From our other sites
The story
Gizmodo Japan reports that UGREEN has adopted a new coolant-based cooling system to suppress heat buildup in its magnetic power bank, the “MagFlow Pro.” On 5ch’s News Express+ board, a wave of skepticism followed, with users questioning whether simply moving heat into coolant inside a sealed unit—with no path to release it outside—could really have much effect. At the same time, many posters contrasted the boldness of Chinese manufacturers willing to release such playful products with the more cautious stance of Japanese companies, and the discussion branched into talk of the few remaining domestic players like CIO and Maxell.
UGREEN’s Power Bank Gets a New Coolant System to Curb Heat Buildup! | Gizmodo Japan
SEP 7,2026 11:00
Shingo Yuki ( Gizmodo Writer )
Source: gizmodo.jp / Original article here
What people said
They're not even that overpriced.
Right now they're like 2-3x the price, I guess.
Maybe it's the weight too?
Yeah, they're heavy.
Whether the effect is worth the price is anyone's guess though.
It's probably only because Chinese companies have the room to take risks that they can churn out weird stuff like this.
Japanese companies could never pull this off anymore.
It's got that same energy and adventurous spirit Japanese companies had during the bubble era.
Japanese companies have lost their willingness to take on challenges.
Take a chance and fail → go bankrupt.
Take a chance and succeed → get copied by China and go bankrupt anyway.
Carelessly making and selling something that obviously has less cooling power than a plain fan isn't 'taking a chance.'
As a joke item it'd be fine, but making this just to bait idiots is a waste.
It's all sealed inside the unit anyway—where's the heat that got dumped into the coolant supposed to go?
Even just adding a little pocket for a frozen bento ice pack would cool it better than this.
I've actually got a fair number of their parts lying around my house.
I went with their Bluetooth earbuds, and they feel pretty good to use.
I use their cables and SSD enclosures—cheap, but they work just fine.
There are always people quick to go 'ugh, made in China,' but if only Japanese-made stuff were sold, the selection and price-to-performance would be so awful it'd be hell lol
I don't remember mine ever getting that hot.
Though it's an old one I bought about 10 years ago for around 4,000 yen.
Once they degrade, they start holding heat.
And then that heat causes more degradation.
Here you go → REDMAGIC 11S Pro
That's the one just putting out water-cooling-style promo images, right?
Whoa, seriously, it already exists?!
If you seriously wanted real water cooling, you'd need an external radiator as big as the phone itself or bigger—are you fine with that?
You probably wouldn't even be able to hold it one-handed.
No, really…
it actually exists…
As far as Japanese makers go, isn't CIO about the only one left these days?
Though I don't know where it's actually manufactured.
What about Sanyo's Eneloop? Is that gone now?
Something like this Maxell one might be about the last Japanese-made option?
It's not that Chinese-made stuff is just cheaper—the cutting-edge tech is in China now, so it can only be made there.
https://maxell-online.com/products/mpc-t6200p
Without a proper large radiator attached, it's pointless.
It just fools idiots.
It's like an air conditioner with no outdoor unit.
There are already semi-solid-state power banks from Japanese makers that basically don't catch fire, though.
An inarō, huh—not an indō [a similar-sounding word meaning 'last rites'/'the final blow']…
But if it's a choice between CIO and UGREEN, you'd pick UGREEN, right?
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Heat buildup and fires in power banks tend to worsen as lithium-ion batteries degrade, and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has previously issued warnings on the matter under PSE safety standards. The dominant view in the thread was that this “water cooling” simply moves heat from inside the battery into a coolant, and without any mechanism to actually vent that heat outside the sealed unit, the real cooling effect is bound to be limited. At the same time, posters both praised Chinese manufacturers for having the room to release such adventurous products—something Japanese makers reportedly lack—and acknowledged that, in terms of price and product variety, consumers have little choice but to rely on Chinese-made goods. Taken together, this reads less as simple pro-Japan cheerleading or China-bashing than as a more nuanced picture. It’s also worth noting that, as an alternative fire-prevention approach to water cooling, some Japanese makers already offer semi-solid-state batteries, as pointed out elsewhere in the thread.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “UGREEN’s Power Bank Gets a New Coolant System to Curb Heat Buildup.”
Leave a Reply