Question 1

How many hours is the charge time?

Accepted Answer

Are you asking how long it takes to charge the GearPower portable battery, itself, or are you asking how long it takes for the GearPower to charge another device?  The specs for the GearPower state that its battery's capacity is 2000mAh.  They also state, "Rated input:  500mA max.", and "Rated output:  600mA max.".  If these maximum values are used, it should take about four hours to charge this GearPower (2000 divided by 500 equals 4), and about three hours twenty minutes to discharge it (2000 divided by 600 equals 3.33).  It isn't quite that simple, though, because the GearPower does not include a power adapter.

As far as charging the GearPower, like with any battery, it depends on the power output of the source you use to charge it. The problem with using greater power sources to achieve faster recharge rates is that it brings with it greater heat, and if the components aren't designed to handle the heat, there is catastrophic failure.

In this case, power sources could be a computer's USB port, or the USB port of an A/C adapter of some sort, or the USB port of a D/C device used in an automobile.  If I charge my old cell phone with the A/C adapter that came with it, which outputs 700mA, it takes a few hours to fully recharge it. If I charge that phone using my Samsung Note 2 phone's adapter, which outputs 2000mA (2A), it takes less time--and may be damaging that phone's battery, as far as I know. Once, it did overheat, and melted the inside of the USB cable's plug where it enters the phones port, which thereafter caused me intermittent connection problems with certain USB cables/chargers, including the GearPower's cable--I have to apply a little side-pressure to the connection to get it to charge. The battery/phone got very hot that time, as well.  Either my phone just isn't designed to handle that much power, or that cable had an issue, or something small got introduced into the connection, itself, and caused a slight short-circuiting. [truncated here]

Question 2

can I use this to charge an iPad mini?

Accepted Answer

No, it won't work at all on an iPhone 5 or iPad mini. Even if it did it is only 2000 mAh which would only charge it about 20 to 25%. Look for one about 11,000 mAh that will charge your mini once or an iPhome several times. Watch for the sales and you can get one for about 2 or 3 times the price of this. It will be much larger and heavier than this though. This is OK to charge a Samsung Galaxy 3 or 4 once. Make sure the one you buy says it will work with the Mini and ios 7.

Question 3

Will it charge a Nook tablet?

Accepted Answer

Yes, I have a Nook and this works great - it has the mini USB adapter needed.  It's not the fastest charge in the world, regardless of device, but definitely worth the money, especially when traveling.

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