If your home is like mine you are running out of wall sockets to charge all of your toys. Our iPhones, iPads, iPods, iPod Touches, Bluetooth headphones, and on and on all have a separate wall charger. Here is a nice product; no I mean a great product that features two USB sockets for your smart phones, tablets and accessories. I have successfully charged the following devices without any problems:* iPad 2 only on the A port
* iPad 3 only on the A port
* iPod 60 GIG only worked on the NA port as it is an old school Apple charging design
* iPod touch on both ports
* Kindle Fire on both ports
* Kindle Keyboard on both ports
* iPhone 4 on both ports
I like that the wall charger has two USB charging ports and it can charge two devices at the same time. (Like our two iPhones simultaneously)
The unit did not charge the HP TouchPad as claimed but so far I have tried a dozen different charging devices and none of them will charge the HP TouchPad except the original HP charger and the HP Touchstone. The HP TouchPad requires a strong 5.3 VDC at 2.08 Amps. When I tried it I got the HP error message that the charging device was not supplying either enough voltage or current to effectively charge it.
The unit can provide up to 2.1 amps which is the rated charging rate for an Apple iPad 3. If you plug in multiple devices they both will still charge (They share the 2.1 Amps) but if one of them requires more than ½ of the 2.1 amp power it will charge more slowly than with its own AC wall charger. Plugging in only one device provides up to 2.1 Amps to either USB port. Smart devices are self-limiting as to how much current they will draw and it is safe to use a higher current charger as your smart phone for example will stop charging when it is full. Usually smart phones like our iPhone charge at 1 amp but they will charge faster and safely at 2.1 amps. The Apple iPad 2's and iPad 3's like 2.1 amps to charge with but will charge at 1 Amp at a slower rate. The iPad 3 is a power hog with an 11,560 mAh battery capacity and can use up to 1.24 amps just operating on a mobile wireless version. If it is plugged in and left on then it will charge very slowly even with the original Apple charger.
The plug has a small blue status LED that indicates that the unit is plugged into a live outlet. I like it because the light is very small and dim and not bright like most wall plug LED's. Your bedroom sometimes looks like Christmas with all of the items plugged in today's modern world with all of the LED's lit up at night.
The unit also features protection circuitry that monitors over-heating, over-current and over-charging protection. The unit I received had the charging ports clearly marked and it included an instruction manual that was not bad.
This is nice AC power charger and I like it a lot. For $9.99 it is a good buy and well worth the money for how it performs. It even works on 240 VAC and 50 Hertz so it is good for overseas travel as long as you take your European plug socket adapters.
I was provided an evaluation unit for testing and agreed to provide a fair and honest review.
I received PowerGen wall charger for testing from the manufacturer to write an honest and unbiased review and you will find both pluses and minuses of my experience in this review.
I am attaching a collage of 5 photos labeled with numbers 1 through 5 under customer photos that I will be referencing in this review.
The first thing I noticed that this wall charger is fairly small, it takes up only one slot on the extension cord. Photos #1 and #4 show this plug on two different power strips.
The plug has two ports labeled "A" and "NA" which stands for Apple and Non-Apple devices. I own all Android devices but I tested both ports to see their behavior with my devices. The charger comes without a USB cord, so tested it with the USB cords that came with my devices.
I used Battery App to determine how each device recognized the external battery pack. 'AC' status means the charging is at full charging rate. 'USB' status indicates charging at a lower charging rate. 'Discharging' status means that the charging rate is below the power that the device is consuming so it slows down the discharge rate but does not re-charge.
The key findings:
(1) Samsung Galaxy 7.7 cannot be charged with this wall charger with either port
(2) "A" port provides reduced power for some non-Apple devices and does not work for others
*** Update 1/9/2013 ***
Thanks to comment by Ajith Antony I repeated the test with Nexus 7 running Jelly Bean 4.21 and both ports are now charging it at AC rate. The original test which showed poor performance on Apple port was Nexus 7 running Jelly Bean 4.1.
I also retested Galaxy Nexus Phone running CyanogenMod 10.1 version of Jelly Bean 4.21, but it showed no improvement. It still gets only USB charging rate on Apple port.
The table below summarizes my findings:
Nexus 7 Tablet (photo #4 and #5, note that the left port is labeled "A" and the right port is labeled "NA")
--------------
A port -discharging (Nexus 7 running Jelly Bean 4.1.)
A port -AC (Nexus 7 running Jelly Bean 4.21)
NA port -AC
Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone
--------------------------
A port -USB
NA port -AC
Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7
--------------------------
A port -discharging
NA port -discharging
SanDisk Sansa Clip+ MP3 Player
------------------------------
A port -charged at USB rate
NA port -charged at AC rate
The behavior with Nexus devices was consistent and good on "NA" port. Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone gets USB rate on Apple "A" port. After upgrade to Jelly Bean 4.21 Nexus 7 gets AC rate on both ports.
The behavior of both Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus plugged in at the same time was the same as when they were plugged in individually. This means if you want to recharge both Nexus 7 Tab and Galaxy Nexus phone at the same time there is only one combination that works:
Nexus 7 Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Nexus Phone at the same time
--------------------------------------------------------------
NA port -Nexus 7 Tablet -AC rate
A port -Galaxy Nexus Phone -USB rate
Samsung Galaxy Tablet 7.7 (running Honecomb 3.2) did not work (was discharging) in both ports.
The MP3 player worked in both ports, but as USB rate in "A" port and at "AC" rate in in "NA" port. When I charge Sansa MP3 with a standard AC charger (photo #3), the MP3 player goes into charging mode, displaying the charging animated icon, the MP3 content is not played. When MP3 was plugged into the PowerGen plug (photo #3) it continued to play the content. I listen to books on my MP3 player so this caused me to move forward in my book and I had to manually reset my position by a few chapters to get back to where I was when I started charging. The positive side of this, is that is possible to continue listening while MP3 is recharging.
To summarize:
I liked:
---------
1. Good behavior with Nexus devices.
2. Solution for MP3 player with built-in battery
3. Can charge two devices (but one at a reduced rate for non-Apple devices)
I did not like:
--------------
1. Did not work with for my Samsung Galaxy tablet
2. For non-Apple devices one port has less power or does not work
3. For non-Apple devices the less useful plug takes up a little extra room
If you own two Apple devices that you want to use with this plug, this is what manufacturer states: The NA port is not designed for Apple device, however, it charges the iPhone at 500mAh. When charge the IPAD and iPhone at the same time, plug the iPhone first (NA port) and then the iPad (A port) to avoid the iPhone report the charger as incompatible.
Overall, after upgrade to Jelly Bean 4.21 this plug has an excellent performance on both ports for Android devices.
Ali Julia review
Buy PowerGen Dual Port USB 2.1A 10W AC Travel Wall Charger (White) Now
Was laying in bed while charging iPad 2 when all of a sudden a flame started coming from the charger. I quickly blew it out and unplugged the charger. It's a good thing I was home and in the same room or my house might of been burned down. Think twice about this charger.Read Best Reviews of PowerGen Dual Port USB 2.1A 10W AC Travel Wall Charger (White) Here
Full disclosure: The seller offered me a PowerGen Dual Port Travel Charger to test and review.My wife and I travel occasionally, when the travel charger will really come in handy, for two reasons: 1. We've lost a couple of AC chargers by forgetting to take them from a hotel room when we left; and 2. Many hotel rooms don't have enough electrical outlets for all the electrical devices that we carry with us, so having a dual port charger reduces the need for electrical outlets.
The charger has a small blue light that lights up when it's plugged in. It's not bright enough to be distracting, but it shows that the charger is operating, AND it should attract enough attention that we won't forget to remove it from an outlet before leaving a hotel.
I used the charger on several electronic devices, and it worked fine with all of them. I did not attempt to measure the recharging times, but they appeared to be comparable to the recharging times when using the dedicated AC rechargers that came with the devices. The devices that I tested with the charger were:
* Kindle 3 (also known as a Kindle Keyboard) 5V ~ 0.85A
* Kindle Fire 5V ~ 1.8A
* iPhone 4 5V ~ 1.0A
* Samsung Stratosphere cellphone 5V ~ 1.0A
With each device, I checked periodically during recharging, and both the recharger and the device remained cool, with no overheating.
I have only a couple of minor negative comments:
1. The instruction leaflet says the warranty is six months, while the Amazon product description says one year. I'm guessing that one year is correct, since that's typical for electronic devices.
2. The instruction leaflet says simply that both ports provide 4.8-5.3 volts at 2.1 amperes (the device itself is labeled 5.1V/2.1A). The Amazon product description appears to imply that one of the ports provides 0.5-1.0A (for Apple products), with the other port providing 1.0-2.0A (for non-Apple products). As a practical matter, I doubt if it matters which port you use, but if the ports have different outputs, it would affect the recharging time.
Overall, I was very pleased with the product, and having two ports on the charger is a very nice feature that will come in handy for both travel and home use.
Want PowerGen Dual Port USB 2.1A 10W AC Travel Wall Charger (White) Discount?
Got this for the Kindle Fire HD, pretty much the same as the charger amazon offers (5V 1.8Amps) with this one at 2.1Amps providing 10W instead of 9W. I have a problem when charging just the Fire, there are glitches when using the touchscreen, it would lag and even select random things when I am clearly touching something else.However, when I unplug the charger completely or plug in my iPhone to the other port (A). ALL is WELL,and the problems go away with no problems at all. Not sure if this would be a adapter problem or the Fire problem, the Fire should be drawing what it needs from the adapter and regulate its own current input. But also lowering the output of the adapter by plugging in my iPhone did the trick too with both charging normally with no glitches.
Still on the fence about this one and will probably test it out on the iPad. Other than that it charges everything quickly but not sure if completely even though the device indicates FULL 100%. Seems like the devices barely last a day on probably
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