Eton’s metal-clad BoostTurbine2000 ($59) is disproportionately large for its battery capacity, but there’s a reason for that: the 2000mAh charger has a hand turbine power generator built-in. In addition to recharging the battery through the Micro-USB port, it can be replenished — slowly — by manual hand cranking. iPad, iPhone, and iPod users should note that the battery doesn’t come with a Lightning or Dock Connector cable, and its USB port outputs power at 1A — full-speed for iPods and iPhones, half-speed or less for iPads.
While most companies can fit a comparably capacious battery into something as small as an iPad case, BoostTurbine2000 is 1” thick, 2.2” wide, and 5” deep.
The majority of the body is a brushed aluminum shell, while the underside is plastic. You’ll find the pack’s I/O all on one side: a Micro-USB input for recharging with the included cable, and the aforementioned full-sized USB port. Between the two is a power switch that doubles as a battery life indicator button.
In our testing, conducted using an iPhone 5 connected to both Wi-Fi and AT&T’s LTE network, but with the screen off and no media playing, the fully charged BoostTurbine2000 battery was able to provide an 84% refueling. That result was slightly below our expectations, but only by a few percentage points—not bad for a 2000mAh battery. The crank is a somewhat different story.
