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Home / News / EE’s free portable charger can be instantly swapped in-store to ensure you never run out of juice

EE’s free portable charger can be instantly swapped in-store to ensure you never run out of juice

This colourful portable charger has your smartphone’s back UPDATE: You can now get your Power Bar from today

EE’s new Power Bar, despite its name, isn’t a high-protein, creatine-laced energy snack designed for maximum gains.

Instead, it’s a rather funky yellow and cyan portable USB charger with a built-in LED torch and a 2600mAh capacity, which EE tells us is enough to recharge a typical smartphone once.

While you might think it’s an odd move for the network giant to make, there is a bonus. Customers can walk into an EE shop at any time to swap out their spent Power Bars for fully charged ones, which means that you could theoretically walk around a big city like London with unlimited power in your pocket.

The Power Bar itself will be available for free to all EE customers with a 30 day, 12, 18 or 24 month mobile or broadband plan, as well as for pay as you go customers who have been with the network for three months.

If you’re an EE mobile customer who wants to take the charger for a spin then text POWER to 365 to receive a code which you can then present in an EE store to collect your charger. EE broadband customers can text JOIN plus their landline number to 60005 instead.

It’s a rather strange move, and certainly one that we weren’t expecting, but if it’ll save people from the dreaded Dead Battery (for free, no less) then we’re all for it.

Update: There’s no specific release date as of yet, but EE has told us that the Power Bar scheme will launch "in the next few weeks". We’ll let you know when it officially kicks off.

Update 16/04/15: EE has informed us that the Power Bar is now available to pick up from its stores today.

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Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.