Tech Check: Vanxipow Portable Battery Jumpstarter

This recently happened to someone I know: they had been on a long road trip and on their last stop, they stopped at a rest area. After using the restrooms, they got back into their car – and the car refused to start. They didn’t know what to do. They ended up calling a local mechanic and paying $200 for him to basically jumpstart their car using a portable battery jumpstarter.

They found out later that the reason why their car wasn’t starting up was because of their portable refrigerator in their car (that they plugged in to keep cool for water and snacks). What they didn’t realize is that the fridge was draining their battery, to a point that it got dangerously low… and there was no juice for the car to first jumpstart the engine.

They learned a valuable lesson that day: never leave anything plugged in and also to keep a portable jumpstarter in their car.

It did get me on the track to keep something like that for my cars, so I ended up purchasing TWO VANXIPOW 8000A Portable Car Battery Jump Starter for two of my cars.

Here’s the deal: I have two cars – one I semi-regularly use, and one that sits there for months without usage. The car that I don’t normally drive, over time the battery is drained (this is normal – if you don’t regularly drive the car, the car doesn’t self-charge the battery so it will eventually drain – this happens to most/all batteries).

The first thing I did was charged up the Vanxipow Battery to 100% and then tested it out on my car that wouldn’t start up. And voila, it works. It also drained the portable battery to 50%!! Holy cow, this led me to believe that you can only really use it twice.

However: the Portable battery also comes with a car charging cable (both cigarette port and USB-C), so you can charge the battery as you drive. I wouldn’t recommend turning off your car until you get home, though!

So let’s go over some of the positive:

8000A: “peak” current. They claim this battery can completely restart a car from a completely dead battery. I will take their words for it, as my car wasn’t used in three months was coming from a semi-dead battery.

Air Compressor: It has a portable air pumper. They claim their 150PSI compressor can inflate a normal car battery to 50PSI in a minute. I have not tested this, but did accidentally turned on the air compressor and it was pumping out air, I can attest to that.

Emergency Lights: I did test out the lights, it has standard flashlight, but also Red/Blue Flashing SOS lights, in case you’re stranded in the middle of the road and needed to be seen.

Portable Battery: There is additional USB port that you can use to charge your phone, tablet, or whatever needs to be charged (providing you have the right cables). I wish I had this when I accidentally forgot to charge my camera, this would have come in handy. Since that camera incident, I always carry an extra camera battery in my camera bag in case of emergency… but this battery in my car can also be quite useful.

Size and Weight: Despite claiming high-capacity 20000mAh Lithium Polymer battery, it feels really lightweight. I’m not sure if what they advertised is true or not, but based on my own experience, I feel that it should be much heavier (if it is high capacity). I am not necessarily saying “heavy is better”, but just something I noticed in similar portable batteries (they weigh a ton). I do like that the Vanxipow Battery is quite small and compact. The whole kit (with jumpers and pump) all fit in one small case. Bonus for providing the case, that is added value, in my opinion.

Price: Saving the best for last. It’s currently on sale for $40. That is an outstanding price. Since I need two portable battery jumper, I tried to search for two different brands. None of the others could match the price (for similar features/perks such as air compressor). So, I ended up buying two Vanxipow.

Now for some negative: As I said earlier, I feel like I can only jumpstart a car TWO times before the Vanxipow is exhausted. That seems very low to me… but again, I also point out that there are cables to re-charge the battery once you get the car back running, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. If you’re driving to work, back and forth, you can always charge the battery while you’re at work.

The other negative is the way the power button behaves. You have to long-press the power button to turn it on. If you short-tap the power button it turns on the air compressor. That just seems like an odd choice… perhaps have a dedicated air compressor button? The lights button will cycle through the light option, that’s fine. I wish the light area was a little larger, that’s all.

I haven’t had the Vanxipow long enough to tell how well it holds a charge… but I will check back one month of it sitting in my car, and I’ll find out if it’s still 100% or not (and how often do I need to top-up).

So far, I’m pretty happy with the price and peace of mind of a portable car jump starter. I’m very impressed of what it offers for $40. If you own a car, I really suggest getting one of these and keep it in your car. When I was living in Minnesota, on very cold nights, my car wouldn’t start – I had used an older portable jumper would help startup the car… so if you’re living in a cold part of the world – keep a portable jumper in your car! Plus, as a bonus, you can use it to charge your phone if it’s running low.

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