Customer Reviews

Kensington 33057 Universal Car/Air Power Adapter for Apple

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This product preformed as expected, that is, perfectly. I plugged it into the car and the adapter into my iBook G4, and it worked just fine. It appeared to charge the iBook as well as support its power draw. I don't know the technical specifications, but I know one thing: it worked.

It was very useful and allowed me to not be concerned about battery performance in the car. However, despite the perfect performance, there was a small issue with setup. I would guess that the power adapter plug that goes into the iBook G4 was actually designed for the iBook G3, because the adapter does not fit snugly. While the power adapter for the Apple supplied charger fits right in, the Kensington adapter leaves a few millimeters of the plug exposed. Additionally, there is no LED on the plug itself, so I have no idea if it is done charging or not (there is a one-color LED on the box of the adapter, but this does no indicate if the battery is charging or not.

Despite these little problems with the plug, I would certainly recommend this product to everyone with an iBook or PowerBook that takes long car trips.

I purchased this to expand the usefulness of my G3 iBook. I really wish I hadn't. The interchangeable plugs seem like a great idea, but the plug is significantly heavier than the original iBook power adapter's plug. It placed too much strain on the laptop's power port, and eventually caused something internal to snap, leaving me with a G3 paperweight.

I bought this adapter a few years ago for my iBook G4. I have used it mainly when we go on long car trips with the kids and we use the iBook G4 to let them watch movies from the iBook hard disk.

Connectors: One side of the adapter cable connects to a car DC outlet (cigarette lighter outlet). The other side connects to the iBook G4. There is a small brick in between with a light. It lights green when it receives power from the car DC outlet. Unlike another comment mentions, there is no blue light and it does not connect to home AC outlets. I guess the person is describing another product from Kensington. This product only connects to car DC outlets or airplane DC outlets. When you remove the top 1.5 inch part of the car DC connector, it shows an airplane DC outlet connector. I haven't used it on an airplane. The connector for the iBook G4 connects very well to my iBook G4, even better than the iBook connector of the Apple AC adapter that came with the iBook.

The build quality is very good and the product is rather compact. I recently bought another car adapter for a more recent MacBook and that one is almost twice the size of the Kensington adapter.

It pulls enough energy from the car to also charge the battery while operating the computer.

The only downside of the Kensington product is that the brick gets very hot. Not burning hot, but just very hot.

We have used it for several years every time we went on a long trip and I am very satisfied with this product. If the brick would not turn that hot, I would give it a five star rating.

I thought this was a good idea. The Apple adapter for my 12" Powerbook overheated and died (my first "failed" Apple product), so I decided to play it safe and buy another brand. The Kensington adapter could charge in a car, on a plane, and at home, so I figured, what the heck. What a disaster. It charges fine, if a little slow, but it is so HEAVY and so POORLY DESIGNED, I cringe every time I have to use it. You need to uncoil two heavy cords (wrapped with velcro that sticks to the other cord, making for a mess of wires in your bag) and plug each into either side of this big white brick. Kensington obviously thinks a cool blue light on the brick makes up for the ugly cord issue, but there is no indicator light showing when the charge is done, like Apple has. The cord wraps neatly onto Apple's adapter, and you don't even need to carry the extension cord if you don't want to. Also, the combined length of the 2 cords and the big white brick in the middle is still much shorter than the Apple adapter + extension cord. I hated this so much, I went and bought a replacement Apple adapter after all. Why can't products work as well as Apple's? DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT, unless you plan to leave it plugged in at home for convenience.