Belkin Mini Surge / USB charger

Cool Yule Rating: 4.5 stars

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Cool Yule Rating: 4.5 stars

Price: $25

Product Web site

Description: Hotel rooms are notorious for having very few power outlets, or at least outlets that you can easily access. The Mini Surge provides three additional power outlets and a rotatable plug that can be adjusted vertically or horizontally, and also has two USB charging ports for mobile devices that charge via USB.

In reality you gain only two extra plug spots, but the additional USB charging ports are also helpful for mobile devices (for example, on a recent trip I was able to recharge my iPhone via the USB cable, and keep the notebook powered and a few other gadgets I'd brought along).

Another great place to use the device is in the airport – I'm always seeing travelers bunched around one power outlet, and they're usually not willing to share the juice. With the Mini Surge, you can make new friends by plugging it into the power outlet and then offering fellow travelers the ability to power their notebooks and/or mobile devices.

The third place I've found this device helpful is at home. In my kitchen, there's a corner where we've got the mail shredder, iPod charging dock, iPod speaker system and baby monitors. With only two outlets before, we'd have to plug and unplug these devices on a regular basis to accomplish whatever charging task we had. With the Mini Surge, we now get those two extra plugs, so we don't have to play cable tango as much as we used to.

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