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It’s hard to get too excited about a power bank, after all, it’s very much a case of plug, play and enjoy the charge that they offer up. But the excitement with Excitrus products is pretty much built into the name. That’s the case for the Excitrus 105w Power Bank Ultimate.
We use power banks a lot, for a variety of reasons. Whether we’re at a coffee shop working on laptops (read: playing Game Pass games), or mindlessly wasting time on our phones (again, read: playing Game Pass games), ensuring we’ve got the battery capabilities is an all-important part of the process. Over the course of the last six months or so, we’ve ensured play time thanks to the Excitrus 100w Magnetic Wireless Power Bank. It’s not missed a beat in terms of what it is meant to achieve.
The same can be said for Excitrus’ 105w Power Bank Ultimate. If you want something that does the job with no fuss, this is it.
There’s not much fanciness going on here yet the Excitrus 105w Power Bank Ultimate is a well defined piece of kit. A black slab that weighs in at 372 grams and runs some 80 x 140 x 25mm in size, with textured top and bottoms, it is adorned with a gloss black strip running the entire length and sides. This is a seriously understated product. That blackness is only broken by some bronze-gold Excitrus wording, tech specs (we are guessing they are a regulatory requirement), a Mode Button and two ports – USB-A and USB-C. Oh, there’s a small display window too, but that is so well hidden into the glossy black band that it’s only viewable when the Power Bank Ultimate is working away.
With two cables included in the box (USB-A to USB-C and a straight USB-C double-ender) it’s a cinch to either grab charge from, or throw power into, the Excitrus 105w Power Bank Ultimate.
Dropping power into the Power Bank Ultimate requires the simple process of taking the cable of your choice, plugging it into the relevant port and chucking the other end into a power source. Excitrus recommends anything 45w and up for optimum powering of the 18,000 mAh capacity, capping out at 60w. When charge is being put into the Bank, a small, easy-to-read display window will show the charge percentage along with a blinking last digit. It really is as easy as that to understand.
Taking the power out and into the device of your choice is equally uncomplicated – plug that same cable of choice into the Power Bank, the other end into your laptop, your phone or the like and your job is done. Again, the display window will show current battery percentage, dropping as the power is utilised, with the USB-C port capable of pushing up to 87w and the older-school USB-A maxing at 18w. You’re safe to use both ports at the same time too for some double-charge joy. We’re not sure there’s a device on the market that is as straightforward to use as this.
So what does all that juice mean in terms of battery hours? Well, that’s a tricky thing to compute but we’d not stray too far from what Excitrus themselves detail – up to fifteen hours or so of extra laptop charge and some seventy-five into a mobile. We’re part of the Android Army and should expect something like those numbers going into our Google products. And you’ll get multiple charges from the Power Bank Ultimate too, with the 18,000 mAh powering our Pixel 7 Pro some three times over before it needs recharging, from 0-85% in about an hour. We think you could probably top the Power Bank Ultimate up to those levels in about the same time too.
Obviously it’s with this draw where we’ve been able to continue our gaming, making the most of titles like the 2022 mega-indie hit Vampire Survivors and – an old personal favourite – Golf With Your Friends on mobile. Taking in these through Game Pass and Cloud Gaming, with the Excitrus keeping us in check has been nothing but a joy. Thanks to the size, it’s easy to take this with you whether you go too; putting it in your everyday backpack will ensure you have power on tap, whenever you may need it.
The Excitrus 105w Power Bank Ultimate has another trick up its sleeve though and if you have devices that can charge via Bluetooth – a smart watch (unfortunately not our Google Pixel Watch) or headphones – then a double press of the Mode Button will chuck it into Bluetooth charging mode. You don’t even need to worry about a cable then either.
Talking of, it’s in terms of the cables with which the only real disappointment comes with the Excitrus 105w Power Bank Ultimate – they are just too short for our use. Coming in at around 55cm in length, each of the included cables are absolutely fine if you’re powering up a laptop at a desk and we’ve found it capable of throwing power into our Chromebook without hassle. But to connect it up to a phone, whilst in hand and playing games, and we’ve wanted longer cable options. Thankfully ripping any old USB-C to USB-C cable seems to do the trick.
But that’s a small dent on an otherwise simple-to-use, easy-to-handle device. On the whole the Excitrus 105w Power Bank Ultimate covers the bases of any and all power banks, a near perfect partner for those who find themselves utilising Game Pass on the daily, or those who discover they just keep getting drawn to the local coffee shop to work.
Huge thanks go out to Excitrus for providing us with a review unit of their 105w Power Bank Ultimate. You can grab one for yourself by hitting up Excitrus direct. You’re looking at an RRP of £102.