Elecjet Apollo Ultra Review

According to Elecjet, the Elecjet Apollo Ultra is the world’s fastest-charging power bank. As such, when it’s charged using the supplied 100W power delivery unit and USB-C cable, Elecjet claims it takes just 27 minutes to charge fully. It achieves this through its use of graphene, which conveniently also extends the power bank’s life. In fact graphene is claimed to charge 5x faster and last last 5x longer than convention lithium ion batteries – the type that are used in digital cameras. Electjet says that the Apollo Ultra should last for over 2500 charge and discharge cycles.

The Elecjet Apollo Ultra has capacity of 10,000mAh or 40Wh and two USB ports, one USB-A and the other USB-C. The USB-C port can be used for charging the power bank or powering and charging other devices while the USB-A port is purely for connecting other devices for charging.

There’s also a small display that shows the power bank’s charge status. This is brought to life by pressing the small button on the left of the end of bank with the USB ports. Pressing the button five times within the space of three seconds toggles the PPS (Samsung Fast Charge) feature on and off.

Elecjet is launching the Apollo Ultra on Indiegogo with an early-bird price of £48/$65, 35% below the retail price.

Elecjet supplies the Apollo Ultra with a 100W mains plug that’s designed for USA sockets. As I’m based in the UK, I initially used a couple of different USB power delivery units that are designed for charging laptops. These enabled the Apollo Ultra to charge fully in around 1 hour 10 minutes.

I then dug out a plug adapter to enable me to use the US plug supplied with the power bank. As soon as I plugged in the Apollo Ultra, I could see that it was a faster method as the capacity indicator climbed quickly from zero. After 26 minutes, it had reached 99.9% capacity. There was then a few minutes delay before it registered as 100%. I checked back with Elecjet and I’m told this is a small bug in the display that will be rectified soon.

While most power banks are used for charging smartphone and tablets, we’re more interested in what the Elecjet Apollo Ultra can offer photographers. With that in mind, I connected the Apollo Ultra to the Panasonic S1R via their USB-C ports.

The Panasonic S1R has a larger than average 7.4V 3050mAh 23Wh rechargeable Li-ion battery, but the Apollo Ultra was up to the challenge of recharging it once. By the time the camera’s battery was fully charged, the Apollo Ultra was depleted.

While the Apollo Ultra recharged, I flattened the battery in a Fujifilm X-S10 by continually recording video. Once the Fujifilm NP-W126S (7.2V 1200mAh) battery was exhausted, I connected the X-S10 to the  connected Apollo Ultra via the USB-C connection to charge it again.

When the camera’s battery was fully charged, Apollo Ultra’s capacity indicator was displaying 70%, so I flattened the battery again and then recharged with the power bank. In total, I was able to charge the Fujifilm battery nearly three times, the third time the X-S10’s battery power indicator showed that it was just one bar out of five down on being at full capacity when the power bank ran out of juice.

The Fujifilm NP-W126S battery is supplied with the X-S10, X-T3, X-Pro3, X-E4 and X-T30 (and more) retails for around £49/$65, which you could argue makes the Elecjet Apollo Ultra ‘worth’ a little under £147/$195.