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Battery packs are incredibly useful for keeping your gadgets charged when they're running low on juice.

But what about your laptop? MacBook users can pick up the HyperJuice, but it requires a little bit of modding to make it compatible with the MagSafe charger and not everyone is comfortable getting their hands dirty. 

A new product called the Omnicharge, currently crowdfunding on Indiegogo, charges any device through a standard AC/DC (120V AC and 150V DC) power plug and has two USB ports to juice up phones and tablets.

The Omnicharge is available in 13,600 mAh and 20,400 mAh capacities currently selling for $99 and $129, respectively, as early promotional prices during the campaign. Once the campaign is over, the Omnicharge will cost $199 (13,600 mAh) and $249 (20,400 mAh). Deliveries are expected to arrive in October.

Sure, the full retail price is expensive. But I'd say it's worth it for the peace of mind when you need juice on the go, even if you don't get the discounted pricing. 

For road warriors and nerds like me who can't go on vacation without bringing a million different devices that need charging, the Omnicharge is basically the ultimate battery pack.

Resembling a stone (even the texture is stone-like), the Omnicharge, which weighs 0.83 pounds (13,600 mAh; 5.2 x 3.3 x 0.9-inches) and 1.3 pounds (20,400 mAh; 5 x 4.8 x 1-inches) is, frankly, quite ugly. The black color looks better, though. Yet the Omnicharge's functionality more than makes up for what it lacks in aesthetics. 

The battery pack contains an OLED screen, which shows the charging output, battery capacity and the temperature of the charger. The screen is bright and easy to read, even in the dark.

Moreover, the Omnicharge can intelligently monitor the batteries and preserve them after each charge to extend life.

The 13,600 mAh Omnicharge provides one full charge (9 hours) for the 12-inch MacBook, 8 hours for the 13.3-inch MacBook Air, 5 hours for the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro, and a full charge for the Surface Pro 4. You can find more device power data here, as well as battery life time for the larger 20,400 mAh Omnicharge.

I've tried out MacBook-specific battery packs like Lenmar's ChugPlug, but that thing is big, heavy and overheats so often I always worry it'll explode. I brought it with me to IFA last year and all I'm going to say is I bought a cheap product and got what I paid for. 

The Omnicharge, especially with its discounted crowdfunding pricing (the 20,400 mAh is a hell of a deal for an extra $30), is the battery pack I've been searching for. Yes, I'm gushing over a battery pack and I'm not afraid to shout it from rooftops.

As more laptops include USB-C ports that can be charged with battery packs (like the 12-inch MacBook), there may not be a need for a gadget like the Omnicharge. But the days of widespread USB-C ports won't come for a while. And even then, there will still be tons of laptops and accessories that will need charging through the good ol' AC plug. Better get it while it's still cheap!

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Who out there is excited for a new Windows 10 Mobile phone? Did your eyes just light up and your heart skip a beat? You're in the very small minority that cares about Windows 10 Mobile then.

For some reason, the Japanese company NuAns is kickstarting a Windows 10 Mobile phone. It would be a great idea if Windows 10 Mobile was relevant at all, but it's not. With only 0.7% of the worldwide smartphone marketshare as of Q1 2016 (that's worse than the 1.7% ending Q3 2015), according to Gartner, the mobile platform is as a good as dead.

Even Microsoft knows it, which is why we're seeing the company pivot towards providing its excellent apps and services on iOS and Android instead.

With so little marketshare and more importantly, such a puny selection of apps, you have to wonder who will buy this phone.

The dream of carrying just your Windows 10 phone and using Continuum and a dock to transform it into a desktop PC was an idealistic pursuit, but ultimately one nobody cared for. Each of us is a multiple device person with each device serving a different purpose. 

With so little marketshare, and more importantly, such a puny selection of apps, you have to wonder what NuAns is thinking with its campaign for the NEO phone. The company's asking for $725,000 to produce its phone, but who the heck is going to buy it?

The niche guy you say! Well, of course, Windows 10 Mobile is a niche — not by choice, but by Microsoft's own failure.

Like a thick old Nokia Lumia smartphone, the NEO isn't competing with the ultra-thin flagship iPhones and Android phones on the market.

As a phone, the NEO is decidedly midrange. It has a 5-inch HD display (1,280 x 720), Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 128GB via microSD card), and a 3,350 mAh battery. On the back is a 13-megapixel f/2.0 aperture camera and on the front is a 5-megapixel f/2.4 aperture camera. Yeah...not exciting. But at least it has a reversible USB-C port!

Instead of performance, NuAns is banking on customizability. The NEO has two back cover panels that are interchangeable and the company hopes to sell a variety of different materials for each cover (i.e. wood, plastic, leather, etc.). There's even a cover with a slot for storing cash or credit cards.

Don't want to buy their cover panels? No problem. The company's planning to make the designs available for users to 3D print for themselves.

Not to totally poo-poo over NuAns — I applaud them for taking this risk — but they are almost certainly destined for failure. 

Windows 10 doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of gaining popularity and catching up to iOS and Android.

The NEO phone is something Windows phone fans needed years ago. And even if it had launched then, it's questionable if it would have found any success at all seeing as Windows Phone 7 and 8 were flops as well.

To NuAns, I say good luck. There are still 38 days left to the NEO phone's campaign and the company's already received more than $37,000 in crowdfunding at the time of this writing. 

Who knows, maybe the phone will get funded and the few people who backed it for $399.99 (early bird special) will be able to enjoy a device that has swappable panels.

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