Tech Reaction

I have been debating on whether or not to pick up the P3 – Kill A Watt unit for awhile. I finally gave in and purchased it along with some more goodies that I will talk about at a later date. For now, let’s get moving on to this Kill A Watt electricity usage monitor.

Packaging:

Specifications and Features:

Testing:

For testing purposes, I ventured around my house and looked for random items most people use on a daily basis.

• Dyson DC14 Telescope Reach™ All Floors Vacuum
• Hoover Platinum Collection Carpet Cleaner (steam cleaner)
• An average desk lamp
• LG 42″ LCD TV
• Samsung 50″ LCD TV

Computer System:

• ASUS Rampage II GENE
• Intel I7 920 @ 4.1GHz
• 3×2gb Mushkin RAM
• 320GB HD
• Sapphire 5770 @ stock
• Corsair HX750w
• Custom Watercooling

Action Pictures:

Below you can see what I found out during the testing:

Final Thoughts:

The P3 – Kill A Watt is a very simple, yet extremely efficient, little device. It’s eight display settings can tell you almost anything you would like to know about watts, voltage, kilowatt hours, frequency, volt amps, power factor, current and elapsed time. The numbers on the LCD screen are very clear and easy to read.  This device is very easy to use and extremely user friendly. The interesting thing about this product is that it requires no batteries. Let me say that again, NO batteries! I love it! Once the Kill A Watt is plugged into the wall, you can plug any piece of hardware into it and get an instantaneous reading. I find this to be a great feature, because I hate having to find batteries, or even worse, having to buy some just to use something like this.

The Kilowatt Hours (KWH) is also another great feature of the P3 unit. It will help you figure out how much energy consumption a product uses by monitoring the usage over time. The Kill A Watt will give you the information needed so you can do some simple math and figure out how much it will cost you per month to run that piece of hardware. However, as awesome as the no battery idea is, there was one minor setback. Once you unplug the P3 unit from the wall, all data is erased, it does not store anything.  So just take note of that. It really is not that big of a deal, but just be aware before you unplug it.

Be sure to check out TestFreaks for more expert reviews on the P3 Kill A Watt Monitor.