Better price than Apple's

tablet review inercom TM Unlocked N7300 smartphone

I travel a lot and I've got a variety of devices that I need to charge, including phones, kindles and an iPad, particularly when my wife travel with me. I've found that the USB ports on most laptops don't charge very fast - they have their power constrained to protect the laptop. I hate carrying lots of adapters, cables, etc. This put me on a quest: find a good dual port USB wall charger....

Initially I didn't understand the power that the iPad REQUIRES to get charged. So I bought a generic 2-USB wall charger. It was cheap and I thought I was done - until I noticed that the iPad said it wouldn't charge with it. In researching these adapters (I should have done this first, but who know USB isn't USB for some devices!), I found that the generic wall charger could provide only 300 ma (milliamps), which is far too small to support an iPad, let alone an iPad and a phone. I looked at a variety of single USB wall chargers in my house and I found that all except for the one that came with the iPad, provided no more than 500ma of power. It appears that you need at least 1 amp of power or more to charge one iPad. So I went back to looking for a 2-USB wall adapter....

I then saw an Energizer 2-USB port wall adapter and it said it supported iPads. They didn't show how much power it could provide to devices, but it was a trusted brand. Great! I ordered it on Amazon. I plugged it in and the iPad refused to charge again! Argh....

In digging some more, I found lots of complaints about this device and the ad on amazon suddenly no longer said that it supported iPad's. I contacted Energizer and they took it back and returned all of my money, including shipping - good customer service but I still had nothing. Search restarted....

Finally, I came across the PowerGen Dual USB 3.1a travel wall adapter. The specs sounded great, it mentioned the iPad, and amazon had it so I got free shipping. I ordered it and crossed my fingers.

First reaction was that this is a heavy duty adapter! It was a little heavy, but it had a nice solid feel to it. All of the other adapters suddenly felt cheap.

I've been using this charger for over a month and I LOVE it! The power blades collapse to get out of the way when I'm not using and it slides easily into my bag. It charges EVERYTHING. I've put the iPad and my kindle on at the same time and it charged them both right away. One of the USB ports is build for apple so it appears to do a rapid charge on the iPad. Excellent. Both port charge apple devices fast. Excellent!

I recommend this charger to everyone!

PS - Road Warriors: My new strategy is to avoid buying any travel chords and devices that are black. They disappear into my bag or on the floor of the plane and you lose them. The powergen is bright white that you'll never accidently leave it in a hotel room or on a plane just because it's color doesn't make it jump out! Very nice!