Cell phone battery dying? Hand-crank your phone back to charge

Give your cell phone a power boost with a hand-powered backup back-up battery pack.

Last year a company called Eton announced their Boost line, which includes line of backup battery packs that you can plug to the wall and use to recharge your phone or mobile device, or in case of emergency, use the hand turbine power generator (aka hand-crank) to give your phone an extra 30 seconds of life for that important call, or other important text messages. I’m talking about the BoostTurbine 2000.

You could use it to power up your iPhone, Android phone, and pretty much any mobile device, including tablets. However, you have to keep in mind that the bigger the device, the more charge it will require.

Features

• Portable backup battery pack with rechargeable 2000mAh lithium ion battery with hand turbine power generator
• Provides 100% dump charge to most smartphones when fully charged
• 1 minute of cranking will generate enough power for a 30 second call or a few critical texts
• Lightweight and durable aluminum body
• USB out to connect with your mobile device.

Here’s a clip I found on Youtube that gives a bare-bones description and you can more or less see how the crank works.

As far as actual real world functionality, the only review I found is the one right under the product page:

I have been looking for a good hand crack cell phone charger for awhile. I have tried others but they were not able to charge a smart phone. I received this model today and so far I am impressed with the device. The product is sturdy and compact. It took me approx. 100 cranks to raise my battery level by one percent.

The thing that always confuses me about customer reviews on Amazon is that you never know when they’re being sarcastic, but the 100 cranks to raise the battery level by one percent sounds plausible, after all that functionality is there as an emergency backup to give the generator an extra boost.

Eton also offers a line of battery packs, like the BoostBlock 6600, which can power up  most smartphones up to three times on a full charge, which is helpful when you travel a lot and there’s barely any place to recharge your device.

You might be thinking, what about solar powered battery packs? Well, what if you’re in a pickle at nighttime and your solar pack is already drained, what are you gonna use to recharger it with? Food for thought.