Just A Guy Thing

It’s a problem, especially when traveling.  Laptop, iPod, Blackberry, and Kindle all need to travel with me and all need to stay charged.  Up until a few months ago, that meant I needed to carry four chargers and cords.  Without fail, I will forget two of them.

Now with the advent of charging pads and charging stations…well…things still aren’t that different.  A charging station allows me to take one device that plugs into one socket and contains adapters so that several different devices all charge at the same time.  The Belkin model pictured above operates this way.   In this instance, the cure seems to be worse than the disease.  The charging station take up more space than the individual chargers and, aside from using just one outlet, doesn’t really make my life much easier.

I suppose that if I’m not traveling with the charging station, it would be fine for my house.  But I want an all-in-one solution.  I’m high maintenance that way.

Another way to go is the charging pad.  Just like our device above, this guy is better on paper than in practice.  The charging pad works by laying your device to be charged on a charging mat, which eliminates any wires to charge your device.  That’s good.

However, the device doesn’t know how or when to charge when placed on the mat unless it has a “receiver” installed on the device.  These receivers cost about 30-40 bucks on top of the $99 cost of the mat.  So you’re in at about $200 bucks if you really want to get your money’s worth.

I’m waiting for the day that a standard charging system is in place so that I can walk into my apartment or hotel room, toss all my electronic crap on a rollable mat, and know they will be charged shortly.  I’m going to be waiting a while.  In the interim, I’m just gonna keep rockin’ all those chargers and cords.  Cause, hey…don’t cost nothin’.