Tuesday, November 9, 2010

A Very Average, Very Basic Phone Charger For A Very Basic Cell Phone!




The Good: Convenient for travel, Does what is it supposed to.
The Bad: No surge protection.
The Basics: A very basic cell phone charger for the Kyocera TNT!, the Travel Charger IV does what it promises, no more, no less.


When my wife picked up her inexpensive cell phone, I was actually quite happy for her. It allowed her to keep in touch with the friends she left behind in Michigan and that has been real nice for her and us. For us, wanting just a very basic cell phone, the Kyocera TNT! (click here for my review!) was actually a decent choice. We wanted something that was a very basic communications device and that's what we got. However, it seems our rabbit, Rowe, was also interested in getting into the cell phone age and she decided to chew the cord to the charger for the TNT!, which forced me to go in search of a replacement.

The Kyocera Travel Charger is the standard charger that comes with the TNT! and it can be found separately from the cell phone for about $5.00 in the U.S. This is ironic, because the cell phone with the charger was only $10 on sale at Target! Nevertheless, this very basic charging device is pretty much indispensable to users of the TNT! or other, similar, models of Kyocera cell phones.

The charger is a black plastic box which is 2 1/2" long, 1 5/8" wide and just over 3/4" thick. The charger has a simple cord which is an inch short of six feet long. The cord ends in a male jack which slides into the female port on the TNT! This is a unique (as far as I can find from other, similar, appliances around my house) jack and it is specially designed for the cell phone. It is metal-wrapped at the leads, so it protects the leads and anyone using the charger (from getting electrocuted).

The charger itself is a standard two-prong cell phone charger and it is called a Travel Charger because the tines of the plugs fold into the plastic box. This protects the tines in travel and after months of using the cell phone and (our first) charger, the fold-out function never caused the tines to get loose and did adequately protect the plug from getting bent while in transit. Unfortunately, this key feature of the Kyocera Travel Charger also is its greatest weakness in my book. Because it is designed for a two-prong outlet, it offers no surge protection, not even the most basic protection that comes from a grounded plug (three prong).

Use of the charger is absolutely simple. Fold the tines down so the plug may be plugged into a standard U.S. house socket. Then, plug the jack into the port on the phone (it can only go into the one port, it quite simply cannot fit anywhere else) and let the cell phone sit. The amount of time the charger takes to charge the phone is based upon battery depletion, so the charger may be in use for up to six hours (longer if one charges while they sleep). It does not get noticeably hot while charging.

All in all, this is an exceptionally basic device that does what it promises to do. It is lightweight for travel, charges as it is supposed to and protects the tines. The only thing it doesn't do for cell phone users is protect itself from bunny teeth!

For other electronic devices, please check out my reviews of:
Acer Aspire 5532 Laptop Computer
iPod Shuffle (3rd Generation)
OrionGadgets Synch and Charge USB Cable For iPad

5/10

For other electronics product reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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