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Accessory Sunday: RCA travel charger

imageAt the recent CES Unveiled show in New York, Audiovox was mostly showing off its forays into mobile electronics with hints of some cool new stuff to be released at the January show, but the home to all that is RCA this side of TV sets was also showing off a few accessories. Among these was a travel charger with an integrated shelf for a handset, portable media player, a different spin on an idea we’ve seen before.. I gave it a spin with the idea that it might replace my go-to traveling surge protector, the cleverly designed Monster Outlets To Go.

Like some of the more recent Outlets To Go products, the RCA has USB ports (two of them, in fact) in addition to three outlets. Ad you probably won’t be surprised to learn that it can be found for less than the Monster Cable competitor. However there were a few issues. First, while Audiovox includes a little shelf, it only works if the outlet has the grounding prong on the bottom. Worse, the adapter for slimmer devices didn’t seem to be securely attached to the adapter. More seriously, the USB port would not charge te Sprint Overdrive mobile hotspot that I’d brought, and the prongs do not fold in, which makes a product that is already too bulky to be a travel product even more bulky.