Battery life: It's the wall our gadgets are always running up against. Today's smartphones and tablets can do wonderful things, but staying connected and running apps consumes power, which is why portable batteries and charging cases are increasingly popular.
There's a trade-off with batteries, though: You can either have something big and bulky that charges your device fast, or something small that takes hours to finish juicing your gadget.
Enter the LithiumCard, which recently completed a successful run on Indiegogo. The battery, which is about the same size as three credit cards stacked on top of each other, is a so-called "hypercharger," pumping out electrons as fast as a biggie battery.
We got our hands on a prototype LithiumCard, and put it to the test. First, we pitted it against a Mophie Powerstation XL, which is a hypercharger in its own right, albeit one you can't just slip into a wallet. Then we put the LithiumCard in the ring with a regular ol' rechargeable battery, the Nokia DC-19.
The LithiumCard delivered. While it didn't work miracles (like that nanotech battery prototype that supposedly charges a phone in 30 seconds), it left everyday batteries in the dust, racing neck-and-neck with the Mophie in speed-charging an iPhone 5S.
Since LithiumCard creator LinearFlux received about five times what it was asking for in its crowdfunding effort, we expect hyperchargers to make their ways into wallets and handbags in the coming months. Unless, of course, the company has also discovered an accelerant for bringing promising products to market.
Image: INDIEGOGO