Video: UK Folding Plug concept could flatten that bulky British adapter

Of all the AC adapters stuffed into your personal item when globetrotting, the plug used in Merry Old England must surely be the most cumbersome -- its three copper prongs flung to the extremes of a giant block of plastic. That Victorian holdover gets a major re-do with this UK Folding Plug concept. The two horizontal prongs rotate themselves in-line with the top, vertical one, and the body of the adapter then folds in half, resulting in a thickness of about 1cm. Interestingly the plug would still work in either position, with a slimline power strip envisioned to accept three of these slender lovelies at once. It's positively brilliant, but is just a concept at this point, and while we don't have any news to pass along about its likelihood for production, surely some manufacturer will watch the video after the break and start churning these out by the millions.

[Via Pocket-lint]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2009 7:34AM]

Finally, a design that stops the plug from standing up right and therefore my foot not able to stand on the plug by accident and cause great pain. Countless times I've been walking through my house and a plug is laying on the floor, without realising it's not there, I stand on it and yelp :(

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2009 8:44AM]

That's incredible.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2009 8:53AM]

I'd much rather stick to the regular old big and tough UK plug. I've been all over the world, probably used over 10 different types of power plug, and not been impressed with the safety of any of them. Now having emigrated from the UK to Malta (where they also use the UK standard), I can still satisfy my obsession with staying alive and un-electrocuted.

As regards this new design, moving parts mean inherent weakness, which means increased safety risk.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 24th 2009 11:54AM]

The plug on your toothbrush is a Europlug.

[samgeorge Posted Jun 24th 2009 12:51PM]

What's wrong with this?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3617/3657640650_87107fcd0b.jpg?v=0

its Cheaper, takes up zero room, means no replacement of existing plugs - take a look at an apple power adapter!!

if you provide a Different plug, you have to Replace Every plug, and you STILL need an EU adapter when you go abroad !!

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 26th 2009 11:39AM]

The new plugtop (!) may look good but in practice it will be very difficult to produce contacts etc. that can turn 90 degrees and still carry 13 Amps. For the lower currents that are required for mobile chargers, as already mentioned previously, the plugtop either contains a transformer and/or electronic control gear to reduce the voltage to the lower value required. So, its bulky design is an actual advantage in this situation.
The British and European higher voltage (230V) means that our appliances require around half of the current of the USA system of 110 V to produce the same power. This simply means that we can supply more powerful appliances from the British type socket outlets.
The advantage that the 110V system has is that it produces a lower danger with electric shock situations.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 7:44AM]

The concept might work, but could it be too flimsy unless it uses expensive plastic. There are also some very nice chargers where effectively the size of the UK plug is used to advantage. As an example, I have a charger for my Nokia 6310i, that is only about the same size as a normal plug.

The only problem is when you go abroad. But the Nokia lasts at least a week as it has a large battery and anyway, I can usually find someone, who has the right size charger for it.

My problem is my HP laptop and my Nikon camera. I solved that by breaking the leads and inserting Europlugs in them.

http://anonw.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/euro-v-uk-plugs-and-sockets/

This works very well, especially as I've kept the lead short, so that I don't have to lug around large amounts of cable. It saves me about 200 to 300 grams, which means I can take more luggage in my 10Kg Ryanair limit.