When we took a look at Griffin’s PowerBlock iPod and iPhone charger two weeks ago, we said it was “almost a no-brainer”. The PowerBlock is your usual USB wall-wart with one difference: a spare external battery. That this costs just $10 more than the official Apple charger is what makes it attractive. Griffin sent us one to look at. Here’s what we thought.
First, the brick is tiny, around the size of a cellphone charger. For me, over in Europe with our fancy-pants power outlets, this proved a little less exciting as I would have to carry a US travel adapter, too, but for US residents, the standard pair of flip-out prongs keeps things compact.
To use the charger you plug it in and hook up your gadget of choice via USB. This means you can power or charge pretty much anything. The spare battery pack is almost unnoticeable at first, distinguishable only by the matt finish which contrasts against the glossy coating of the rest of the block. When the unit is hooked up to power, it trickle-charges the battery, Griffin claims three hours to fill it up, which is about right in my tests. Remember, though, that you won’t be using the battery all the time. You can therefore leave the pack on charge and grab it when you’re off on a long trip or have just forgotten to fully juice-up your iPod.
Pull the battery pack away and you’ll see the dock connector, which means it will only work with iPods and iPhones. The battery doesn’t get its power from here, though: The connector simply sits inside a plastic hole in the main body. Instead, it is held in place by a couple of magnets and charges via their connections. Neat.
The PowerBlock battery has a row of green LEDS along the front which light up when you plug the charger in, indicating the power level. When it’s giving succour to a nearly dead iPod, you can press the button on the front to see the remaining charge. It looks a lot like the battery indicator lights on a MacBook, in fact.
How much power do you get from a charge? Griffin says that the brick will give a full charge to a Nano, and half a charge to an iPhone or an iPod Touch, and this seems to be true. You can also just use the iPod as if it were plugged in, in which case, these are the official numbers:
4G Nano
24 hours music
6 hours video
iPhone 3G
1.5 hours Web Access
2 Hours Talk Time
I tried the 2G Nano and it charged to full in no time, just like being plugged in. There is a caveat, though. With an iPhone or almost any iPod, you just hook up the brick and carry on. The Touch and the Nano, however, have a problem: they have their headphone jacks on the bottom, next to the dock connector, which means that you can’t use headphones while charging. One more thing: You’ll need to bring your own iPod USB cable, as there is none in the box.
So, should you buy it? Yes. It costs $40, just $10 more than Apple’s own charger, and it has a spare battery which is so tiny and light you could keep it in your jeans pocket and not notice. If you’re in the market for a charger, then this is the one to buy. Seriously. It’s a no-brainer.
Product page [Griffin]
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