LithiumCard “supercharger” can turbo-charge your gadgets

Battery life: It’s the wall our gadgets are always running up against. Today’s smartphones and tablets can do wonderful things, but staying connected and running apps consumes power, which is why portable batteries and charging cases are increasingly popular. There’s a trade-off with batteries, though: You can either have something big and bulky that charges your device fast, or something small that takes hours to finish juicing your gadget.

With six days still to go on its Indiegogo campaign, the LithiumCard’s goal of becoming the “thinnest and only battery-powered HyperCharger” is well on track. Indeed, $140,000+ raised of its $30,000 funding goal is nothing to be sniffed at. LinearFlux, the company behind the contraption, is currently gearing up to hit mass-production mode, with early backers possibly receiving their slimline chargers as early as this month. We managed to grab a hands-on with a pre-production prototype ahead of the official roll-out, and here’s how it looks. At 53.9mm x 85.6mm x 5.5mm, the LithiumCard has the rough dimensions of a credit card – though it is markedly thicker. Indeed, it’s around 5 credit cards-thick, which is necessary to give this sufficient capacity, but will preclude it from being carried in many wallets – particularly ones with individual compartments designed for a single bank card.