Its a special feeling to have a gizmo that you can claim is now extinct, well not exactly but the HyperMac won’t sell in this form ever again. After the Apple lawsuit the company has dropped bundling the MagSafe adapters, and doesn’t advertise the HyperMac as an external battery for MacBook anymore. However I am sure a good google search would fetch you sources to buy the cable from 3rd party manufacturers even today 🙂
The model we are testing is the MBP-060 for the 13″ MacBook Pro. The MBP-060 is a 60Wh battery that promises 12 hours of non stop backup on the MacBook Pro. Getting our order delivered just before CES 2011 is a cheer and this thing is sure to boost our coverage from Las Vegas. The HyperMac (60Wh version) is quite compact and portable. Weighing 440+ gms (with the magsafe cable) this one fits in our laptop bag without taking too much space. The finishing is pure metal (we wonder if plastic would have helped reduce weight?) and goes along with the unibody Macbook. There are 3 slots on the back of the device, 1 USB port to attach any handheld or gadget that charges via the USB cable, 1x power in socket and 1x power out (the ‘power in’ and ‘DC out’ are same ports causing confusion at times).
The first day with the HyperMac was quite puzzling. The battery backup we got was just around 2 hours and the battery didn’t charge the Macbook Pro, but just keep powering it. After contacting the support we were informed that the HyperMac works best when the Macbook is 100% charged (apparently when the Macbook isn’t 100% charged it draws too much power for the HyperMac to handle). So we run our test again with a 100% charge on our Macbook Pro (13″) and the backup hardly exceeds 4 hours. We kept the brightness at 50% and used the Mac for web browsing over WiFi only (with a dinner break in between).
Update: And I also doubt if the power adapter that comes with the HyperMac can charge the HyperMac battery and power the Macbook together. Disappointed!
The 4.x hours of backup is quite below the promised 12hr on the HyperMac site (during the time of purchase) and the constraint of having a 100% charge on the Macbook to get that is sure disappointing. Guess we would only know at CES if this was worth it!
The HyperMac 60wh costed $199 + shipping + customs when we ordered. However the same now costs $169.95 ++ given the fact that they don’t bundle the MagSafe adapter anymore (you need to buy the Airline adapter from Apple for $49).
