Tag Archives: Verbatim

Verbatim Dual USB Power Pack Review



Verbatim LogoVerbatim will be known to many older geeks for their floppy disks but since the demise of this market, Verbatim have branched out into newer media, products including lighting and water filters, and accessories such as USB power packs. Verbatim have an extensive range of rechargeable packs from 1,200 mAh up to 10,000 mAh and on review here is their Dual USB Power Pack with a 5,200 mAh capacity.

First impressions are good. The Power Pack comes in attractive, easy-to-open packaging that doesn’t need to be attacked with a pair of scissors. Inside is the Power Pack, a short USB to micro-USB cable and instructions. The USB cable is only 10 cm long and can be used for both recharging the Power Pack and charging other devices. Some might quibble about the length of the cable but I think it’s handy and avoids all the disentangling. Besides, I have loads of long cables should I need one.

Power Pack Top View

The body of the unit is about 7 cm wide and 11 cm tall. Depth is 1.7 cm and tips the scales at around 175 g. The top and bottom faces are covered in a soft-touch rubber coating and the middle section seems to be metallic-looking plastic. On the bottom, there are four small nubs for feet and the top surface has four blue LEDs and a small button. Pressing the button for a couple of seconds illuminates the LEDs to show battery charge level.

Verbatim USB Ports

Round the edge are three USB ports, 2x standard and 1x micro-USB. The latter is used for recharging the Power Pack and the former for charging other devices. In common with similar products, one port is rated at 2.1 A (port A) and the other at 1 A (port B). However, unlike some of the Power Pack’s competitors, both USB ports can be used to charge while the device itself is being recharged.

The Power Pack is a 5,200 mAh unit which Verbatim suggests on the packaging will recharge a smartphone 2.5 times. My experience with recharging a Nexus 4 (2,100 mAh internal battery) is that this isn’t too far from the truth. Further, the blue LEDs are good guides to the battery level – consider each LED as 25%, so all four is 100%, three is 75% and so on. Below is the obligatory screen shot from Battery+ showing the charging rate for a Nexus 4, which is pretty much the same as charging from a mains charger.

Nexus 4 Charging

In summary, the Verbatim Dual USB Power Pack is a fine little unit. The soft touch rubber coating gives it a slight softer feel and the recharging-while-charging is a worthwhile feature. My only concern is that I think the Power Pack is a little pricey at an RRP of £41.99 and there are other models out there that offer more capacity for less money (but do watch out for those batteries which can’t charge and be recharged at the same time). As this is a brand new product, no “street price” has emerged but something around £25 would make the Dual USB Power Pack value for money.

Thanks to Verbatim who kindly supplied the Power Pack for review.


Verbatim Demos LED Bulbs at The Gadget Show



Verbatim LED LightsVerbatim are best known for their data storage products and I can remember having piles of Verbatim floppy disks back in the day, as it were. Younger readers will know the company for blank DVDs, memory cards and USB memory sticks but Verbatim have recently launched an LED lighting business.

Offering direct plug-in replacements, the goal is to encourage consumers to replace existing incandescent lights with LED-based equivalents. The power savings can be considerable with 60 W bulbs being replaced by LEDs closer to 10 W in power.

Verbatim LED Lighting Demo

At The Gadget Show Live, Ian tells me more about Verbatim’s LED lighting products and why we should all switch over.


Verbatim SSD Drives



Verbatim One of the categories that you will see a lot of at CES 2012 are Solid State Drives (SSD). With the price of regular hard drives going up due to the flooding in Thailand. (Although the price of standard hard drives seem to be going back down at this time.)  As SSD drives becoming more reasonably priced they increase in popularity among consumers. Verbatim a leader in the data storage business since 1969 will be introducing some new SSDs at CES 2012. They will be introducing both new SATA II and SATA III drives. They will be bundled with NTI Echo smart cloning software which will allow an individual to copy their entire hard drive including operating system without having to reinstall drivers. It is simple to use and secure helping to eliminating the lost of data. There will also be a casing included that will allow you to convert your current internal drive into an external drive for extra storage. Also available will be a 3.5 bay adapter which will allow a desktop computer to be updated also.

What makes the Verbatim SSD drives special is the fact they have no moving parts are shock resistance and run silently.  The SATA II SSD comes in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. They have read speeds up to 270MB per second and write speeds up to 225MB per second. SATA III drives can reach both read and write speeds up to 500MB per second. SATA III drives use Sandforce 2281 controller. Garbage collection algorithms which help to maintain stability and reliability. There is also have advance wear leveling. The SATA III drives come in 120 GB, 240GB and 480GB capabilities. These drives will work with Window 7, Window XP, Mac OX 10.4 and greater and Linux 2.4.0 and higher. Verbatim will be showing off these drives and other products at Booth MP25374 in the South Hall at CES 2012.


Verbatim Ergo Wireless Optical Mouse Review



The folks at Verbatim sent over their new Ergo Wireless Optical Mouse to review. Most of you that have followed me know that I love trackballs, and use them primarily when I am sitting at my desk.  For the first time in at least 10 years I am using this new mouse from Verbatim as my primary mouse if that doesn’t speak volumes nothing should.

Mouses are a dime a dozen and it is really hard to differentiate them apart. Here is what my experiences has been with this Verbatim Ergo mouse. First it fits into my hand like a well oiled and seasoned baseball glove. I’m serious this thing is just easy to hold and is very comfortable.   I like resting my hand on a hard surface and with this optical mouse I do not have to have a stupid mouse pad or anything like that under it. It looks pretty sexy the one I received has this cool red metallic look to it.

Click response is great, while I am not sure a design consideration or not the right click action takes a little bit more force than the standard left click. The roller is responsive. Works with both Windows and Mac.

Priced at $29.00 if your looking for a new mouse definitely consider it and when I am on the go, I will have one of these in my computer bag as well.