Small review of chargers

Recently I bought two new things for my Eee; a charger that lets me recharge a battery outside my Eee, and a carcharger. I bought both of these from Clove.co.uk, but I've seen the same models for sale elsewhere on the 'net - including MDD. Both Clove and MDD also have the same devices for the newer Eees - the main difference is the voltage and the number of pins on the charger.

The little charger is a tiny device - a mere 45 X 18 X 32 mm. It's designed with little 'legs' that stops you from inserting it the wrong way in the battery, thus protecting you from all sort of electrical mayhem, while the build quailty is high enought that the small and admitedly lightweight charger feels very sturdy. It seems to charge the battery at the same speed as when I charge the battery in my Eee, but off course I have no hard evidence to back this up.

The charger is equiped with a light that glows green when the charger is powered by the wallwart with no battery in, red when it's charging a battery and green again when the battery is full. The light is my one complain about this chager too - the green LED is always on, even while the battery is charging, and from certain angles the green light will drown out the red. Off course, just moving my head slightly breaks the illusion, allowing me to see the red light.

The carcharger is a fair bit bulkier, ut then it has to incorporate a lot more - after all it'll happily accept anything from 10V to 18V and churn out reasonable clean 9.5V. The build quality of the carcharger is higher than I expected after being exposed to other chargers to plug into the car previously, so it came as a pleasant suprice. The contact springs on the sides of the body is strong, minimizing any risk of it working itself loose while driving.

My Eee sees perfectly happy running of the carcharger, and it also works great alongside the small charger to top off my battery while I'm paying attention to the road. If I later decides to invest in a GPS reciver and use my Eee to navigate, the carcharger will become an indisposable part of that setup.

Overall, a good investment.

And now, the photos!

Just slot the thing on.

The little legs on the chargers means you cannot plug it in the wrong way around.

This is my large battery, but it shows how small the charger is.

The carcharger - note the red 10A fuze.

As it sits in my car - you can just make out the green LED on the top letting me know it's juiced up.

Normally I will keep the battery somewhere safer, but for the sake of the photo I simply placed it on the seat.

Red means it's acharging, but...

...from certain angles it looks green.