NOCO GB50 Review (Boost XL 1500 Amp)

Introducing the NOCO GB50 Review

The GB50 is a 1500 Amp jump starter – hook this up to your vehicle battery when it has died and it’ll jolt it back into life.

Kind of like the jump start you’d get with jumper cables hooked up to another vehicle, except much, much better!

So what’s good and what’s not so good about this jump starter?

The Good Stuff about the GB50

Where we tell you what we liked…

Build quality is top-notch

That’s what you get with NOCO’s battery accessories (including one of the world-leading battery chargers, the Genius 10), and the GB50 is no different. From the casing, to the cables, to the clamps, all the materials used are high quality.

Even more important is the internal components. Jump starters are different from other battery products like chargers because their main purpose is to produce a huge burst of power.

If you’re not overly familiar with current, the Peak amperage of 1500A is a lot. You don’t want to be using a jump starter with just ‘decent’ internal components. You want to know they’re quality and that they’ve been put together properly. 

Some jump starters on the market, especially those power bank / jump starters, are power bank makers who’ve realised they can juice up their power, and sell their power bank as a jump starter. But they’re not automotive experts and those products are not up to scratch as a jump starter.

No such issues with NOCO GB50, it’s all of the requisite quality and manufacturing diligence.

Which brings us onto…

Safety protections are high-spec

Related to the build quality are the safety protections with the GB50.

With jump starters, safety is not an area you want to take risks on. As we mentioned, it’s really high bursts of current being delivered when you perform a boost. 

So you want good spec internal components. You want reverse polarity protection and genuine spark-proof technology. The GB 50 has these.

Lots of power = a good chance of successful jump starts

When we’re discussing jump starters, power is always going to be crucial and come up in conversation. This NOCO GB50 Review is no exception…

The Boost XL GB50 is a powerful jump starter, delivering 1500 Amps across your battery.

That’s enough to give you an excellent chance of a successful jump start of a smaller car and a very good chance of success with a medium sized car.

Lithium technology is growing apace, year on year. NOCO are a company with considerable resources to equip their boosters with the latest tech. And the NOCO Boost XL GB50 has high discharge Lithium technology. That means the Lithium battery within the unit is designed specifically to safely provide a large burst of power.

The NOCO GB50 works even on completely dead batteries

Some jump starters will work if your battery voltage is just a little below what’s needed to start. However, if voltage has dropped a lot, they’ll struggle to work.

The GB50, however will work, even on very highly discharged batteries, for 2 reasons:

    1) Power and internal quality

The high power of the jump start, at 1500A, and the quality of the internal Lithium battery cells and components.

    2) The quality of the cables and the clamps 

If the clamps are not high quality, it doesn’t matter how much charge the jump starter battery provides, it won’t be able to deliver that power to your vehicle battery. Having clamps that can provide a solid and complete connection with the battery terminals is essential.

The cables, meanwhile, must have the requisite internal resistance for such a large current – otherwise that high current provided by the booster will be throttled inside the cables.

The NOCO GB50 has this high quality, and that’s why it provides more successful jump starts than other jump packs.

    3) Over-ride mode

If your vehicle battery has very low voltage, below 2 volts, many jump packs won’t even be able to detect it. And if they can’t detect it then they can’t start. 

The GB50, though, has over-ride mode. This effectively means the safety features of the device are turned off, and that allows the device to be able to detect your vehicle battery. Then you can perform the jump start as normal.

The NOCO Boost XL GB50’s bad stuff

What didn’t we like…

It can’t guarantee a successful jump start

For all its power, no jump starter in the world is guaranteed to start every vehicle in every instance.

The excellence of the NOCO Boost XL GB50 in terms of power and build quality doesn’t mean it will work for you in any circumstances. A jump starter like this one is maximising your chance of success, not guaranteeing it.

Your ability to jump start depends on how cold it is in the surrounding environment (which affects both your car battery and the jump starter itself). That’s why it’s a good idea to keep the GB50 inside your car, rather than in the boot!

It depends highly on the condition of the vehicle battery (how discharged it is and whether the battery has sulfation or acid stratification). And it also depends on the condition of the battery terminals, since that will affect how good the connection is between the clamps (crocodile clips) and your battery.

In any case, more power is always going to increase your chances. The power of the GB50 is, as we’ve said earlier, great for smaller and medium cars. If you have a large car, you still have a good chance of successful start, though your best option is the NOCO Boost HD GB70 jump starter, if you really want to minimise the risk of failure.

And there’s another option now, the new CTEK CS FREE, a portable charger which you can use to charge the battery enough to start, if you break down.

The maker stating it’s giving you up to 30 jump starts per charge

Just know that that’s unlikely. That’s the perfect scenario with small-engined vehicles with light discharge. 

In reality, you’ll want to recharge it after a few starts, and always keep an eye on charge level, or you can get caught out when you need it most.

What else do I need to know about this jump starter?

It’s also a power bank

It’s a good quality power bank as well. Providing plenty of charge for your electronic devices, like smartphones, laptops, cameras etc.

For 7.0L petrol and 4.5L diesel vehicles

That’s NOCO’s definition of what the Boost XL GB50 is suitable for. Keep in mind what we said earlier about vehicle size and success of jump starts.

How long will it last on one full charge?

If you fully charge this and keep it in your car, how long could you rely on it if you break down? NOCO say up to a year, and the Car Battery Geek team have heard a few people say they’ve done this successfully.

It’s really light and small

So light and small, in fact, that you may get a shock when you open the box!

It’s just 748g, and its dimensions are:19.6cm x 8.6cm x 4.8cm.

You won’t be the first person to wonder if there’s been a mistake, if this thing really can deliver all that power. And you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to realise your folly, when it performs start after start.

There’s a flashlight on the unit

It’s a 200 lumen flashlight, bright enough for you to see what you’re doing if it’s dark. A handy thing. 

Any alternatives?

Yes, the Topdon JS 1200. It has smaller Peak Amps, but has a few advantages over the GB50, and a much lower price.

Check out our Topdon Jump Surge 1200 Review.

Or see this Topdon JS3000 Review: this jump starter has double the Peak Amperage, at a lower price.

Concluding our NOCO GB50 Review

When all’s said and done, then, we’re fans of this device. It quite comfortably does match up to NOCO’s status as the best maker of jump starters.

Everything about the NOCO Boost XL GB50 is simply well put together. And it performs as expected.

We’ve let you know the same thing we always do when we review jump starters – they don’t ALWAYS work, but this one will work a very high percentage of the time. And that’s all you can ask for.

Is it the one for you?

You can check it out on Amazon, here.