I had the good fortune of trying out this little kit in Beijing, China, comparing it alongside an equivalent universal adapter kit made by Targus. The devices I would be charging were an HP laptop with the standard US 3-pronged cable, and my Palm Centro. (The findings here apply equally to the Treo, since they share the same chargers.)
On first appearance, the Mobi Products World Wall Adapter for Dual S&C Cables (what a mouthful) looks like it was packaged by Apple. Solid white and extremely elegant, it does not look like a power adapter. It looks like a sleek USB mini-hub.
The design cleverly brings together the three main male-prong adapters found in any universal adapter kit. Here is a picture of the individual pieces separated.
I thought figuring out what plugs into what was going to be a challenge for an electrical ignoramus like myself, but it turns out to be as easy as plugging blocks into the right shaped holes. You simply can’t plug the wrong type of adapter into the wall outlet, as the prongs won’t line up if it is not the correct adapter.
On the “works as advertised” front, both the USB connectors and the electrical connectors do the job. The USB connectors nicely light up (color-coded, even) to let you know the state of the device being charged, just like the LED on the Centro itself.
However, here’s where things got ugly. Because of the design, the combination of having the main piece of the adapter and the smaller rounded two pronged adapter resulted in the whole thing not remaining flush against the wall when I plugged my standard 3-pronged power cord into it:
This neither sounded nor looked good. If the slightly hanging appearance was unsightly, the occasional small sparks you could see were downright scary. Add to this the audible crackling sound of electricity, and I thought either the adapter was not solidly built or this was just to be expected because of all of the “adapting” going on in the kit (remember – electrical ignoramus). It took a fair amount of pushing and moving around to get the connection to stay put.
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