Customer Reviews

Black & Decker PI100AB Inverter

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

We bought this to power our laptop and cell chargers while on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. This unit was compact and easily packed in with the laptop. It worked flawlessly and saved our sanity by giving the kids power to "entertain" for some of the less senic drive times. The only minor complaint is the cooling fan, it just added a little white noise noticable at less than cruising speeds. On the plus side it also reminded us that it was sucking power when we would shut down the car. Overall we are very pleased with this purchase.

I got this inverter elsewhere. I'm very happy with it, and I was very amused to see other reviews complaining about how noisy it is. This inverter will power my laptop just fine, as well as charge my blackberry via USB. The noise is acceptable to me. I'm a guy, and I like things that plug into power and make a whirring noise. It makes a whirring noise, so I know it's on, and the green light comes on when it's plugged in to let me know it's providing power to whatever I have plugged into it.

If you have a medium or larger laptop, heed my warning: If you're looking to charge your laptop from a dead battery, this will do it, provided you don't do something stupid like turn the laptop on while it's charging. You have a choice: You can keep the laptop powered by this inverter while your battery is at full power, or you can charge your dead laptop while it's powered off. You will probably ruin the inverter or pop its fuse if you try to charge your dead laptop AND power it at the same time.

I've had other inverters before and this one isn't louder than any of the other ones i've had. It does it's job and is cheap. It's nice to be able to charge my iphone and laptop at the same time.

I was planning to buy Car charger for my two cell phones, Ipod, Digital Camera Charger,video camera charger; but cost for each of them was a big factor, then i got to know about black and decker inverter; It solved all of my problem. The price is quite reasonalble.
Charges all of the device quite efficiently.

Advise, it has low hissing sound; so if you are listening to soft music with your ipod connected, it might spoil the mood. Incase of Ipod first charge it

Purchased this PI100AB inverter because it is inexpensive and has both 120V and USB. However, when I plugged it into the car, it sounds like a hair dryer running on the low-speed setting (even without anything connected to the inverter). I did not see the fan mentioned on the box. We returned it, and will look for another product.

Warning, the cooling fan inside this inverter is way too noisy to be used in a car. I can't believe Black & Decker can sell something like this without violating a noise safety level regulation, the fan is entirely too loud and the white noise it generates will slowly drive you crazy. It's especially bad if you have a dashboard where the 12V cigarette lighter is close to the steering wheel or heating/AC vents and not far from your ears, like I do. I used it during a 2 hour road trip and my ears were very unhappy by the end of the trip. No amount of music, road noise, or max fan speed setting on the AC could drown it out.

The physical design of the unit is great and the single AC and USB outlets are exactly what I needed. 100W is perfect for laptops, cell phones, and mp3 players, I've had no trouble using any of them with this inverter. I also like the way the neck bends 45 degrees in either direction, that helps get it out of the way somewhat (again, that depends on the placement of the 12V output on your dash).

I guess if your 12V cigarette lighter is near the floorboard this inverter might work for you, but the noise level of the fan is so bad that I would advise everyone to skip this and find something else.

I've had this unit for a year and love it. It is noisy when it starts and stops but it levels out. We often run two of them in my van since it has a back cigarette lighter also. I've found the reliability of this unit to be exceptional. I also love the USB slot on it.

Didn't work right out of the box. Constant red light indicator and did not power so much as a cell phone. Defective from the get go. Had to return it and buy a different product which works just fine. BD apparently has very poor QA with this product. It's hit or miss if you get a defective unit or not. Would not recommend.

My power inverter work for the first hour or so then it stop working and hasn't worked since. I'm not a fan of the inverter.

I have been using this inverter for a few weeks now, the noise is loud but all others I have had before is not much better. The inverter looks stronger on the picture. I like the fact it bends but its still a little big (my previous one was a bit smaller). If I have to buy a new one I will not buy this one because this has an auto shut off and it shuts off when used a longer period of time (it gets hot so it shuts off, however my old one did not get so hot and did not have the auto shut off) when the unit shuts off I have to unplug it, let it cool off before I plug it back in. Over all, it's a good unit for the price I paid.