Review: MyCharge Amp 2000 And 4000 Chargers

You know the drill. The more tech savvy and internet points you have under your belt directly correspond to the amount you stress your battery (or something like that). We’ve looked at plenty of battery chargers here at Gadgetsteria in an attempt to help you, the smartphone flogger that you are make it through most of if not all of your work (and play) day.

On today’s roster we have MyCharge’s AMP 2000 and 4000, the former with 2,000 mAh of power built in and the latter, 4,000 mAh. Let’s get to it.

The Hardware

If there was a fashion show to judge battery packs’ visual acceptance, the AMP series would definitely be in the runners up spot. They’re not quite the best looking chargers we’ve seen around these parts but they’re certainly more than just a simple black brick.

The AMP 20000 that we received was a nice, rich shade of blue. It and the larger AMP 4000 feature a soft-touch finish to keep everything smooth and soft but not so much so to the extend of sucking lint out of your pocket. Also, both models (as well as the high end AMP 6000) feature a handy wrist strap to keep it firmly planted on your person at all times should you choose.

On the bottom end opposite the wrist strap both the AMP 2000 and 4000 feature a battery charge indicator/button that glows a certain color corresponding to a level of charge. Blinking red is obviously “Give it up Jim. She’s dead”, while amber and green represent medium and full charges respectively. On the same end (on both models) there’s also a full-size USB port for plugging in just about any gadget you can think of as well as a microUSB port for re-charging the AMP 2000/4000 itself.

Performance

The AMP 2000 is rated at 9 hours of talk time and the AMP 4000 at 18 hours. In more real-world situations, the AMP 2000 routinely brought our iPhone 5 back from the grave to around 90% each and every time, sometimes a bit less and sometimes a bit more. Meanwhile, the larger AMP 4000 was a bit better at resurrecting the dead, hitting a full 100% the first time around and then another ~70% the second time around.

Crunch Time

For $29.99 and $39.99 the AMP 2000 and 4000 are decent deals. They’re not the most capacious at their respective price points that we’ve seen before. That said, their smaller form factor and focus on hardware design has to account for something, no? In our book, such things are worth at least a small premium, especially if carrying around the industry standard black(ish) brick isn’t quite your cup of tea. If you’re an Android user that would like to get something closer to a full recharge, we’d recommend going with at least the AMP 4000 due to Android devices’ naturally larger batteries.

In your battery pack shopping extravaganza, make sure to keep MyCharge’s AMP series somewhere near the top of your list.

• AMP 2000

• AMP 4000