Griffin PowerBlock Travel
Bought direct from Griffin, the PowerBlock Travel is far from cheap. Price is £32.10. That includes VAT and a stiff delivery charge of £5.95.
However, it's possible to get the product for far less. Amazon UK, for instance, sells it for just £13.66 including VAT and offers free delivery.
What you get with the Griffin is rather more than with Porta-Charge's offering. The unit is a 100V-240V travel charger said to have a 5V/1000mA output and provide built-in protection against mains surges and power spikes.
The business end of things is a small palm-size box that comes with four clip-on mains plugs for different countries - including the UK's three-pin configuration.
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Also included is a removable cable that turns out to be a USB dock-connector lead of the sort that Apple provides already with iPods.
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The clever thing is that if you have an iPod that's fitted with a dock connector, you'd use the Griffin-supplied lead to couple player to charger but if you have an iPod that connects directly to USB, you can just plug it into the USB socket on the Griffin box.
The PowerBlock Travel can rejuvenate more iPods than the Porta-Charge product and Griffin says that it's suitable for use in most places around the world, among them continental Europe, the USA, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand.
On the downside, although your iPod will tell you its state of charge, we were a little surprised not to see any charge-state indicator on the Griffin. About the only reason we can think of for leaving one off is that it might prove an irritant if the charger is in your field of view in a bedroom while you're nodding off to sleep.
If you'd also find it useful to able to charge your iPod in the car, a boat, a caravan or anywhere else there's a 12V lighter socket, Griffin's forthcoming PowerDuo Travel might be a better bet.
This is essentially the PowerBlock Travel with an added lighter-socket adapter. That extra item has an anti-surge fuse and does have an LED that changes from amber to green when charging is complete. Hopefully, you're not going to be nodding off while driving, so the LED won't be a nuisance
Griffin's own price for the PowerDuo Travel will be £24.99 (inc VAT, ex delivery) but until it goes on sale here through other outlets, we can't tell you what they might pitch it at.
I've had hands-on with the lighter-socket component - which also forms part of a Griffin's £9 PowerJolt kit - and will be reporting on that package as part of a forthcoming review of FM transmitters.
And now for Final thoughts...
