As most of you are acutely aware, your smartphone is not equipped with an infinite battery. In fact, for some of you, it may be very far from it. Unfortunately, that means we must carry a charging cable with us, “just in case” we find ourselves on the wrong side of a 20% battery warning. This however can be cumbersome as I would guess for at least 50% of you, carrying a large purse to carry cables just isn’t practical or socially acceptable. So instead we are left with an annoying lump in our pockets, or we just have to venture out without one and hope for the best. It’s a real problem.
Thankfully for us a small company out of Los Angeles, California has a pretty snazzy solution to our problem. Introducing ChargeCard, a nifty little gadget charging solution that promises to make our lives ever so much more simple.
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As seen on kickstarter, these guys have come up with a nifty little credit card sized charging solution that can be literally slipped into your wallet!
We at FSM were lucky enough to get a demo unit, and have put it through its paces. So here goes. Although the cards come in different configurations ( lightning, 30 pin, and micro USB ), they all boast the same basic stats. The card itself is only about 2.5 mm thin, which is roughly the thick as two credit cards pressed together. Its made of what appears to be a flexible polymer instead of the expected plastic, which works out nicely on the durability factor ( I will touch on that in a moment ). As far as the actual components go, on one end of the card you will find your charging port. For our testing, we received the 30 pin unit as pictured. The USB plug is attached in the center and “snaps” free when pressed. From there you just plug it in and go. Not only will it charge your device, but it also tethers internet, and allows full data syncing. Sounds pretty cool right?
Before doing this writeup, I decided I wanted to put this thing through some real world testing to see if it would stand up to my daily habits, and the occasional user error. When I pulled it from it’s shipping envelope, the first thing I did was plug it up and test its function to create a baseline. How would it fair after a week of hard use? Surprisingly well. Over the past week, I have tortured this thing with about as many scenarios that I could think of to try to break it ( in ways that would likely occur ). Ive carried it in an overstuffed wallet, sat on it, dropped it, ran said wallet over with a truck, and even put it through a washing machine cycle. You know what? You really wouldn’t know it. This thing still works (and looks) just like it did when I pulled it out of that envelope.
Im pretty impressed! It’s a very well made piece of kit, and (when I get my kickstarter lightning version) you can bet Ill be rocking one everywhere I go. For more info, or to order your own, check out ChargeCards website now.
