It's hard to get excited about something as common as a power bank, but ElecJet's graphene-based charger might make you think it's time to upgrade.

The graphene composite design of ElecJet Apollo Ultra greatly improves the charging speed and service life of the mobile power bank. Apollo Ultra is essentially a hybrid battery design that uses traditional lithium battery materials and graphene to make electrodes. Due to its higher conductivity, this means that compared to traditional lithium-ion mobile power sources, the charging and discharging speeds are very crazy, and the service life is longer.

We usually don’t cover Indiegogo products such as ElecJet Apollo Ultra 10,000mAh (Indiegogo currently has a technical problem that prevents orders, but ElecJet expects that the problem will be resolved within one day), but there is a chance to see the operation of graphene composite batteries worthwhile Break our guidelines. Graphene batteries are still quite scarce today, and the Mi 10 Ultra is the only mass-produced device we know of that uses graphene composite batteries. But it’s clear that people are very interested in this technology, so please consider this as a preview of the future, it may one day appear on your device as well.

For this hands-on operation, ElecJet provides a pre-release example. There are actually two, because the first hand-assembled model did not reach its claimed charging rate. However, most of our content in this preview is based on the second version of the updated firmware. (We also purchased a production unit to see if it matches our pre-release version.)

ElecJet's 10,000mAh Apollo Ultra looks like any other power bank, including a USB-C port for charging itself or connected devices, and a USB-A port. However, unlike most low-cost power banks, Apollo Ultra's ports are very advanced and support a large number of protocols.

For example, the USB-C port supports the old Power Data Object (PDO) power profile and the new Programmable Power Supply (PPS) profile of USB-PD 3.0. A picture is worth a thousand words, so you can see how rich the USB-C port is in the picture below.

We should note that some newer phones, such as Samsung’s Galaxy 10 series and later, can only reach its “Super Fast Charge 2.0” 25 watts when using charging bricks or power banks that support newer PPS profiles. Charge rate.

Apollo Ultra's USB-PD charging configuration via USB-C is impressive.

Equally impressive is the charging protocol reportedly supported by Apollo Ultra on its USB-A port. This is important because many devices rely on the old USB-A for advanced charging. Most power bricks only support basic functions: Apple’s 2.4 amps, basic USB BC 1.2 up to 1.5 amps, and if you are lucky, Samsung’s 2 amp specifications are also supported.

Apollo Ultra supports basic functions and Qualcomm's QuickCharge 3, QC 2, Huawei's FCP and SCP, Oppo's VOOC/Dash, etc. You can see all of this in the support image reported by the USB-A port below. TLDR is that Apollo Ultra may charge your phone (even your weird model) at the fastest speed through its rich protocol support, even via USB-A.

We should mention that although both ports are very powerful, if used at the same time, Apollo Ultra will limit the power of both ports to 15 watts. To reach the maximum value of each, you need to charge each. There is also a very beautiful feature. Double-clicking the button next to the LED display will trigger the "enhanced" mode to charge very low-power devices such as earplugs or watches.

However, the main reason we came here is to see if this graphene battery is really the case. ElecJet designates the power bank to be able to fully charge in 27 minutes. To test this, we discharged the battery pack to the lowest state (cut-off value is 10%), and then used the ElecJet 100 watt GAN USB-C charger and the 3.3-foot USB-C USB 2.0 cable provided by Apollo Ultra to charge it while recording the charge Rate. You can see its charging rate chart below, where Apollo Ultra is charged at an astonishing 83 watts until it reaches 90%, and then gradually reduces the battery's input charging rate. This is a pattern you see on the most advanced charging devices and helps to maintain the health and life of the battery. It is basically very fast.

In fact, it is so fast that we suspect that ElecJet added a decimal point to the LED display just to emphasize this point. You can literally observe the scale of the counter in real time. We know that you don't believe us, so we made a GIF as evidence, which you can see below. No, it is not accelerated; it is real-time.

One of the worries about the fast charging rate of mobile power is the danger of overheating. The high conductivity of graphene should help reduce this concern, which seems to be confirmed in our tests. When charging at 83 watts on a fairly warm day, you can see the thermal image of Apollo Ultra to see where the hot spots are. Remember, thermal imaging is not the most accurate method of recording temperature, but it passes the most important test: we can touch it without discomfort.

The graphene technology inside Apollo Pro allows it to be charged quickly without becoming very hot.

Interestingly, despite being able to charge at 87 watts, ElecJet specifies the output power of the USB-PD port as high as 65 watts. This may be related to the 18 watts reserved for the USB-A port, but it may confuse some people, so let’s say it again: you can charge up to 87 watts, but the USB-C port only provides up to 65 watts. But this may be no problem, because 65 watts is enough, and it may be the only power bank we have seen that allows you to actually run a laptop like Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Pro 13. It's as if it's plugged into the wall.

The biggest problem with running a laptop in this way is that 37 watt-hours (only about 27 watt-hours are available) are not much. With such an advanced charging circuit and graphene battery, it feels like doubling the capacity might make it more useful for laptop users. However, for mobile phones or tablets, this is fine.

Increasing its capacity will also make it heavier, 8.8 ounces, which is quite large compared to other power banks with similar capacities. In contrast, Apollo Ultra is about 25% heavier than 10,000mAh Mophie PowerStation PD XL. Higher capacity will also make it more expensive. The price on Indiegogo is $65, and the retail price is expected to be higher, so the capacity is very expensive. For example, the Mophie Powerstation PD XL mentioned above is priced at $25 on Amazon, which is a very typical brand-name 10,000mAh power bank.

The value for money of Apollo Ultra depends to a large extent on how important you are to fast charging your device. The last thing that might make you believe that it is worth the investment is the duty cycle of the graphene power bank. All batteries have a limited service life. You may have experienced that the frequently used mobile power will no longer be charged after a few years. Although most traditional batteries may give you hundreds of cycles, the graphene battery in Apollo Ultra should reach 2,500 cycles. Therefore, during its life cycle, it may be rewarded.

However, in addition to Apollo Ultra, the exciting thing is that it will definitely eventually enter the mass market of mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Modern laptops are already charging at an almost crazy speed. Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon has long been able to change from empty to 80% in 30 minutes. Seeing what the graphene battery in Apollo Ultra can do, it is very exciting to consider plugging your old laptop into a power source and reaching 80% capacity in a few minutes. We can't wait.