Emergency travel charger plays nice with Palm's Multi-Connector

Oh sure, there's a plethora of portable USB chargers out there to keep most every cellphone around juiced up for one last call, but those handling a Palm handset with the polarizing Multi-Connector have long been shut out cold -- until now. Tech Center Labs has just come to the rescue with its Tiny Emergency FuelCell, which holds a single AA and enables power to be passed along to Centros and any other Palm / Treo device with the proprietary connector. Best of all, the pocket-friendly device is just $9.95 (or $10.95 with a bundled battery). Not a bad way to spend a Hamilton if you're a Palm lover.

[Via Palm InfoCenter]

[Flashpoint @ Jun 9th 2008 11:18PM]

good luck getting it past airport security.

[Darwin @ Jun 10th 2008 1:59AM]

Oddly or scarily enough, I haven't had a problem getting past airport security with something 99.99% the same as this. They've been selling these in China for years now. Anywhere from 1 USD (street vendors) to, well, whatever a shop owner can hustle you for.

The finish is slightly different from this, and the 'proprietary' adapter is nothing more than a mono 3/32" phono plug and the kits come with about 5 different plugs. I modded mine to take a USB receptacle (since it outputs just over 5V). Trouble is, you need a fresh battery to give any kind of charge-lovin' and even then I've had issues charging older Nokias.

[QUOW @ Jun 10th 2008 1:44AM]

Y'know, I work at an optical place and we have literally hundreds of these (Branded with Acuvue, of course) to hand out as giveaways. Why does the same goddamned device keep popping up everywhere?! It's crap. Don't waste money on it. It's so inefficient (gets waaay too hot) that the battery konks out after 10 minutes, and leaves your cell less charged than it was before because it keeps popping on and off keeping the backlight going.