Cooler Master Choiix Power Fort USB Battery Pack Review

A Closer Look and Final Thoughts about the Power Fort

The Choiix Power Fort is a very small battery pack, roughly the size and profile of a smart phone or GPS unit so it fits easily in the pockets of most jeans. The Power Fort is decent to look at with a glossy black top piece and matte gray bottom. The status/light button is a touch on the sensitive side, so if you cover the top with clear tape to protect it don’t expect it to work as normal (though it works just fine, you simply have to press it very lightly).

The Choiix Power Fort has one input and one output, miniUSB in to charge it, then USB out to charge anything else.

When the three “flashlight” LEDs are on from full charge the Power Fort can keep them on for a staggering ~70 hours. As a flashlight the Power Fort is not exactly a spotlight, but is more than sufficient when looking for something in your car or while working on a computer.

The Choiix Power Fort has 4 status LEDs which tell you how much juice is still in it, and the manual has a chart which tells you roughly:

• 1st LED blinking: 0-15%
• 1st LED solid: 15-30%
• 2nd LED blinking: 30-45%
• 2nd LED solid: 45-60%
• 3rd LED blinking: 60-70%
• 3rd LED solid: 70-80%
• 4th LED blinking: 80-90%
• 4th LED solid: 90-100%

Testing the Choiix Power Fort

And, finally, we have the testing with the Power Fort. For the Garmin Nuvi GPS unit we let the battery die completely from full (where the standard life comes from) while keeping the unit on with the map up and the screen at max brightness. Once dead we plugged in the Power Fort, so the load is from dead to charged and back to dead again once the Power Fort runs out of juice. A similar test was run with my days old LG 290C slider phone, though it was being used as a stopwatch so it would remain sucking juice as consistently as possible.

As you can see the Power Fort can handle some decent load having to charge the two devices from zero life and still consistently drawing power after that. The Power Fort charged and fed the GPS for 3.98x longer life than its stock battery, and 2.3x longer than the cell phone’s.

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The Choiix Power Fort is a very handy device, and with seemingly infinite battery life as a flashlight (70 hours per charge, and 500 charges before it only charges up to ~85% means about 35,000 hours of flashlight time) it is simply a great buy. Even at its steep $49.99 price tag for the standard models I have to say the Choiix Power Fort is well worth the money, and if you travel frequently I would have to consider it a necessity.

When considering the Power Fort you have to keep in mind the miniUSB connector is very common, where I have several wall adapters lying around from mp3 players, cell phones and GPS units so the advanced package is not all that important. The Choiix Power Fort also carries a two year limited warranty on hardware, not including the battery itself or accessories.

The Choiix Power Fort is very handy to have around, especially as a flashlight, and is the most powerful and versatile portable USB charger available right now.

Legit Bottom Line: The Cooler Master Choiix Power Fort is in a class of its own as a universal portable USB charger, not to mention a powerful flashlight which can stay on for days per charge at full brightness. The Power Fort is a tad pricey up at $49.99 for the two base models, but for those that have a need for it, it is worth every penny.