tool; a laptop booster pack and it only needs one time to save the day to be absolutely worth it.
