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Kensington Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone 1G, 3G (Black) | List Price: $49.99
Discount Price: $34.99
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Brand: Kensington
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Compatibility: iPod nano 1G, 2G, 3G; iPod classic 4G, 5G, 5.5G, 6G; iPod touch; iPhone
- Power and charge your iPhone or iPod--extends play time up to 30 hours of music or 6 hours of video (on iPod nano 3G) or 3 hours of talk (on iPhone)
- Includes retractable USB charging cable
- High-capacity, rechargeable Lithium-Ion polymer battery pack for increased energy efficiency
- Small enough to keep connected to your iPhone or iPod
Works fairly well, some gotchas [Posted on 2008-07-07]
When I ordered this, I didn't do my homework and I thought this charger could be used to extend the battery life while you are using the iPod/iPhone. This is really a portable battery charger that blocks the headphone jack on the Touch.
I had a cross-country flight and I got to the airport 90 minutes early. After waiting for an hour and listening to music on the Touch, then having my flight delayed and listening to more music, the battery started to wear down. When I got on the flight, I watched a 2h movie and the battery went down to 20%. I kept watching and drained my battery to 0%. I pulled out the charged Kensington mini battery extender and plugged it in. At this point, there was no way to continue using the iPod as the headphone jack was blocked. I didn't realize this...and erronously thought this charger would extend the battery so I could continue using the device. Unfortunately, it took an hour for this charger to charge the ipod enough for me to use it...
The Kensington battery does seem to function as specified. But I really question the utility of this extender now. Most airports have stations where you can charge such devices now and if you really can't use the Touch with the extender plugged in then the real usefulness comes down to situations where you have no access to AC or USB based power.
I have shelved this charger - might put it up on one of those auction sites. I just don't have much use for it.
For Old iPhone only. Great for an emergency. [Posted on 2008-07-12]
I bought on sale for my now old iphone. It is great in an emergency. I'm on my 4th charge now, and it does not seem to be holding as much backup power as it did at first.
Works okay, but there are show stopper issues [Posted on 2008-07-14]
While this battery is conveniently small, and easy to use, there are some show stopper issues for iPod Touch users.
1. When it's plugged in, you don't have access to the audio port. If you're just surfing or checking your e-mail, this isn't an issue. If you want to use this pack while watching a movie, or listening to music...you're out of luck.
2. It takes over 1 hour to recharge the internal iPod Touch battery with this pack. So, if you exhaust the internal battery watching movies (say on a coast-to-coast, or international flight), you'll be on the ground before you can watch any more if you're using this pack to recharge the iPod.
3. It's a small pack. You get one recharge of the iPod Touch, and then not to 100%. This pack petered out at about 90-95% of the recharge.
I see no issue using this pack with an iPhone for telephone usage, but the same problems will arise for music and/or movies.
Good For One-Time Emergencies [Posted on 2008-07-19]
I tested this charger on my iPhone(first iphone version when they just came out.)
I drained my iphone down to 10% warning and plugged in a fully-charger Kensington Battery. It took about 70 minutes until the charger's juice was gone and it powered my iPhone to about 50%. Surely enough, 3 hours later of constant texting, my iphone gave me the 10% business.
The Good:
Truly Portable. Dimensions are 2.5 x 2 x 0.5 inches. (I'm not sure why at the time of this review, it shows dimensions as 5.2 x 6 x 1.5 units. I pondered why this was the case, and it turns out that these dimentions are in centimeters.) Dimensions blend in well with your iPhone: it doesn't stick out, but just extends the lenght of your iphone by 2 inches.
Charge and use your phone at same time: No need to wait til the power transfers.
Stylish: Yes, I said "stylish." Every time I plug this in, the other iPhone users turn their heads and wonder what my little attachment does. The brightly-lit blue energy bar really stands out and lets you charge in style.
Tiny charging retractible USB cable: While its 4 inches in closed position, its retractible up to 2 feet at full lenght. Its fully compatible with iphone's usb plug adapter, so you can charge your battery on the plug OR using computer's USB slot.
The Bad:
For emergencies only. It would be nice if this portable charger had more juice capacity than 50% of the iPhone's battery. Because of this, I don't carry it as much and only take it with me for emergency purposes. Its a good thing to keep in your car's glove compartment or at home for those blackouts.
Bottom Line: Perfect for emergencies, but will leave you wishing for more juice in the long run.
Works for Iphone 3g :) [Posted on 2008-07-20]
Wanted to confirm that this works with Iphone 3g just fine. You can keep using your Iphone and listening to music etc while this is attached (it puts it into charging mode like plugging it into a wall outlet). Hoping to use this for my plane travel this week will report on battery life.
Also, wanted to say that this seems to charge fine with my Belkin Iphone charger (the set where you get wall and car charger with usb plug ins on both) it's really nice because the wall charger has two usb outlets so you can charge both the battery and Iphone at the same time without a laptop etc.
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