Swit Compact V-Mount Battery Review

Today we have a chance to test our second mini V-mount battery and this one comes from the Chinese manufacturer Swit and it is called PB-S98S.

We tested this battery along with two other interesting new products that we shall be reviewing here in the not too distant future – a new 7″ monitor and a flexible LED – both are designed to be used with this battery and work very well with it as we shall see in a moment.

Just like with our previous battery review – the Hawk Woods mini V-mount batteries, we are going to take a look at build quality, features and specs and of course performance.

In terms of build quality the battery feels great, it is made from hard plastic (externally) with a bit of texture in the front and a large clear red marking indicating it is a 98Wh unit (and IATA certified).

A new mini V-mount battery with advanced features

The battery is very compact at 12cm (4.5″) tall, 9cm (3.5″) wide and just over 5cm thick (or a bit over 2″), but when you compare it to the Hawk Woods M100 it still smaller and even the larger capacity M150 is only a tiny bit thicker but still has much smaller volume.

As for weight, this battery is lighter than a full-size V-mount at just over 800 grams or 28 oz but it is still almost twice the weight of the equivalent Hawk Woods mini M100 at 500 grams 17 oz or the M150 at 700 grams 24 oz.

The battery has some pretty interesting features that are quite unique to a battery this small. It has two D-taps (each puts out 8A – getting 10A would have been better but for a 98Wh this is likely the most that you will get). The Hawk Woods mini V-mount has only a single D-tap (the Hawk Woods M100 is also 8A while the larger M150 puts out 10A – so keep this in mind).

Another cool little feature is a USB out on the left side with 10W,5V/2A which you can use to power cameras like our Sony A6500 or charge your smartphone.

The monitor options button and the USB output

Maybe the most obvious feature apart from the small size of this battery is the front screen. It is very effective and it gives you the percentage of power left and when attached to any product that draws power it will display the runtime based on the current draw (keep in mind that devices like monitors or cameras tend to change the draw during their operation so the data is a very rough estimate and keeps changing all the time). Above the USB port, there is a small red button (see image above) that turns on a backlight with a short press and toggles between the monitor modes with a longer one (the monitor can also show alerts if something fails – we never ran into any of those).

In terms of performance, unlike last time we did all of the testing ourselves and so we didn’t test performance on larger cameras that take V-mount batteries (we don’t use any of those), but we did test the battery on both the light and the new monitor.

When we used with the battery with the Swit S2610 flexible LED which draws 100W at full power we got 1:27 hours of run time which is very respectable for a 98Wh battery. The Hawk Woods M100 lasted only 1:12 minutes. On the Swit S1073H monitor this battery could potentially last for well over a full day.

Two D-tap outputs (8A each)

So to sum things up – Swit created a fantastic compact V-mount battery system here. It might not be as small or light as Hawk Woods micro V-mount batteries but is still extremely portable and has even more available power per charge. Add features like the screen, the dual D-taps and the USB out and you have a very attractive option indeed.

Pricing is the cherry on top of this great battery, these are now selling for only $265 – about $100 less than the Hawk-Woods Mini V-Lok M100. If you need more power, Swit has a larger model in this series with 220Wh (with 4 D-taps) which sells for $465.

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Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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