8/10/2019 Camerson Sino Battery Review

1/4

This independent review of the Cameron Sino batteries,

is compliments of John Bradbury from

www.eeeuser.com

Clove Technology, a UK supplier of Eee PCs and accessories, has begun offering a cheapalternative to the (as yet unseen) ASUS extended battery. These are made by the Chinese

firm Cameron Sino, and are available in 4-cell 5200mAhand 6600mAh6-cell variants.

Given the uncertainty over the ASUS UK 900 Eee PC battery upgrade offer, it seemed a

very good idea to revisit these batteries, and perform some comparative performance tests

against the ASUS batteries that come with the 701 and 900 Eee PC variants.

Appearance.

First off, lets consider the appearance. All the batteries here are suitable for fitting towhite Eee PCs. The CS (Cameron Sino) 5200mAh battery has been sprayed with apearlescent finish that is very close to, but not quite the same colour as, the standard

ASUS Pearl White batteries. The difference is quite difficult to capture with a digital

camera.

See what I mean? The CS is on the right, but this shot exaggerates the differences

somewhat. In practice, you barely notice the difference; it is slightly darker in shade. The

CS 6600 mAh battery is a different matter, though, as it is finished in matte white plastic,unpainted, so it is very similar to the finish of the Eee PC 700 (2G) Surf models. Fitted to

the 900, it doesnt really matter that much; all you are missing out on is a bit of

pearlescent sheen.

Ive tried to take a better shot in daylight of all three here (CS 6600mAh on the top,

CS5200 bottom left, ASUS 4400 bottom right).

http://www.clove.co.uk/http://www.clove.co.uk/viewProduct.aspx?Manufacturer=&Item=Standard5200mAhBattery-WHITE-ASUSEEEPC&Product=5D334E13-8FC7-4129-AFEE-BDACF26226AC&Category=777667DF-164E-4976-A7AF-8F0EB31FBCFAhttp://www.clove.co.uk/viewProduct.aspx?product=262CBF12-3E1B-4401-B3FD-B959501ACA81&category=777667DF-164E-4976-A7AF-8F0EB31FBCFAhttp://www.eeeuser.com/2008/06/23/asus-perform-u-turn-on-uk-battery-replacement-scheme/http://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04181.jpghttp://www.eeeuser.com/2008/06/23/asus-perform-u-turn-on-uk-battery-replacement-scheme/http://www.clove.co.uk/viewProduct.aspx?product=262CBF12-3E1B-4401-B3FD-B959501ACA81&category=777667DF-164E-4976-A7AF-8F0EB31FBCFAhttp://www.clove.co.uk/viewProduct.aspx?Manufacturer=&Item=Standard5200mAhBattery-WHITE-ASUSEEEPC&Product=5D334E13-8FC7-4129-AFEE-BDACF26226AC&Category=777667DF-164E-4976-A7AF-8F0EB31FBCFAhttp://www.clove.co.uk/http://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04181.jpg

8/10/2019 Camerson Sino Battery Review

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The CS batteries are, of course, available for the Galaxy Black Eee PCs, but Im not able

to compare their colour against a black Eee PC as I dont have one to hand.

Update : eeeuser forum member GrahamK posted some excellent images here.

Physical dimensions and fit

The CS 5200mAh battery, as has been commented on elsewhere, is a little bit tightfitting, because it is marginally bigger in size when compared to the equivalent ASUS

battery. No such problems with the larger 6600mAh CS battery, though; it seems to fit

much more easily into the Eee PCs battery slot. However, because it is a six cell battery,

the manufacturers have had to make a decision as to where to put the extra two cells, and

they have elected to extend the battery backwards.

There it is, sticking out by around 1cm. The other option would have been to mount the

extra cells underneath the battery pack, thus raising the back of the machine. What the CS

battery does, therefore, is not alter the height of the rear of the keyboard, but in return you

are unable to open the screen as far as you would have done had you opted for the otherdesign. This next picture demonstrates how far back you can push the screen, before the

CS battery gets in the way.

http://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04185.jpghttp://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=303025#p303025http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=303025#p303025http://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04182.jpghttp://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04185.jpg

8/10/2019 Camerson Sino Battery Review

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Weight-wise theres not much difference between the three 4-cell batteries - they allcome in around 200g on my (admittedly not too accurate) kitchen scales. Understandably,

the 6-Cell battery weighs an extra 75g.

Performance

Before I state how much battery life each of the batteries on test yielded, Ill explain my

testing method.

All testing was performed with a 20Gb Linux 900 upgraded to 2Gb of memory. The test

comprised of fully charging the battery under test, then (from within a shell window)

launching a shell script(click on the link to see it - I posted it in the UK battery threadlast week) that writes a timestamp and some battery information into a file, then

repeatedly touches the file with a 10 second delay. The Linux touch command simply

updates the last altered timestamp on the file. Then, with the wi-fi turned on andassociated with an access point, a compressed AVI file was run in the foreground using

SM Player on repeat. The machine was then left alone to run down its battery (at which

point it would shutdown automatically). The next time the machine was booted, the file

was examined and the in-file timestamp compared with the files last modified timestamp(using the command ls -l ) to derive a run time duration for the battery. This was

done for the ASUS 4400mAh battery (supplied with the UK 900), the ASUS 5200 mAhbattery (supplied with the UK 701), the CS 5200mAh battery and the CS 6600MAh

battery.

The results, then:-

ASUS 4400mAh : 1 hr 58 minutes

ASUS 5200mAh : 2 hrs 34 minutes

Cameron Sino 5200mAh : 2hrs 17 minutes

Cameron Sino 6600mAh : 4hrs 37 minutes

For some reason the 6600mAh battery is giving much better performance than might

otherwise be expected, considering it only has an extra 1400mAh capacity over its

smaller sibling. I re-ran the test, thinking that Id made an error of some sort, and again it

yielded 4hrs 39 minutes. Impressive.

Some other things Ive observed whilst using the 6600 mAh battery:

http://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04186.jpghttp://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=292591#p292591http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=292591#p292591http://www.eeeuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dsc04186.jpg

8/10/2019 Camerson Sino Battery Review

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With wi-fi off, and watching uncompressed video stream files from a WD

Passport LifeDrive (320Gb) USB powered hard drive, I usually manage 1hr 20mins before getting the first low power warning with the ASUS 5200 mAh

battery. With the CS 6600 mAh battery, I can do this for twice the time and still

have 60% battery life.

The CS 6600mAh battery will take around 3 hours 45 mins to recharge from flat. Running the standard test without wifi turned on will give you over 5 hours of

usage with the 6600mAh battery.

A note about jump starting.

Some reviewers have noted that the Cameron Sino batteries suffer from the so called

Jump Starting problem. This is where you change to a CS battery, but the machine

refuses to boot up until you plug it into the mains adapter. Then, on unplugging, the

battery continues as normal.

Im pleased to say that this has not occurred once with these particular batteries.

Prices.

There are many places to get these batteries from, but most of them are overseas eBaysellers. My recommendation would be to leave them and order from a reputable UK

source. Thankfully, Clove are offering them at reasonable prices (29.38 inc. VAT for

the 5200mAh variant, and 41.12 inc. VAT for the 6600mAh) and as they have a

reputation for top notch after sales service you can buy with confidence.

Conclusion.I have to recommend the Cameron Sino 6600mAh battery on performance alone. Sure, it

sticks out a little at the back of the machine and interferes with the screens normal

opening angle, but it lasted much longer than I had any right to expect, and in normal use

the extra bulk isnt such a big deal.

Finally, with this battery, the 900 delivers on its promise of portability.

Final note: My thanks to Clove Technology for supplying the two Cameron Sino

batteries for testing.