ipad/phone charger?
Community Forums/General Help/ipad/phone charger?
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| Hello Doing a 150-mile round trip tomorrow and thought about picking up an in-car charger for my iPad. My obvious starting point, was apple, just to get a benchmark. Every review (only three, but still...) says the apple in-car charger blows the fuse in the car fusebox. Now, I'm no stranger to tinkering with cars but I'm not paying nigh on £30 for a charger that doesn't charge and busts my car electrics. The likes of Argos have a couple of alternatives but I figured I'd ask here first for opinions of what's available. Ta! |
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| I bought about 12+ months ago the Griffin in-car charger which has 2 USB connector and can happily report it's still going strong and no issues to report. Charges the iPhone and iPad no problems. I'm not a big fan of Griffin stuff but there was no way I was paying £30 for such a thing so £14.99 sat a little easier. |
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| This? |
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| Yup, that looks like the one :) |
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| Ordered! Ta! |
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| Well, that was a waste of time! It arrived this morning and the've sent me a single one instead of a dual USB. Gone through their returns process and because it was from a third-party seller (which I hadn't realised at the time), all they'll do is send me a refund and I have to re-order it. Like I'll do that! I'll get one from some place else even it its more expensive. Nose, spite, face, etc. [edit] Play.com, 31p cheaper! :D Last edited 2011 |
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| A little FYI that might help regarding charging. The iPad requires a 10W source to charge the way apple intended and one would expect. This is likely why it's smoking people's fuse's, it's drawing more than their car electrics are comfortable giving. This would vary from car to car, if it's wired up properly, with a full circuit for your lighter and you're not using anything else it should be fine, but not all cars/users are like that, hence the high rate of blown fuses. Now that being said, the iPad can charge off lower wattage like the iPhone (side note, iPhone 4 and 4S are 10w compatible so they can charge faster on an iPad friendly power source...), however there's a few things to keep in mind. It might not be able to run the display and charge at the same time. You will get a not charging indicator when it's on, but when it's off it will charge (it's like testing the light in your fridge, did it really go off? open the door, well of course it's on the door is open...). Plug it into the charger and leave it alone for a while then check it's charge level, if it's gone up your charger feeds enough power for it to trickle charge. Additionally it will take a LOT longer to charge if it can only trickle charge like that, don't expect the usual turnaround. One thing I've come to love is my car emergency jump starter. You can get them most places that sell car accessories. It's essentially a battery you can use to give yourself a jump start which is itself awsome, but most of them either have a lighter jack you can plug a power inverter into, or even a built in power inverter. Whenever the power goes out (nasty weather this year, hurricane on our wedding day...) I just grab the jump starter, plug in the power inverter, then I can use the wall chargers to keep our phones etc. topped up for days. It's horribly electrically in-efficent but it works :0) |
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| A little FYI that might help regarding charging. The iPad requires a 10W source to charge the way apple intended and one would expect. This is likely why it's smoking people's fuse's, it's drawing more than their car electrics are comfortable giving. This would vary from car to car, if it's wired up properly, with a full circuit for your lighter and you're not using anything else it should be fine, but not all cars/users are like that, hence the high rate of blown fuses. 31p, though! I SAVED 31p!! Now that being said, the iPad can charge off lower wattage like the iPhone (side note, iPhone 4 and 4S are 10w compatible so they can charge faster on an iPad friendly power source...), however there's a few things to keep in mind. It might not be able to run the display and charge at the same time. You will get a not charging indicator when it's on, but when it's off it will charge (it's like testing the light in your fridge, did it really go off? open the door, well of course it's on the door is open...). Plug it into the charger and leave it alone for a while then check it's charge level, if it's gone up your charger feeds enough power for it to trickle charge. Additionally it will take a LOT longer to charge if it can only trickle charge like that, don't expect the usual turnaround. One thing I've come to love is my car emergency jump starter. You can get them most places that sell car accessories. It's essentially a battery you can use to give yourself a jump start which is itself awsome, but most of them either have a lighter jack you can plug a power inverter into, or even a built in power inverter. Whenever the power goes out (nasty weather this year, hurricane on our wedding day...) I just grab the jump starter, plug in the power inverter, then I can use the wall chargers to keep our phones etc. topped up for days. It's horribly electrically in-efficent but it works :0) |
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