Review: Proporta Universal Emergency Charger – Travel Kit

Proporta’s range of mobile device chargers rank among our all-time favourite smartphone accessories. Along with a memory card, they are arguably the only universally essential accessory, something you can keep with you at all times to ensure you never run out of power on your handset at a time when you need it most. This latest generation of the product has seen a few changes, some for the better, some not.

The new Emergency Charger has been completely redesigned. It is smaller and lighter than before and looks good in its clean white casing, and is still compact enough to be able to drop in the bottom of your bag and leave until you need it.

The power gauge has also been improved, now reporting with greater accuracy how much juice is left in the battery. A quick press of the Check button will show when it needs recharging or whether there is enough power to recharge any of your gadgets.

Once again the charger can power any device that is charged through a USB connection and comes with a range of connectors for the most popular handsets, including iPhone/iPod, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, plus a miniUSB connector that will work with most Windows Mobile devices.

Once of the less positive changes is that although you still recharge the battery through a USB connection, the input at the battery end is no longer miniUSB. It’s not a massive problem, but is less convenient since you are likely to have a number of miniUSB leads already. Also, this version of the charger has a smaller capacity battery than previously, although still enough to charge a phone at least twice completely, and an iPod multiple times. As well as the phone connectors there is an in-car charger that connects to the cigarette lighter port in your car and has two USB ports for powering your gadgets.

At nearly £40 the Universal Emergency Charger is not the cheapest accessory around, but it remains indispensible. If you are looking for an emergency power supply for your smartphone, or need to update  from a well used previous version, this device does the job as well as ever.

Price: £39.95
Web: www.proporta.com

Verdict: 8

Popularity: 3% [?]