Power Monkeys Are Go!!!

Chris recently commented on Tree Weasel Weekly about how many portable devices he carries around. I’m the same, iPod, PDA, Blackberry (my new toy), PSP, DS etc. I’m not convinced by convergence, I’ve got a (full!!) 80Gb Video iPod, and until mobile phones have that sort of capacity I’m happy having them as separate devices, not to mention the battery life.

Not mentioning the battery life brings me round to this posts topic – battery life. In an uncharacteristic bout of sanity, mobile phone manufacturers have (mostly) agreed to adopt the mini-usb plug as standard for power, thus doing away with the nightmare selection of various power supplies. However until they and every other device manufacturer comes to their senses, we’re stuck with lugging round a bag full of wall-wart power supplies with our ultra-slim and portable devices.

Not any more, here comes the mighty morphing power monkey.

This device, about the size of a car cigarette lighter plug, is just a rechargeable battery, but the clever thing is that it has a plug on it that accepts a load of adapters which come with it, converting it to fit any device. I’ve got adapters for all my electronic goodies I carry around, all in a nice little bag. It also comes with an extendable usb cable which is used to charge it up, and this is the same plug for the adapters, so you could charge your devices from any computer. The mains supply for it comes with adapters for all countries, so on our recent family holiday to Spain it was all we needed to keep us in electronic happiness.

The website also sells adapters for everything, with new ones added all the time. The new power monkeys even come with solar panels!

Great stuff.