3GJuice

Photo gallery: 3GJuice

Design
This is what happens when you feed the iPhone after midnight. Remember in Gremlins, after the Mogwai was covered with water he started firing miniature, featureless versions of himself around Billy's bedroom? The 3GJuice battery pack looks like a miniature, featureless iPhone. Covered in the same fingerprint-loving, glossy black plastic with stainless steel trim, it's to the iPhone 3G what the iPod Shuffle is to the iPod family.

The charging unit comes with a cap that protects the 30-pin iPhone/iPod connection and covers an On/Off switch. We like that the cap offers this piece of mind, though we'd love it more if we had somewhere to attach it to while charging the iPhone. The 3GJuice has one LED light which glows green for "on" and red for "charging".

Our major concern is the way this battery connects to the iPhone or iPod Touch. The 30-pin connection fits securely but is relied on to hold the battery in place. Once inserted we found the battery wiggled with only light contact. This is not a solution for people who need to recharge the iPhone on the go, the iPhone and battery really should remain on a flat surface so as to not risk snapping the connection. The 3GJuice would really benefit from a clip to hold the battery to the handset.

Performance
What can we say other than it works? 3GJuice comes with a USB cable for charging, though it would have been handy to find a wall charger in the sales kit as well. Charging the battery takes several hours, but we found the transfer of charge to the iPhone happened much quicker, similar to our experience charging the iPhone in the usual way.

The 3GJuice battery has a 1800mAh capacity, 50 per cent larger than the iPhone's 1200mAh internal battery. Theoretically this could equate to one and a half recharges, though the 3GJuice website urges us not to over-estimate its performance, stating that the battery should achieve "No more and no less" than one full recharge. During our tests, we found that we could partially charge the iPhone battery to an amount in excess of 100 per cent charge over several recharges. This is great news for the road warrior market this battery is intended for.

Overall
The 3GJuice battery charging does the job of recharging the iPhone's battery, though we really don't recommend you move the iPhone too much while charging. We haven't stress-tested the connector on the charger, but we don't think it would take much to break it or your iPhone.

The 3GJuice is only available through the company's website and costs AU$74.95. We think this is a bit expensive for a charging pack, though there are no cheaper alternatives to the best of our knowledge.