To everyone living outside of mainland China, Oukitel sounds like a smartphone manufacturer that you’ll forget about in a matter of minutes, but it has a growing track record of producing interesting, if unusual devices. However, forget the phone with a tiny E-Ink screen on the back, we’re interested in the K10000, a phone first teased earlier this year with a jaw-dropping 10,000mAh battery inside.
Updated on 12-15-2015 by Andy Boxall: Added in news of the K10000’s specs and price, pictures of the phone, plus a pre-order campaign
Pre-order the K10000 for $240
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to find smartphones with at least a 2,500mAh or 3,000mAh battery pack inside, but even the largest smartphone battery packs are considerably lower in capacity than the 10,000mAh battery inside Oukitel’s upcoming smartphone. Even the Gionee Marathon M5, which includes a 6,020mAh battery, pales by comparison.
Following the teasers published before the summer, Oukitel has released the final specs for the phone, and a pre-order campaign for the device has launched through import site GearBest. Aside from the monster battery, the K10000 isn’t the highest spec device you’ll see. It has a big 5.5-inch display, but the resolution is only 720p, and the processor is a quad-core MediaTek chip running at 1GHz with 2GB of RAM. The rear camera has 13 megapixels, and the selfie cam 5 megapixels.
However, the K10000 is all about that gigantic battery. Oukitel says it’ll last for between 10 and 15 days of normal use, and has a clever reverse charge function where it can be used to power up other devices, a feature we’ve seen on Huawei devices in the past. Oukitel says it’ll charge an iPhone 6 Plus three times, and still have 10-percent power left over. If you’re worried the phone itself will take most of the day to recharge, a fast-charge system will take the battery to 100-percent in about three-and-a-half hours.
Wrapped in a steel frame, the phone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, has 16GB of internal memory, a MicroSD card slot, and 4G LTE connectivity. Online retailer GearBest has the phone up for pre-order, where it’s priced at $240 unlocked, and shipping expected to start on January 2.
Bulkier than an Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy
Oukitel isn’t the first company to address the slow rate at which battery technology is advancing by packing a massive battery into a phone. The phone isn’t too thick at 9mm or heavy at 185 grams, especially when considering that it holds a 10,000mAh battery; but it’s certainly bulkier than most flagship phones. Until battery tech improves, smartphone manufacturers are limited to small batteries if they want to make slim devices.
However, that doesn’t mean companies aren’t trying to make better batteries. Back in April, scientists at Stanford University developed an aluminum battery that can charge from zero to full in as little as a minute. In addition, it was also reported in April that Google X, Google’s secret internal development team, is working on increasing battery efficiency and storage capacity. Google didn’t confirm the report, but it did mention the firm teamed up with the likes of Apple, Tesla, and others.
