Laser juices up cars, phones, tablets with a big battery bank

Anyone who has owned a modern smartphone knows all too well that it’s kind of a necessary thing to have a power bank near you to charge that sucker up, because few phones get longer than a day of life anymore, but what if the same thing could exist for a car?

Laser might have the answer for this, building a 12000mAh power bank with connections for your regular devices — iPhone, iPad, Android, etc — as well as those needed for a car.

To put that number in perspective, the Apple iPhone 6 carries an 1810mAh battery, with this bank holding a over six times the amount of charge. Is that six iPhone 6 charges? Technically, but with the car connection, it’s also something for beyond your phone.

Rather, this is one of those “in case of emergency” devices, and the sort of thing you might leave in the car of someone you love in case the battery dies and they need something to give their motor a quick jump, as the jumper cables are included in the box complete with a connection to the battery bank.

Now these aren’t the same style of jumper cables every car should come with, and these go solely to the battery bank, but if you need a bit of a boost, this should provide something, while also being useful for charging other devices, and offering a small torch built into the unit.

One thing we do need to note is that the Laser Car Jump Starter does not come pre-charged despite saying so on the box, an observation we made when we pulled it from the box only to find there was no life in the battery, or simply put, not even enough to switch on the torch found on the battery itself.

That means if you’re planning on buying one for your kids and their car, you’ll actually want to unbox it and charge it up before leaving it in the boot, otherwise when it’s really needed, it will be just like car: flat and unusable, waiting for someone with a pair of jumper cables to come by and charge it up.

Charge it ahead of time, however, and you should be fine, with Laser saying that the battery should last up to a good nine months of standby time, with that time useful not just for the jumper motor, but also for any phone or tablets reliant on the iPod Dock, microUSB, or Lightning port connections.

Pricing on Laser’s Portable Power Bank and Car Jump Starter — called the PB-CJ12000 (don’t worry, you’re not expected to know the model number off the top of your head, we sure won’t be memorising it) — comes in at $129.95, with availability at electronics stores now.