I recently ordered a Mad Max battery from ecigg.org. In hindsight, I wish I would have ordered the full tank kit for the purposes of this review, but what really caught my eye was the battery itself. The full kit appears to be similar to an eGo tank kit, but the following review is for the battery only, which has some unique features.
Pretty Lights!
The unusual thing about the Mad Max batteries is their inclusion of a battery indicator, on/off function and flashlight. Rather than an LED in the button, these batteries have an LED in the tip and a ring near the tip that lights up in the same color. That color changes from blue to green to yellow to red depending on the battery charge status. The colors indicate 75-100%, 50-75%, 25-50% and less than 25% respectively. Its a nice feature that helps to avoid heading out of the house with a near dead battery.
The LED also has one more trick thanks to the on/off feature of these batteries. When the switch is depressed four times in rapid succession, power to the atomizer connection turns off, but the LED then turns to clear white, essentially making the battery into a little LED flashlight when the button is pressed. Ive found this useful on a number of occasions.
Design
The overall design of the Mad Max batteries is nice. They have a standard 510 connector that has worked well with all of the 510 and eGo atomizers and cartomizers Ive tried on it. Unlike an eGo battery, there are no outside threads to accept a cone, but cone style tank atomizers and mega cartomizers work fine on it. The lack of outside threads will be an issue for those wanting to use a cone, but gives a cleaner appearance when used with a 510 style cartomizer and no cone. Because the LED is in the tip, the button can be completely chromed, adding to the nice back and chrome appearance. The flat black paint has a rubberized feel and unfortunately appears to be prone to flaking just like the similar coating on the eGo.
Performance
Performance is the same as a typical eGo battery, meaning that the Mad Max battery is regulated to 3.2V. Ive found this voltage to be quite satisfactory with dual coil cartomizers and low resistance atomizers, but I wouldnt be unhappy with something closer to 3.7V either. The 650mAh stated capacity seems just about right and they again perform on par with the typical eGo battery in this respect. The average vaper can expect to get just about a day out of them, although the dual coil cartomizers do shorten that quite a bit.
Conclusion
All in all, these are a nice take on the fat battery concept. The on/off feature makes them quite pocket-friendly and the battery indicator and flashlight add to their functionality. At $19.99 from ecigg.org, theyre not a bargain, but fairly reasonable for the features included.
