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Chargepod Universal Six-Way Charging System Hands-on (Verdict: It Revolutionizes Charging)

When we first heard about Chargepod's six-way charging system with its custom adapters and all-in-one body, we were skeptical. Is it really worth the price premium to combine all our gadget charging into one place?

After getting our hands on it and testing it out on just about every portable device we have, we've come to the conclusion that the Chargepod is the future of gadget charging.

That's a bold claim, but once you use it, you'll come to agree with us. See, with standard AC adapters, you'll be hard pressed to fit them all on one power strip because quite a few are large and oddly shaped. Then you'll have to get two power strips (or a power squid), which then means both of your outlets are now occupado. With Chargepod, you take up one outlet in one power strip and you're done.

Although the fanned-out orientation while charging makes it take up about a square foot's worth of surface area, it doesn't occupy all that much space when compared to individual chargers. Then there's just the coolness of (there are six blue LEDs that tell you when something's inserted) being able to charge all your stuff with the same device.

The basics of Chargepod are obvious from the picture. You have one center base station with a lead that plugs into the wall. Then you've got six interchangeable adapters that you can plug just about anything into.

As for the chargers, there's USB, miniUSB, BlackBerry, Motorola, Sony Ericsson (phones and Bluetooth headsets), Sanyo, Samsung phones, Samsung headsets, Qualcomm, Kyocera, Audiovox, LG, Toshiba, Pantech, Palm (Treo, LifeDrive, Tungsten), Nokia, DS, DS Lite, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Micro, Nextel, Jabra, Sidekick, and various other phones I forgot to list. Essentially, it covers the whole spectrum of phones, headsets, and other gadgets.

Here's the downside: price. The base unit costs $49 and additional charger tips costs $9.95. This means that you'll have to buy at least five extra adapters (your first one's free) in order to fill up the entire body. That's over $100 to get yourself set up.

At this point, we can recommend Chargepod based on its convenience and ability to charge things as well as individual chargers, but if Callpod can get the price somewhere down to $39 for the base unit and $5 or $6 per adapter, then we can recommend this to everyone—even the cash strapped.

Product Page [Callpod]

Chargepod adapters [Callpod]

The Gallery [Gizmodo]

Feature

1:20 PM on Wed Jun 6 2007
By Jason Chen
25,299 views
20 comments

Comments

  • Someone needs to make a USB-port-only version of this for $20. The $5-$6 for a small cable is so outrageous that I can't believe you could recommend this.

  • Image of Jason Chen Jason Chen at 01:36 PM on 06/06/07 *

    @Erwos: It's $9.95 per adapter, and I recommended it based on convenience. You'd know those two facts if you read the review all the way to the end.

  • I kinda of agree with you. Its looks well made and stylish. Has multiple spots to charge. Though if you only have two of those devises it may not be worth 49 dollars. On the other hand if you can get the charger as cheaper as 39.

    Mp3 chargers $$19-32
    CP chargers $$19-28

    I'm not so sure on the rest but that adds up to $38-60 for two chargers for chargepod 44,45? guess its where you look and how many chargers you have

  • Personally i'm more partial to the Gomadic Charging Station, even though it only supports 4 devices, and no blue led's. It looks alot cleaner.

    This thing is sort of confusing because it has blue led's like the designers want it to be seen, yet looks like a fire-code vioation.

  • So nice the only place you can find room is on the floor? Come on Giz, you need to do better than that to convince me to dump my hard earned jacksons on this crap.

    And the design team need to be spanked as this is a huge waste of space - a round hub? I say bah hub bug. Good example of function following some stupid high school kid design form.

  • The ultimate perk of this thing is outlet space. I like to charge my 'junk' at my desk.

    I've already got 2 PCs, 2 monitors, 2 sets of speakers and a printer plugged in right there, aside from the USB charged devices I'm always unplugging something and plugging something else back in because I'm just flat out of outlet space and I'm not about to chain 2 strips off each other.

    This thing, with a little self modification will be perfect for me and I'll probably pick one up. Charge all my devices off a single outlet? That's worth the money for me right there.

    One thing I would change about it is the form factor, I understand the whole starfish design as it helps keep things from becoming tangled but it would be nice if they had a vertical version or something that had little shelves with a port for the plug adapters so you could take less overall desk space and potentially add more devices because you've added verticle growth potential.

  • Get a 5 port powered USB hub and 5 mini USB cables and you are set for many of your appliances. CHEAP.

  • I got the iGo thing from Radioshack. It's supposed to charge 2 things at once. I got a tip for my RAZR, BlackBerry, PSP, and iPod. No matter what I do I can only get it to charge one thing at a time. The manual says some devices take up too much energy and must be run seperately. I'm wondering if it's the same with this thing.

  • Well, it looks pretty cool, and I was all ready to bite, but there's one major flaw here...

    They don't have an iPod adapter. Of all the stupid moves. It's only the most popular handheld gadget on the planet...

    (...And then, to make matters worse, there's no PSP adapter either...)

    Every cell phone adapter under the planet, but no iPod? Blasphemy!!! I relegate you to the dustbin of technology until you flesh out your adapter offerings!!!

  • OR, we could get the lawmakers to do what China and So. Korea did recently. They told all Cell phone manufacturers that they had to develop a SINGLE system that they would all use for both CHARGING and DATA.

    So maybe it will eventually work its way here since they are all made over there anyway except for Nokia.

  • Correction. They give you a Female USB adapter and you're supposed to use your normal iPod plug.

    Still, that's one more cable to carry. Not what I'd expet from a gadget like this...

  • Looks pretty cool, but I am also hoping the price goes down. Also needed are some generic tips - I have an iRiver H320 which charges with a generic sized DC adpater, so how about throwing some of those in?

    Also, as far as the iPod using just a regular female USB connector, well, that's probably so they don't have to pay licensing fees to Apple for using the iPod connector.

  • these are very cool...take a look at the iGo units as well. They are more laptop oriented and branch off into charging everything else as well

  • PS: the iGO does have iPod tips...no, I don't work for iGo :)

  • @Erwos
    If you want a USB-only version, just get a powered USB hub. It was easy to find a 7 port hub for under $15. Since you only care about power, you can probably find a discontinued 1.1 USB hub for even less.

  • $9.95, $5-$6 per cable? Ok first of all they're worth about $.50 to $1.00 wholesale and there's no way that anybody in their right mind would pay $49 for a piece of round plastic with pretty blue lights, at least I hope not... This is what I consider the luxury version of gadgets presented in those magazines by inventors you get in the mail which you automatically discard as junk. Out of curiosity, where are the parts produced? China? What a coincidence... Although I must say that as efficient as it seems, there's no way I'd ever pay $100 (start up cost) to charge devices which already cost me around a grand... Product and market advertisement ingenuity? Or exploitation of TV hypnotized consumers?

  • this doesnt make any sense at all, nor why you would recomend it, .. becuase they gave you one for free?

    a usb hub for $7, and a usb charge adaptor for whatever device you want for $3 on ebay.

    people said that the first time this hoped up on gizmodo. obviosuly you ignored those comments.

    as for conveince, again, how is this more convienet than a usb hub? a self power 4-8 port hub, this is a crappy product and the review seems like a mindless "buy now" rant.

  • Image of Jason Chen Jason Chen at 02:51 PM on 06/08/07 *

    @dj-kempo: Obviously you're not reading the article all the way through, or at all. Does it only charge USB devices? No. It's a cellphone charger that also has space for USB devices. It can even charge headsets and DS Lites.

    We didn't ignore the comments, just the ones that made absolutely no sense. It looks like you ignored the post though.

  • Image of Jason Chen Jason Chen at 02:52 PM on 06/08/07 *

    @comma_comedian: Yes, that's right. If you want a USB-only version then try a powered hub. This isn't meant to replace that.

  • I liked this gadget, it's really innovative and will make our life easier. It allows us to charge up to six devices at the same time and by that saves time and space for us. Thanks to CallPod

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