I occasionally get products to try out – and write about. The latest is a portable inverter/charge station called the MyCharge Adventure Ultra – which lists for about $90 on Amazon (here) which is about $50 less than the $129.99 retail price listed on the manufacturer’s web site (here).
Either way, what you get is a very compact power source for laptops, phones and even TVs – up to about 45 watts, after which an internal safety kicks in and automatically turns off the juice.
The thing that got me excited most – at first – was the fourth power point, which is a household type three-prong grounded outlet. Here’s where you can plug in a TV or electric fan or shop light. This is handy when you haven’t got a household outlet nearby.
Or the power is out.
I was hoping that I could power my Sawzall. How cool would it be to be able to climb up a tree and limb the mother without having to risk a chainsaw de-limbing of myself? But, alas, the Adventure Ultra hasn’t got the juice for heavy-duty stuff like that.
But, it’s still handy to have a way to keep things like a laptop – and WiFi router – alive during a three-day blackout. Or when camping. It beats hand-cranking an emergency survival light.
It’s very simple to use. Literally, just one AC plug – to charge up the battery. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Two standard USB ports; one direct, ‘Droid-type port. Plus the household/three-prong plug-in.
I checked out customer reviews on Amazon and elsewhere; no negative comments. I don’t have any, either.
The thing I liked most – or found most useful – is the size of the thing. It is small enough to fit inside cargo pants pockets, which means you don’t have to lug it around by hand, or in a backpack.
It also fits easily in most car gloveboxes, too – which is a good place to keep one since you never know when you might need power – and your vehicle might not be able to provide it.
I give it the EPautos thumbs up!
eric, looks pretty neat and I did like the 120V ac power too. I carry a 10,000 watt battery pack I like.I have kept a 400 watt inverter for nearly 20 years. I like being able to clean fish at the lake and just bring home the filets. I’ve used it to power a desktop computer, monitor and printer in the truck too.
I had a guy ask me to bring another desktop computer one day but he’d fixed the other by the time I got there so it was in the back floorboard. A day later he said he needed a monitor so that got loaded too and there wasn’t anything wrong when I got there. Next he said the printer wasn’t working but it started so now I have that in there. I had a Clearwire modem for my laptop but it waS a huge laptop and wasn’t easy to use in the truck. I just threw a wireless keyboard and mouse in and set up the monitor in the passenger seat. I powered them all with that inverter just for the hell of it. It worked fine. I’ve used it many times to power the charger for my drill/driver so it’s been very useful. I like the idea of having the same wirelessly although I’ll keep my inverter since I imagine I’d run that unit down before I got all the fish cleaned.