Energizer Power Max P18K Pop hands-on review: A brick of a phone with a beast of a battery

Poor battery life is one of the most common complaints among smartphone users. Who doesn’t want their device to last longer between charges? Thanks to its frankly ludicrously sized 18,000 mAh battery, however, that’s not a complaint I can ever imagine anyone leveling at Energizer’s new Power Max P18K Pop, which I’ve been hands-on with at MWC in Barcelona.

With a battery more than three times the size of that in the Motorola Moto G7 Power, this is a device that’s absolutely in a league of its own as far as battery capacity is concerned. That’s great if you want a phone that can charge your other devices – it doubles up as a power bank – and still have plenty of juice left to burn, but sadly there’s a fairly substantial trade-off in terms of both size and portability.

Energizer Power Max P18K Pop review: Key specifications, price and release date

• 6.2in 18:9 display
• 12MP + 5MP + 2MP main camera
• 16MP + 2MP pop-up front camera
• Android 9.0 Pie
• Mediatek Helio P70 8-core 2.0GHz
• 128GB storage
• 6GB RAM
• SD card up to 128GB
• Dual SIM
• Release date: June 2019
• Price: €600 (UK price TBC)

Energizer Power Max P18K Pop review: Design, key features and first impressions

There’s no surprise that the Power Max P18K Pop is much thicker than any phone we’ve tested in recent memory, but nothing quite prepares you for just how bulky it is. Measuring 18mm deep, it’s more than twice as thick as the iPhone XS. Pick up a friend’s phone and place it on top of yours. That’ll give you a rough idea of just what you’ll be carrying around.

This makes the idea of putting the phone in your pocket fairly unappealing, not least because it’s also fairly tall (153mm) and wide (74.8mm). To its credit, the Power Max P18K Pop wasn’t quite as heavy as I was expecting, but Energizer hasn’t yet published the phone’s weight, so it’s difficult to directly compare it to other devices in this regard.

What’s perhaps most disappointing for a device with such physical presence, though, is that unlike Energizer’s range of HardCase phones, the Power Max P18K Pop sadly has no waterproof rating or shock resistance. Beyond its lasting power, then, it isn’t especially well equipped to taking on outdoor adventures for days at a time, which is what a phone like the Land Rover Explore is made for.

Nor is it a device that appears to have been designed with performance in mind. Its Mediatek Helio P70 8-core processor is no match for the chipsets in current flagship phones, although it does have a solid 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as standard. As for its other specs, the Power Max P18K Pop has a 6.2in, 2,280 x 1,080 display, a triple-camera arrangement on the rear and a dual-lens pop-up selfie camera.

And then there’s that 18,000 mAh battery. Energizer claims it can deliver up to four days of music playback, two days of video playback and a whopping 50 days of standby. That’s around twenty hours more video playback than we’ve seen from any smartphone to date, so it’ll be fascinating to see how it performs in normal everyday real-world use.

The phone can be used as a power bank via its USB type-C cable. Energizer also told us that, thanks to its 18W charger, the phone can charge from empty to full in around two hours, which is impressive if true.

The Energizer Max P18K Pop isn’t available until June 2019 and it’ll costs €600 (UK price TBC). Considering its class-leading battery capacity, that doesn’t sound excessively pricey, but it may fall some way short of its similarly priced rivals in terms of speed and graphical benchmarks.

Energizer Power Max P18K Pop review: Early verdict

Whether it could be the right for you then comes down to whether you need a device that’ll last multiple days between charges. If you don’t, there are faster slimmer and more lightweight devices available for a similar price.

Alternatively, you could save a decent chunk of money with a phone like the Moto G7 Power, which delivers excellent battery life and much of the appeal of the Moto G7 for a bargain £170.