PowerDuo Reserve – Review

 

PowerDuo Reserve
Company:Griffin Technology
Price: $59.99
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powerduo-reserve

When it comes to iPod accessories one of the the first companies that comes to mind is Griffin Technology. In fact, the first car charger I bought was their PowerJolt for my iPod Mini. I just had to retire it because the firewire charger won’t work with my iPod Touch.

Of course, Griffin has updated the PowerJolt and added a new feature to it and its wall charger the PowerBlock. What feature could be added to a charger? How about a rechargeable/portable battery for your iPod!

That’s right a battery. Charing your iPod before you leave the car or house but don’t have a full charge yet? Take the battery with you and finish charging your iPod.

The battery slides into each unit magnetically and charger when the charger is connected to a power source. If you need the battery you slide it out and connect it to your iPod. The battery has indicator lights to let you know how much of a charge is left.

So is it any good?

Well, the PowerBlock and PowerJolt (both have USB ports for charging, by the way) work great. They have always been great iPod chargers and still are.

The rechargeable battery charges very quickly and gave my iPod Touch about an extra 3/4 battery charge in about 30 minutes when it was almost dead. The Griffin website says the battery provides “hours of additional time.” This is vague, but depending on how you use your iPod and what iPod it is you will see different results. Watching video is going to give you a lot less time then listing to podcasts.

The battery itself is very small and unobtrusive when connected. It even connected to my Touch with my iFrogz case still on it! That is a definite plus.

Overall, the PowerDuo Reserve is a fantastic idea. For $59.99 you get two chargers and one battery. A spare battery would be a nice addition. That way you could keep one in each unit or have a spare in case you lose the first.

You can also buy the PowerJolt Reserve individually for $39.99. The PowerBlock will be available soon at the same price. However, for $20 more you can have both.

The chargers will work with any iPod with a dock connecter. The battery will too, however on units with the headphone jack next to the dock connector you will have to remove the battery to access the headphone jack (i.e.. nanos, iPod Touch).

This is a must have for people on the go that need extra power in a small package.

MYMAC.COM RATING: 4.5 out of 5

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