If you like your gadgets with a pinch of style and want a mobile charger, Bluetooth headset or portable wireless speaker, check out MiPow.
When it comes to design, most gadget-makers opt for simple color schemes and boxy designs, but the first thing we noticed about the MiPow table at CES 2013 was the polished purple, orange-yellow, blue and metallic red tones of its portable chargers, speakers and Bluetooth earpieces, each made out of soft-finished, anodized aluminum.
If you like what see above and in our gallery below, you’ll be glad to know that most of these devices will launch officially later this month.
On the portable charger side of things, MiPow will debut three devices of varying battery capacities (hinted at within their name). The line includes the Power Cube 8000 with a pretty large 8000mAh battery, the Power Tube 5500 and the cylindrical PowerTube 2200.
Considering that most smartphones don’t have battery sizes beyond 2000mAh, even the smallest KiPow charger can bring a smartphone back to life at least once. MiPow’s chargers are available with either a 30-pin port for previous-gen iPads and iPhones or microUSB ports for Android devices. Worry not, iPhone 5 and new iPad owners, each device has a female USB port for charging via a Lightning port cord--although we would like to see these devices rock a native Lightning port connector.
Each MiPow charger gets its own juice over USB--either through a male USB port for docking in a notebook or a female micro-USB port for connection with a laptop’s USB port or a charging adapter (adapter not included).
Next on the company’s gadget list are the Boom and Boom Mini Bluetooth 4.0 speakers. Thanks to low-power Bluetooth Smart technology, the larger Boom speaker offers 10 hours of music playback time, and an estimated 300 hours of talk/standby time if users take advantage of the built-in microphone for making calls.
The Boom has two 3W speakers for audio that was a little flat but still punchy for a device of its size. Save for the removable handle, three buttons for volume and call control and speaker perforations on the device’s front, the Boom is a smooth box with the same brushed-finish aluminum as the chargers--it looks colorful, fun and sleek.
The Boom Mini is a much smaller, simpler box device, packs one 3W speaker and supports 5 to 10 hours talk time via a microphone or 3 to 5 hours of consistent music playback.
If you’re looking for a lightweight Bluetooth earpiece, MiPow offers three mono Bluetooth 4.0 headsets--each with the ability to pair two devices at once, plus built-in noise-cancellation and support for voice commands.
Talk about style. The Luz100 not only comes with a very cool-looking magnetic dock, it also has an added touch of class, compliments of a single, studded Swarvoski crystal. The VoxTube 500 loses the stone but looks just as classy as MiPow’s other gadgets, and the VoxTube 700 builds a male USB port into the end of the mouthpiece so it can charge plugged into a nearby notebook.
If any of the above sound like gadgets for you, keep an eye out for MiPow devices to go on sale later this month.
