iWalk’s Extreme Trio 10,000 ($85) is a universal battery with built-in Lightning and micro-USB charging cables. Using these two cables and an additional output port with a separate cable, Extreme Trio has the ability to charge three devices simultaneously, at a max total output of 3.4A. Notably, the battery contains a backlit LCD display which shows users output charging speeds, total battery life remaining, and the amount of time remaining to recharge the pack. As noted in the name, Extreme Trio is a 10000 mAh battery; a 6000 mAh version of the battery sells for $15 less. The battery also comes with a micro-USB cable.
Extreme Trio 10,000 is a sharp-looking hard plastic battery with a textured black matte finish.
At 5.7” x 3.1” x 0.5”, it weighs in at less than half a pound. Hidden away on its sides are the built-in Lightning and micro-USB cables for charging devices. The areas below the cable plugs are a tad bulky — they’ll be compatible with most cases, but not all. At the bottom of the battery are 2.4A USB output and micro-USB input ports, and an on/off button which both starts and stops charging and turns on the display. The display is a really neat feature, as it lets users know charging speeds and remaining battery time as a total percentage.
iWalk claims Extreme Trio 10,000 can charge an iPad Air up to 80 percent; our test on an iPad mini 3 matched up with those numbers, as the smaller device recharged fully in about three hours and 38 minutes, which is similar to what a recharge from the mini’s included adapter would be.
After being partially depleted, it was able to give another 12 percent charge to the iPad mini 3 in a bit more than an hour. Our testing also confirmed Extreme Trio is capable of charging three devices at once. Note: iWalk recommends only charging one device while simultaneously charging the Extreme Trio, as charging two devices while recharging the pack could cause “voltage overload.” We’re not sure how many users will use the battery in this way, but we wish iWalk drew more attention to this fact with a more noticeable warning within the packaging.
It’s worth noting that we saw recharging speeds on the display fluctuating a bit at different times and during different tests. Some of that was expected, but it’s impossible for us to say how accurate the display really is; perhaps it did properly account for changes in charging speeds, perhaps it was a bit off at certain moments. But ultimately, the battery performance was fine.
