Duracell DPP-600HD The product you secretly can't wait to use?

When Hurricane Ike took us out in Texas we were without power for about a week. Many others were without for so much longer. I was pretty stocked up on batteries and even a shake light or 2 and a Grundig crank radio. A lot of people in my neighborhood had gas generators and I was tempted to get one also but doing the math - people were spending $50 a day to basically keep their refrigerator running. It didn't make sense to me to spend $50 a day to keep about $100 in food cold for a week. Thats a few hundred dollars a week and you can't really use a generator to run your air conditioner either.

So when I saw this battery pack I thought it was worth a shot. I really haven't had a chance to use it during an emergency but after fully charging it up I checked it out. I was able to run my laptop all night and it still had power left. I was also able to run a few small fans with no problem. The trick here is small - don't try to plug your room cooling Vornado into this, we're talking small appliances.

I think the usage here is like this. If the power goes out, you have a portable big honkin' battery pack you can take from room to room and power stuff. Need to make some coffee, take it into the kitchen and plug in the coffee pot. Need to access your laptop or charge your cell phone or such, its perfect for that.

I think it'll be great for camping also. It comes jumper cables and claims to be able to jump your car - can't attest to that but nice to know I have the option. It also comes with an adapter to charge from the wall and also to charge FROM your car. Thats a pretty neat idea. During Ike, I was charging phones & such in the car as we went to the store and one errands. Not sure how long it would take to charge but take this with you and let it charge up while you are out and about.

All in all I secretly can't wait for an excuse to use this product. Its solidly built, has a light and a radio built it. The light should be LED really, but its the old fashioned bulb kind.