I already complained about Apple not providing their usb charger with the iPods’s, which has been a serious hassle for me. Fortunately, the music player doesn’t consume much power, so when only listening to music I could use it up to a week. However, when browsing and playing games, it eats a good chunk out of my battery. In that case, I have to fire up my laptop and charge it via usb (i.e. painfully slow). This bothers me because a) I don’t use pc’s much (more smartphone/iTouch usage) and b) I’m not always near a computer. Like I said, I think it’s a real shame they took out the adapter of such an expensive device, even more since the adapter itself is also expensive. They did a similair thing by leaving out the dock with the iPhone 3G, while it came with the first gen iPhone. Even if they did this for the “price-cut”, I still don’t believe they did the same with the iPods…
So that’s all for my rants this week, now let’s get back to business. Since the App Store went live my usage went up by about two or three times. And since these activities draw so much power, I had to get a universal USB charger. Take one. I bought the cheapes universal adaptor that I could find, one from Sweex. Boy, was it crap. Before I could discover that it wasn’t able to charge my device, I already made the conclusion that this was the worst build piece of kit that I ever saw. It was able to charge my smartphone, but my iPod simply refused to charge.
After this, I feared that only the original Apple adaptor coul charge their own products. But I still tried another charger, one from Philips which was about the same price of Apple’s. Thank God this one did charge my iPod Touch. So why I bought it? Well, It comes with a retractable USB-cable, a number of charging tips for all major phone brands (plus mini USB) and finally it even has a travel pouch with tip holder. Also handy: the power plug can be folded so that nothing sticks out. Geeky: cool white design with blue glowing Philips logo. Sweet.
