QLVR Version 0.7.0

As many of you are aware, the famed CompUSAs went out of business nationwide a couple of months ago. I had the opportunity to raid the stores twice - when they went out of business in New Jersey a year earlier, and again, in Manhattan recently. Anyhow, it gave me an opportunity to try a couple of new bits of software and hardware I would look at, say “that’s interesting” and walk on. The piece of hardware I picked up at the Manhattan store was the Energizer Energi to Go Power Outlet.

The device contains two USB ports to charge devices like cell phones and a standard (well.. US standard) 120V AC three prong plug for your power hungry devices like laptops. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to see both a car/DC adapter and an AC adapter inside the packaging. The only major missing part is an airplane plug but I haven’t check to see if the airlines or the insane TSA agents would consider this device to be a hazard…

According the the product page the battery is rated for:

Notebook Computer: 2 hours
Portable DVD Player: 5 hours
iPod/MP3 Player: 25 hours of music
Cell Phone: 75 hours of stand-by
Digital Camera: 400 pictures
Camcorder: 1.5 hours of video

I really wish I could verify this but the design of the on/off button is really pathetic. Apparently, a power cord turned the device on inside my laptop bag and drained the power. I knew something was wrong when I felt how warm it was. Good thing it didn’t burst into flames

I’ll look to get some benchmarks and see how long the battery last when throwing a very inefficient MacBook Pro and its dual fans. I’ll be amazed if I get another hour…

Update: The NotebookReview site has this reviewed. Their experience with run times for laptops was between 45 and 50 minutes. The post can be found here.

Also, the URL provided for the device is a third party seller. I did not find a link on the Energizer page for it….