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gadget — Episode 102 – Kensington Ultra Portable Notebook Power Adapter
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The Wall/Auto/Air Ultra Portable Notebook Adapter, model 33197, is Kensington’s universal AC/DC power adapter. Weighing only 8 ounces and measuring 5.6 inches long, by 3 inches wide and less than three quarters of an inch thick, there’s a good chance that it will be lighter and smaller than the power adapter that was included with your laptop.
The Kensington adapter is designed to be power and charge all of your devices from pretty much any available source of power. There is an AC input on the end of the adapter, and a DC input on the side. It autoswitches between 120 and 240 volt AC power and has cords that let you draw 12 to 16 volts of DC from your vehicle, aircraft accessory plug, or any other source of compatible DC power. From the power port on the other end of the adapter you can draw up to a maximum of 120 watts of sustained power, making it compatible with all but the most power-hungry personal electronic devices on the market. — and it can do all of this without having to select voltages or worry about polarity. This is accomplished by using a series of Kensington smart tips. These tips are not only sized for particular models of notebooks and electronic devices, but they contain all the circuitry to ensure that the correct voltage and polarity is supplied to your gear. As an added bonus, the Kensington smart tips are compatible across the entire line of Kensington power accessories, meaning that you can add universal power adapters, extensions cables, and international travel plugs as needed. In our retail pack, Kensington included 12 smart tips and an output cable to connect them to the adapter The adapter is compatible with laptops from DELL, HP/Compaq, Acer, Gateway, Fujitsu, IBM, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Sony. We tried it with everything from our power frugal Dell Latitude D410 to a 17″ power pig HP Pavillion. It powered and charged our Gateway M-Series, our IBM Thinkpad and every other laptop we could find, all with the tips that were included in the package. As for your other personal electronic items, the adapter can charge and power pretty much any USB device as well as cell phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony, Ericson, and RIM. It can also power PDAs (if you still have one of those) as well as the most popular portable entertainment devices like the Nintendo Gameboy and Sony PSP, or media devices like the Creative ZEN and Apple’s iPods. |
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Kensington also include all the straps, pockets, flaps and bags that you need to keep your Ultra Portable Notebook Adapter… well… portable.
We really liked the Kensington adapter. We found it to be lightweight, very flexible and powerful enough for all our gear. We did wish that they had used a standard AC power plug and had some way to power and charge both a notebook AND a USB device at the same time, but overall it is still a very competent power device. The Kensington Ultra Portable Notebook Power Adapter is available now. Pricing is a bit strange, with Kensington offering a full retail version @ ~$150, but I’ve been able to find street prices for what looks to be the OEM version, with tips, for less than $50. |
