Posts Tagged portable charger
IDAPT i1 Eco Dual Charging Device
This unique dual charger from Idapt provides the ability to charge more than one device simultaneously, which for this time-strapped traveler is extremely important. Yes, it is feasible to charge an iPad, iPhone, and laptop all at once overnight in my hotel room, but sometimes they run out of juice in the middle of the day. I can charge more than one thing from the same outlet in the airline lounge or airport gate area while on a short connection.
The brand’s main focal point is the reduction in environmental impact this can have by only using one charger for all of your devices. When it has reached 100% charging for your devices, it automatically powers down reducing usage of electricity. This is, of course, important to me too, but so is the ease of use and increase in productivity that it provides.
Plus, when you are the one paying the electric bill (like when using its wall plug while at home), it saves you on energy use. I am sure you have heard that even when an outlet is not in use, if something is plugged in, it is using energy and electricity. In addition, the device is created from recyclable materials. There is also a car plug to use with your car lighter port that makes it a cinch to use while driving to the airport.
There are dual inputs on the device: one USB charging port perfect for my iPhone or iPad and one regular charging port for my laptop. The combination cuts down on the number of cords needed on my desk or near my seating area if space is limited.
The $25 price tag is extremely affordable especially with a tradeoff of having fewer cables to travel with (think about those otherwise overweight bag fees!) and increased productivity on a short connection. It is available on IDAPT’s website and at Amazon and makes a great gift for business travelers.
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Posted by Ramsey in Business Gear, Travel Light on March 19th, 2012
Solio Bolt Not Exactly Lightning Fast
This funky little Solio Bolt looks cool and and the price is right, but it delivers underwhelming performance on its main purpose: solar power gadget charging.
Contractors and carpenters are fond of asking customers, “Do you want it fast, cheap, or good? Pick two.” With portable solar chargers, there are only two choices. “Do you want it tiny or do you want it to really work?”
With a few very rare exceptions, a solar charger that’s small enough to fit in your pocket—tiny—is not going to be very good. I’m afraid this Solio Bolt one is not one of the exceptions. It’s tiny alright, but is hard to take seriously as a solar device.
I’ve had less than impressive results with other Solio chargers in the past and have always wondered why they’re so popular. My guess is that the intriguing design quickly gets the attention of photo-centric magazine editors and TV show hosts, so each new release always gets lots of publicity. But based on my tests it seems like the designers are getting the bulk of the budget, with little left for maximizing the small solar panels to really capture and store some energy.
First the design, which is quite fetching. This Solio model is a bit smaller than a sandwich with the crusts cut off (or a bit larger than a pack of cigarettes), so it’s easy to pack. It’s got two panels that stay together when not in use, but swivel apart to become two sun-catching panels when open. The odd shape with the rounded back makes it kind of hard to prop up on anything, so there’s a hole in the middle where you stick a pencil through and then you can face it toward the sun. Hey, they even include a pencil with it!
It follows the minimalist trend of just having one button. That would be fine if all you had to do was turn it on and off. But they advise you to hold the button down to switch from regular mode to Apple mode, something my other chargers haven’t required but it could be handy for iPods like my wife’s that give an annoying error message when plugged up to anything besides a computer USB port. You hold down the button again to switch back and the LED light color changes to tell you which mode you’re in (red or blue). Then the LED flashes are supposed to be your status indicators. When they blink five times you’re fully charged. They blink twice you’re running out.
Then there’s a constant blink while your unit is charging, which is where this unit performed the best: it charged up the iPod Touch in less than an hour, a smart phone in about an hour and a half. One big fault with the output though is that there’s no cut-off built in. So once your device is charged, the Solio unit keeps cranking out power until it runs out of juice. So unless you keep checking on your device to see when it’s done, you’ll never get more than one charge out of it.
In my tests though, that wasn’t much of an issue since I never got much more than a charge out of it anyway, from a Kindle to a Touch to a Motorola Atrix Android phone. And that was after it taking an average of 12 hours to fully charge under the blue-sky Florida sun. I never managed to get it fully charged in just one day, even a full day with no clouds and me moving it every few hours to directly face the sun. If you’re in a cloudy area, it could take you days to charge back up.
So in the end, this is more of a cool-looking solar toy priced to move than a useful solar charger that can be your go-to device on the road. Sure, you can always recharge it with the USB cord instead (which still takes an inexplicable 4 to 5 hours), but if you’re going to use fossil fuels instead of solar energy, you might as well carry something smaller and more robust, like the Innergie PocketCell I reviewed recently. It works faster and is half the size. If you just look at specs this Solio Bolt has a 2000mAh capacity and 1000 mAh output, which is equal to the Brunton Restore charger I reviewed two years ago. But that one charges up twice as fast and routinely is able to charge multiple devices before running out. So while this Bolt is smaller and cheaper than many rivals, I’d advise paying for something more robust, with larger panels, unless you’re going to be traveling in very sunny places and staying put in one location for enough time for this to charge.
The Solio Bolt lists for $70 and is available for a tad less at Amazon or REI.
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Posted by Tim L. in Adventure Gear, General Gear on March 7th, 2012
Innergie PocketCell Travel Gadget Charger
Need to recharge your gadgets on the go without carrying a lot of extra bulk? This Innergie Pocket Cell charger is a handy little device that’s not much bigger than a Bic lighter.
Smart phones and gaming gadgets are great fun when you’re traveling except for one thing: lousy battery life. On an Android phone you may be able to make it from dawn to dusk without recharging. With an Apple iPhone you may make it to the afternoon. With a slim iPod Touch, it’ll die before you’ve finished a flight from the east coast to west.
So many travelers who can’t stand the thought of using something without batteries to amuse themselves on a plane, bus, or train can choose from all kinds of chargers and battery packs that have sprung up to meet demand. Of course for business travelers it can matter for more than entertainment: closing the sale can be tough if your phone dies when you’re nowhere near an outlet.
We’ve reviewed a few different charging packs before on here but I especially like this Innergie one for two reasons: it’s quite small and it has a cord that works for multiple devices. They like this cord so much they call it their “Magic Cable Trio.” It’s got a male USB plug on one end, then the other end has both mini USB and micro USB male plugs, plus an Apple connector on the end. The design of this is pretty magic because it eliminates the need to carry easily lost attachments and adapters around with you. The three are lined up in a connected row, with the micro and mini USB plugs going into the next guy in line. (No circle jerk jokes please.) If you don’t need the Apple one, it folds down out of the way.
This is a pretty nifty development and now that the phone and gadget makers have finally settled on these connections as the industry standards, the options here should cover your needs if you’re packing recent purchases. In other words, with this along you should be able to charge up a Samsung phone, a Motorola phone, an iPhone, an iPad, a Shuffle, a Kindle, and a Nintendo DS—or one of the zillion other things using USB.
You won’t be able to charge all those on one shot of course. With this smaller size you get a smaller battery than some other brick-sized ones out there. Though the rating of 3000mAh puts it ahead of the lot of available solar chargers available on paper, in my tests I was rarely able to charge up both a fully drained smart phone and an iPod touch on one Innergie charge. One device is about all you should realistically expect. Still, a doubling of capacity for your main gadget is certainly enough to make this worth carrying.
For me all the indicators were intuitive and while it took me a bit to figure out that I had to hold the button down for charging something (keeps it from draining while getting knocked around in a knapsack), the rest was easy. There are four LED lights in a row. When all four are lit up, it’s fully charged. To test it later, you hold down the button and check those same lights. If only one is illuminated, you’ve got about 1/3 or less of the power remaining.
With the USB plug you can go into your computer or any adapter you may have, but Innergie also just started selling a dual USB adapter that goes into a wall socket and lets you charge two devices at once. Handy for hotel rooms and airports. Now that I have it, I use it all the time.
The new Innergie Pocket Cell (one word in the instructions, two words online) comes with a one-year warranty. It lists for $80 and is available at Amazon, at J&R, or direct from Innergie. You should start seeing it in electronics and airport stores later in the year.
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Posted by Tim L. in Business Gear, Kids and Family, Travel Light on February 9th, 2012
P-Flip Foldable Solar Power for iPhone
It’s a drag to find yourself hunting around for a place to charge your phone when there are no outlets in sight, when you should have known better and charged up before you left the house. And while I’m not so phone dependent that I freak out when juice is gone, I do enjoy all the stuff my phone does for me when I travel — it helps me find my way, it knows where there’s good food, it’s a pocket still/video camera, I can check email, and, I’ll admit it, I’m a Twitter junkie, so I can use it for 140 characters of nonsense from anywhere I’ve got a signal.
The P-Flip Foldable Solar Power for iPhone is a back up battery for those times when you’ve got a signal but no juice. It serves double duty as a docking station and charges up using either solar power or a power cable. Yes, there’s one for your Blackberry — and it fits the 3G and the iPhone 4.
I optimistically set this gadget to charge in my kitchen window in the heart of a Seattle winter. No dice, after 48 hours, it still needed to be plugged in to get fully charged. The site says it takes about 15 hours of sunlight to get a full charge. We hadn’t had 15 hours of sunlight during the whole month, so if you’re thinking you’ll use this as a back up battery at your cloudy destination, you’re wrong indeed. Something to keep in mind if you’re planning to rely on the sun.
My phone is an iPhone 3Gs. In order to use the P-Flip, I had to take my phone out of its protective case. I was hoping the battery pack would do double duty as both a case and a dock. No go, you can’t fold the P-Flip shut when the phone is in there, though it does make a nice dock. The P-Flip is very light and compact –about the size of an iPhone, actually — so it’s easy to find space for it in my laptop bag or carry on. According to the site, it extends talk time up to 6 hours, video or gaming time up to 10 hours, or music time up to 40 hours. That’s a lot of Angry Birds on a long flight.
Having an extra battery is handy when you know you’re not going to be able to charge your phone. I like the idea of a solar charged backup, though in practice this turned out to be not so practical due to my location. With so many off-the-grid apps available, the P-Flip might be a great thing to toss in the pack for a camping trip or overnight where there’s no power or for a journey where your phone acts as your entertainment center. I wanted this gadget to be more than an backup battery, but that’s exactly what it is — and at that, it does a fine job.
Get a P-Flip from Amazon for about $40 or check prices online
Posted by Pam in Adventure Gear, Business Gear on January 28th, 2011
Plug And Play Power Anywhere You Roam
On a recent business trip to Chicago, I realized I’d forgotten my cell phone charger. What’s a guy to do? With client calls, checking in with the family and grabbing voice mails from the office, my phone – which is about ready for an upgrade anyway – was gasping for breath in the frigid temps of the Windy City. Thankfully, I had remembered to pack my Energizer Energi To Go XP2000K Power Kit, which I had seen recently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I had mentioned to the folks at Energizer that I’d love to try this product out, and they were more than happy to send one to me. Just so happens, when I thought my connection to the world would be lost, Energizer came through in a big way.
Courtesy: Energizer
Sure, there are lots of options for portable power, but few kits come in as great a package as Energizer’s latest offering. Not only is everything packed up in a sleek, black zip up case, you can plug in and power up a wide variety of mobile electronics. I always bring two things with me when I travel – my cell phone, and my JVC Picsio HD camcorder.
Both of these devices can be charged with one of the four interchangeable adapters – Apple 30 pin, Nokia, Mini USB and Micro USB – as well as AC and car adapters. The power of this package is Energizer’s XP2000 product, which is a slim power pack that’s half the size of a standard smart phone. The battery system, designed for Energizer by Xpal Power, features an LED readout that tells you how much power is left in the system (it can be checked at any time by pressing the “Check/On” button).
Simply plug in the included USB charging cable to the Energi To Go pack, attach the necessary adapter and you’ve go up to 12 hours of back up talk time (and up to 50 hours of power for some MP3 players). Total time to charge and re-charge depends on discharge, of course, but Energizer says the unit will recharge in about 4 hours. Additionally, this is an Energy Star rated product and has a Powersave Mode that shuts off when not in use and will hold a charge for – get this – an entire year between usage!
As I said, the Energi To Go came in tremendously handy towards the end of my two days in Chicago, as I was relying on mass transit to get me to and from meetings, hotels and O’Hare with no access to an outlet. The Energi To Go XP2000K retails for $59.99 USD and, given the versatility of this unit, it’s money well spent. Energizer has an incredible line of portable power products, which can be bought at most retail stores, or outlets like Amazon.com, NewEgg.com or one of many other online shops.
For future trips, I won’t even bother packing my cell phone charger – I’ll just slip this power boost into my back pocket and be on my way.
Posted by Dave in Business Gear on January 24th, 2011
