Portable chargers. They’re not exactly the most exciting products to buy, but with our ever increasing dependancy on phones and the developers resistance to develop increased battery life, they’re becoming more of a necessity than ever.

There are all sorts of chargers available to buy online, varying in size and quality so it’s difficult to know what’s the best to get.

The first thing to know is the mAh or milliamps per hour. This is a way of determining the capacity and strength of the battery. There is a fair range – usually anywhere from 2000mAh up to 15000mAh or more. The bigger the capacity the more times you can charge your phone or tablet without having to recharge the external battery. The downside of the larger capacity is that the charger itself will be a lot bigger and heavier.

I’ve recently got my hands on a couple of chargers from RAVPower, a company located in the USA who have developed an impressive range of chargers and other devices that don’t cost an absolute fortune.

The charger I’m doing to discuss today is the RAVPower Luster 3000mAh charger. It’s relatively small and can easily be kept in a coat pocket or handbag (or a Man-bag if you’re anything like me). It’s available in Gold, Black, Blue, Silver and Hot Pink – plenty of colours to match your tastes. The gold model looks like it would match the gold iPhone 5S although the tone is slightly darker.

The USB connectivity on the device means that you can charge any phone or tablet providing you have the USB cable for your device. Theoretically, you could use this to charger other devices too such as Flip Cams or some SatNavs if you wanted.

This charger has another feature which will certainly come in handy. On one end is a single-LED torch which is impressively powerful considering it’s just an add-on feature. You can choose between three modes – Bright, slightly dimmer and a flashing mode.

To charge the device, simply use the accompanying micro-USB cable and charge it from a computer with USB port or a USB adapter if you have one. Because it’s a 3000mAh charger, it should only take a few hours to charge it up to maximum.

The speed at which it will charge your device will depend on the device itself. I tested this using an iPhone 5S. When left to charge without using it, I found it would add 1% to the battery life per minute which I think is pretty speedy.

This charger is well built and I have no doubt it will last a long time. When you are charging your phone or tablet, the charger will get warm which is perfectly normal (it is a battery after all).

If you are a commuter then I highly recommend getting one of these. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been caught out having worked late, got to the train station, found out the trains aren’t running and have had to make alternative travel arrangements with 2% battery life remaining.

You can get this from Amazon at the moment for just £11.99 which is an absolute bargain. Keep this in your coat pocket or bag and make sure you’re not caught out when you get a low battery.

Click here to get one from Amazon.