Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this and the Tekkeon 3450 thinking I'd either keep both or maybe sell one on Ebay when I figured out which one was better. I really wanted the XP18000 to work because it appeared to have more storage (looking at their web site and using my math skills I came up with 80Wh vs 50 for the Tekkeon) and it came with a LOT more tips. First annoyance is that there are two outputs, one for 9-12v and the other for 16-20v and the jacks are two different sizes. My laptop charger is 12v so I wanted to use the 12v output. Unfortunately, the plug that fit my netbook would only work with the 16-20v output. The tips are two different sizes presumably to prevent you from plugging your cell phone into the 19v output, but most devices have voltage regulators to prevent that kind of problem. Also I figure anyone who's techie enough to buy one of these probably thinks they are smart enough to understand the voltage issue and would be embarrassed to admit otherwise. The Tekkeon will happily let you crank the voltage up to 19 on any device that they have an adapter for. Anyway, I went to radio shack and bought the right ends to build my own cable (which added maybe 12$ to my cost of ownership).
The bigger problem for me turned out that the "9-12v" output generates 10.5v according to my volt meter. This is less than 12 and my stupid netbook, or rather should I say my "smart" netbook didn't do anything when fed the 10.5v (while it's very happy with the 12v the Tekkeon puts out). I tried the 16-20v output, which comes in at 19v. My netbook said that it saw power, but for some reason it refused to charge with that voltage. I'm guessing that what the XPal has is 15 NiMH cells in series and the they have the lower voltage tapped from the first 8 or 9 of them. I'm thinking if I could crack the thing open I could rewire it, but the screw heads are sealed and I don't feel the urge to mess the thing up to get at it.
Enter the Tekkeon. Found the right tip, plugged in the cable, set the voltage and voila! No muss, no fuss; it just worked. Physically it's smaller and lighter. I'm sure the XPal would last longer, which is the main point (as long as both would work).
There is one cool thing that made me give it 4 stars: I can use the 19v output from the XPal to power the Tekkeon! This gives me the best of both worlds: I can get the larger battery for the longer time. It's more than I normally want to carry around, but it seems like a better solution than getting the second battery from Tekkeon for those rare occasions when I might need more power.
I think this is a good product, but you better check your voltage requirements before you buy. If you really need 12 volts (which I did), then this isn't probably going to work.
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