Rugd Power Brick review: The best battery for outdoors?

The Rugd Power Brick portable battery is designed for charging your gadgets when exploring the great outdoors. I took one to Norway to see if it would survive.

Letting your phone run out of battery is an unpleasant experience. Especially if you are miles from civilisation as I was when exploring Norway at the tail-end of winter. A time, unlike in Iceland, when most stuff is closed.

Fortunately for me, I had been sent the 280g Rugd Power Brick lithium-ion battery. Encased in rugged (hence the name) orange plastic and packing 10,050mAh capacity, this IP 67-rated block of charging goodness is mewant to be one tough cookie.

It comes with a type-C cable and 18v connection, which means certain smartphones can recharge 50 per cent in half an hour. Other gadgets such as camera packs also charge at a decent rate, ensuring I could snap photos all day despite the often sub-zero conditions.

By no means light, the Rugd Power Brick is at least compact at 97x97x28mm. It fits nicely into a large pocket or backpack, or it can hang using the included metal carabiner.

To be fair, the positive side of that chunkiness is that it seemed able to sit at the bottom of a backpack all day and survived a few drops without falling apart.

Meanwhile the design is simplistic as is the case for many power banks. The same Type-C cable can be used to recharge the device, with the battery level displayed as four dots. Four means full, at one is time to find a wall plug.

As for the back panel of the Rugd Power Brick, it is not wasted space. Instead, there is a camping light that is bright enough to illuminate the inside of a tent or your way home at night. Or it can do an SOS signal, which, fortunately, I never needed to test.

Priced at £70, the Rugd Power Bank is by no means cheap. It did, however, prove invaluable out in the Norwegian wilderness and it still works perfectly months later.