Friday, November 25, 2016

Episode 50 - AMD Sapphire Radeon Nitro RX 460 OC - Review and Benchmarks

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Review: VisionTek 5 Device Charging Station



Intro

It's no secret that I have a metric crap-ton of devices that I use on a daily basis: iPhones, tablets, kindles, and even more kindles. Let's not forget that my wife also has her devices and between the both of us we have all the wall sockets under seize. If a guest wanted to charge something than they were just SOL. This is where the VisionTek 5 Device Charging Station comes in and helps rectify this a little.


Design

It's a very simple concept, it's simply a slotted piece of plastic that holds all your devices and then stores the power brick underneath. There are cutouts for cables to be routed to each slot and one for the power brick's cable as well. This works quite well, however, my biggest gripe is you have to remove the bottom piece for any cable management. This wouldn't be such a big deal except this was probably one of the most frustrating and aggravating things I had to accomplish that day, and I have 4 kids 8 and under! I don't own multiples of every charging cable so I am constantly adding and removing cables like this. If you use this, make sure you have a dedicated cable for the slots you want, cuz you ain't getting it back.


Charging

This is the best part of this whole product, it has 5 charging ports with a combined total amperage of 8 amps. If you only have one or two plugged in, they will operate at 3A! That's some crazy fast charging (think tablets and iPhone 7 Plus')! I like that the power brick has a modular cable instead of being coupled with the brick. This thing charges like a boss.


Conclusion 

Truth be told, the plastic holder is simply not very good, but the power brick is stellar and I use it out of the plastic casing and is my go-to charger at my bedside. I think if the plastic lid were easier to manage and there was a grippier substance in each slot then I would probably end up using that more, but the inconvenience of having to remove the lid is simply too much effort, hence why I use it without the casing. It's a shame because the power brick is among my top favorite charging bricks, 3A for the win!