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A portable charger that can power up your MacBook Pro and act as a USB hub? Let's check this out
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Dave Taylor here and I'm always looking for power. You probably are too. Whether you're
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working from home or whether you're at the office or on a road trip, there's always a
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device that needs charging. Enter this. This little guy, very humble, is the Zender X5 portable
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charger. This is a pretty remarkable little device. There are tons of chargers out there
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but this puts out the wattage. This is a 15,000 milliamp hour charge battery, so it definitely
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can power things up a lot. But it puts out 45 watts of power delivery or PD power, which means
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it's enough to charge up my MacBook Pro on the road. I'll actually talk about exactly how much
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it charges up in a minute. It's pretty impressive, but let's keep talking. So, 45 watt power delivery
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It also is a USB 3.1 hub, which actually you can see here on the back, there's a USB-C port and
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then there are two USB-A, or as I like to call them, USB 3.1 ports. And the two USB 3.1 ports
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give you 18 watts output and are quick charge 3.0 compatible, which is great for your devices
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And it can support up to a five gigabit per second data transfer rate. So, pretty darn impressive
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So, how much can you charge? You can charge up to 10 hours of power on a MacBook Air
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seven hours on a MacBook Pro. You can get three to four iPhone charges out of this
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or two to three Nintendo Switch charges out of this. And it's four and a half
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I'm sorry, four and a half by two and a half by one, and it's 15 ounces. So, it's a smidge heavy
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but there's actually a battery inside, so you expect it to be heavy. So, really phenomenal
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Now, let's plug it in and see how it works. So, first off, I just have a very short USB-C
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to USB-C, and I'm going to plug that into my MacBook Pro, and keep your ears peeled
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you should hear that beep. Right? So, it's charging my MacBook Pro, which leads to the question
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okay, so how much does it charge and how quickly? Turns out it's charging really fast
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but this thing will give you a 62% charge in an hour. That is not bad at all. And considering
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it's something you can carry in your briefcase, backpack, or suitcase, it's pretty amazing
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right? Then, I looked at the Google Pixel 3 XL. This is a pretty big, hefty phone
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has really great battery characteristics, better than the Pixel 4, actually. This thing holds its
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charge for an insanely long amount of time. And you can charge off of this Zender X5 and get a
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42% charge in an hour. In fact, it even says charging quickly, as you can see here. So
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it's everything you really want. Now, let's do one more thing, because I also want to show that
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here's just your regular old thumb drive. Here's a MacBook Pro with only USB-C. Well, that's a
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bummer, right? We all have to live with that with these devices. But this gives you a hub. So
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assuming I can plug it in, let's try it the other way, assuming I can get it to plug in
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then it actually shows up on my desktop. So, this is acting as a hub, in addition to being
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a charge device. That is pretty phenomenal power and capabilities. I'm a huge fan. Now
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I have to be honest, this is not quite on the market. This is coming out at the end of May
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but Zender already has other products in this line. And when this one comes out, this is going
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to be a really great price point. I'll get to that in a sec. But even if you don't want to wait
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and you've just got to get one of their products, they have their X6, which is an even bigger charge
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capability and has all the same basic functionality. Check out their site for exactly
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what it can do. But this company just is really re-examining how do you make a portable charger
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actually be useful. And the idea that it is actually a hub, what a great idea, right? So
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you can use this as a USB hub, in addition to charging. And when you're ready to charge it up
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yourself, then all you do is you use that USB-C, I'm pretty sure it's just USB-C, plug this into
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any wall charger, and it will charge itself up. And there's a button with a little LED status
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that'll show you how far it's charged. And finally, when it's fully charged, when all four lights are
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on. So, I've been using this a lot, so I've been pulling a lot of the power out of it. But this is
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all you need. This is so fantastic, because yes, it can charge up a phone. It can charge three
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things simultaneously. How cool is that? But it can also charge bigger devices, devices that need
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actual wattage, not like that 1.8 amp that you're going to get from like a regular battery charger
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for a phone or something. So, the fact that this will let me charge this is absolutely a win. So
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now, before I get to the price, let me ask if you can subscribe to my channel. There's just a little
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button floating down there near the bottom. All you have to do is click or tap on it
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you've subscribed, and now we'll be friends forever. Well, maybe not forever, but certainly
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for a while. And I get my hands on a lot of cool stuff, and I always give you the straight story
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And this, for example, this is the Zender X5 Portable Charger, not yet available. So, this is
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more of a preview than a review. But this should be exactly what the final product looks like, too
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Though it wouldn't surprise me if they put something on this end, because it's just a blank
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piece of metal. And they could certainly put a logo on there or something. But be that as it may
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this is a preview of the Zender X5 Portable Charger, and it will be priced
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at $99. And you'll be able to check it out at zender.com. 99 bucks. There are plenty of
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companies that sell $99 chargers that do nothing else. So, the fact that this is a USB hub and
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drops 45 watts of power delivery and Quick Charge 3.0, crazy, man. This is so worth adding to your
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road warrior arsenal. Or, if you want to sit on the couch and you don't want to deal with getting
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the power plugged in and the charger and everything, just have this next to you. You can sit
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there and work forever. Or watch Netflix forever. Whatever. In any case, I'm a big fan. So, this is
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definitely one worth checking out. And with that, I'll catch you in my next video
