Remember that a few months ago, Energizer jumped into the smartphone industry and introduced this crazy Energizer Power Max P18K Pop smartphone. The phone appeared at MWC 2019 and our colleague had the chance to play with it. However, it has come to our attention that the phone is now officially cancelled.
Before it went downhill, Avenir Telecom, the one who made that giant battery smartphone, was putting the device on a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Supposedly, the goal was to reach $1.2 million. The phone was listed $549 (~RM2270) so to reach that goal, they had to sell at least 2200 units. Fast forward after two months, it only raised 1%. So what happened?
Here's why it didn't make it
On paper, the phone features a 6.2-inch full-screen panel, a respectable 6GB + 128GB memory capacity (and expandable up to 128GB), Android 9.0 Pie out of the box, a 12MP + 5MP + 2MP triple rear camera, a 16MP + 2MP dual front camera (pop-up), MediaTek Helio P70 chipset, a USB Type-C port connectivity which looks pretty good. Also not to forget the gigantic 18000mAh battery which sounds wonderful, but from a practical point of view...
Yeah, it's fat
Really, really fat
Measuring at 153 x 74.8 x 18mm, this is literally the brick of all smartphones and weighs half a kilo. Seriously, who would ever bring this around? You can't fit it in your pockets, and while it has the feature to act as a secondary power bank, it doesn't make sense to bring a power bank brick around as well when there are other lighter power banks that are good enough to keep your phone alive for a day.
Another marketing scheme that they tried to run by is that the Power Max P18K Pop has a 50 day standby time which can play 90 hours of music and 2 days of movie binge-watching. Honestly, it doesn't sound that bad but this brings back the brick size issue again. Coz honestly, there are better options for binge-watching like a tablet or a TV, and the sound system isn't that particular awesome for 90 hours of music.
Underwhelming results
We're not really surprised, but how could it have been better?
Besides the oversized smartphone problem, the price tag kind of played the role as well. Even though it was just a prototype, the fact remains that it was $549 which is roughly ~RM2270 as mentioned earlier. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you can buy a slimmer mid-range smartphone with that kind of money, combined with fast charging technology which is the norm nowadays.
So that's our take on the failed product. It certainly has good tech specs on paper, but it's just impractical to carry a brick gadget around. If only they found a way to make it not so fat - a 5000mAh battery is already quite good and if they want more, perhaps they can consider making the phone longer as well going over 7-inches, then I'm sure it would hit off. But what do you think? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more tech opinion pieces at TechNave.com.
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