When Energizer, a brand known primarily for regular old batteries, announced it would bring a smartphone with gargantuan cell capacity to last month's Mobile World Congress, we kind of shrugged and moved on. But then we got the chance to hold and play around with the 18,000 mAh monster a little at the actual MWC 2019 trade show in Barcelona, and... the jokes pretty much wrote themselves.
At the same time, it certainly was interesting to see Energizer take the concept quite seriously by showcasing a fully working product that ended up garnering a lot of attention. Because it remains unclear how many people expressed interest in the Power Max P18K Pop (now dubbed simply P18K) as a joke, the chubby handset can be formally backed on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo starting today.
"Normally" priced at $699, the Energizer P18K is available as an early bird special in exchange for just $549 for its first 200 backers, after which you will be charged $599 until the fund-raising campaign wraps up in 41 days. Avenir Telecom, which is the name of the actual company handling the design and distribution of this Energizer-licensed device, has ambitiously set a $1.2 million fixed goal for this campaign, meaning no money will exchange hands if a smaller amount is raised by the aforementioned deadline.
Before you pull the trigger, you may want to note global shipments are scheduled to begin no sooner than October. That's pretty much the best case scenario, mind you, as a mass production start is still a ways to go.
Without a doubt, the key selling point of the P18K is that insanely large battery that essentially makes the phone look like a power bank with a screen. To their credit, the handset's manufacturers are embracing that comparison, highlighting that this bad boy is in fact thinner and lighter than a (generic) smartphone placed on top of a 10,000 mAh external battery.
Specifically, the Energizer P18K measures 22 mm in depth, while its weight remains under wraps. That's almost three times as thick as a Galaxy S10, but its battery is actually more than five times larger, which should be enough to deliver a staggering endurance of up to 90 hours of uninterrupted voice calls.
The rest of the specs are obviously far less important, but they're certainly not terrible, including a virtually bezel-less 6.2-inch display, dual 16 + 2MP pop-up front cameras, triple 12 + 5 + 2MP rear shooters, a respectable Helio P70 processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB internal storage, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, and Android 9.0 Pie software. Any takers?
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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