Are you planning a long trip or a stay somewhere without a power outlet? Then it would be in your best interest to equip yourself with an X-Power Max from XtremeMac, a large capacity external battery capable of recharging all your mobile devices, even your laptop.
Even if the autonomy of our electronic devices, particularly smartphones, tends to improve little by little, we sometimes have difficulty getting through the day when we use it intensely, for example during vacations when we take lots of photos and videos.
As a result, you may already be used to carrying a small emergency battery with you to make up for the lack of an electrical outlet nearby. But what about your tablet or even your laptop? These two devices have much larger batteries and the small external battery intended to save your smartphone will not be big. Moreover, it’s even a safe bet that if you plug it into your PC or Mac laptop, it will charge the small external battery. A shame.
Fortunately, there are external batteries with larger capacities to meet the most demanding nomadic needs. The X-Power Max from XtremeMac belongs to this category. A very large capacity model that we tested in a real situation.
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XtremeMac X-Power Max: the maximum legal capacity
Despite its name, the XtremeMac X-Power Max is not reserved for Apple products. Like any battery, it can be used with all kinds of mobile devices, regardless of their brands.
Its real originality lies in its storage capacity of 99.9 watt hours (Wh), much higher than that of small pocket batteries. Why this funny number? Because this is the accepted upper limit for air travel. This is the reason why the largest of Apple’s MacBook Pros, the one with a 16.2-inch diagonal screen, also has a 100 Wh capacity battery, whereas there would be room inside for a bigger battery.
The capacity of a battery is also expressed in milliampere-hours (mAh) and that of XtremeMac reaches 27,000 mAh. For comparison, the battery capacity of an iPhone 16 is 3561 mAh. In other words, the X-Power Max could easily charge it between 6 to 7 times before running dry itself, according to the manufacturer.
Despite its superlative capacity, the dimensions of the X-Power Max remain reasonable: 16.1 cm long by 5.5 cm wide and 5 cm high. All for a weight of 625 grams. So you can’t slip it into a pocket, but it won’t take up too much space in a backpack or suitcase.
XtremeMac X-Power Max: up to three simultaneous charges
But, precisely, such a battery allows you to recharge much more, especially since it offers 2 USB-C sockets and a USB-A socket which can be used simultaneously to charge, therefore, three devices at once. Please note, only one of these USB-C ports can be used to recharge the battery itself, via a traditional charger, that of your laptop for example, which will fill it more quickly than that of your smartphone. Exactly, let’s talk about recharging. During our tests the X-Power kept its promises.
By connecting it to a 16-inch MacBook Pro via the USB-C socket called C1, the most powerful, the screen displays a power output of 135 W, very close to the theoretical maximum 140 W. This allowed us, for example, to charge the Mac battery from 46 to 69% in 15 minutes. Not bad ! During the same time, the X-Power Max discharged from 87 to 49%. In other words, you will not be able to recharge this MacBook Pro from 0 to 100% with this external battery even though it has the same capacity: there is necessarily a little loss, particularly in the form of heat, during the recharging process. But it will ensure full charging without problem on a more reasonable sized laptop…
On the same laptop, the USB-C C2 socket only delivers a maximum power of 7 W. This is a little disappointing, but it is obviously not the recommended use. It is better, in fact, to reserve the most powerful C1 socket for the most demanding device and the other two sockets for the tablet and the smartphone for example. And this is where we see the whole point of such an external battery. You can plug in all three devices at the same time, and the X-Power Max doesn’t flinch. It manages the distribution of energy flows to the devices while avoiding overheating.
For comparison, we also carried out charging tests with an iPad Air M2. By plugging it into the most powerful outlet, for example, its battery went from 5% to 20% in 15 minutes, consuming only 6% of the capacity of the external battery. And, of course, nothing prevents you from charging any device on this external battery, such as a Kindle e-reader or wireless headphones.
XtremeMac X-Power Max: a surprisingly readable screen
The icing on the cake, the X-Power Max is equipped with a small but very readable color screen which provides technical data on its loading or unloading, with indications of power in watts, voltage in volts and intensity in amps. On the side, the traditional battery-shaped icon indicates the remaining capacity of the battery itself, as well as its internal temperature which we see rise when it is used to quickly charge a laptop for example. Or also while the battery itself is charging, especially if you plug it into a powerful charger of several tens of watts to charge it more quickly. It’s really practical for monitoring the current recharge(s) in detail.
XtremeMac X-Power Max: a battery for heavy consumers
Even if its price of 130 euros may seem a little high, the X-Power Max external battery from back. Please note, this battery is only available for sale on the manufacturer’s website. Hopefully one day we will find it more easily on other e-commerce sites like Amazon, Fnac-Darty, Boulanger, Cdiscount, Rakuten and others.