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A BIG THANKS to Ka Wang Yee of JAVOEdge for providing the product for this review.

Don’t you just find it annoying when you’re travelling that you can never find a power source to plug in and charge your mobile devices? At the airport, it’s getting harder and harder to find a wall outlet to charge your laptop or Palm or other portable mobile device. And even if you do, you are so far away from your gate that you can’t stay there long enough before you have to board your plane, or worrying about missing the important boarding call. Well, fret no more. Here’s a portable solution: JAVOEdge’s JAVOBooster USB Emergency Charger for Palm Treo 650.

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This is an emergency charger for your mobile device that charges via a USB cable. In our case, that usually means our USB Hotsync cable or cradle or charger for our Palm or Treo device. This JAVOBooster requires 4 AA alkaline batteries to power it up and charge your portable device. Unlike other emergency chargers that use a 9 Volt battery (I have one of those), the 4 AA batteries will supply enough power to charge up the Palm. With the 9 Volt emergency charger, it just doesn’t really do it. I know because I tried it when I was in Hong Kong this past March and found that I couldn’t really charge my Zire 71 fully but it did supply some power, but up to a point.

The JAVOBooster comes in white and shaped like a flat rectangular case, almost like an iPod or even a cigarette box (but thinner). At the back of the unit is the battery cover, which you slide the panel down to remove it so that you can insert the 4 AA batteries. Looking at the device from the front, on your left, you will notice the USB adapter where you will attach the USB end of your charging cable, etc to it. You can pull it out and extend the curled cable up to ? inches. This is really meant to allow you to position the adapter or end so that it will accomodate the connection. It’s not really meant as an “extension cable” and you will find that there is very little extension on the cable. When not in use, you can push it neatly back in so that it returns back to its nice, compact self.

Underneath the USB adapter connector is a set of 3 LED lights in a triangular arrangement. They can be used as an emergency flashlight and considering that they are LED, they provide a decent light. Of course, you can’t compare them to regular flashlights but they are quite bright. To turn them on, simply press on them and they will provide a spring like click and turn on. To turn them off, simply press on them again. Very simple. I felt somewhat dumb originally when I was looking for the flashlight switch and then the “light bulb” (pardon the pun) came on inside me and I figured it out. Yes, another one of those “dumb” moments of mine.

One of the nice things about this JAVOBooster compared to other emergency chargers or extenders that also use 4 AA batteries is that this once is quite compact in size, barely much bigger than the 4 AA batteries. Of course, you have to consider the USB cable and the flashlight but I really like the fact that the JAVOBooster will retract back so that you’re left with the compact rectangular device, rather than something with a cord or cable sticking out. The flashlight is an interesting idea, although I’m not sure that I’d want to waste my emergency power source on using it as a flashlight though.

Okay. Enough praises about the device. Here are my observations. With ANY battery powered or supplied emergency charger for your Palm or Treo, you always have to only let it charge for a SHORT duration. Why? Most of these emergency chargers are just that: EMERGENCY CHARGERS. They are NOT meant to replace or substitute as a valid power outlet like a wall socket or your laptop computer’s USB port or whatever.

For it to be such a small size, you know that there is limited circuitry to prevent overheating and power or electrical monitoring. And, the JAVOBooster is no exception. If you let the JAVOBooster “charge” your PDA for an extended length of time, I CAN GUARANTEE that it will overheat. Actually, I witnessed it myself, and it got to a point where the entire JAVOBooster was getting uncomfortably hot. And of course, the batteries were too. So, if you ever decide to use any kind of emergency charger to NEVER leave it unattended and check on it frequently to prevent overheating. Remember. This is meant as an emergency charger, to give your PDA or mobile device that extra bit of power for a short duration. If you need to charge your mobile device, you’d better wait until you can get a more reliable means of power.

Also, I have yet to find any emergency charger that uses alkaline or standard batteries that will fully charge my Palm or Treo. They all supply some charge up to a point but you won’t get it to fully charge it or even get close. That is another reason why you should not consider any “emergency chargers” to fully charge your device and is really meant as an emergency supply of power for a short duration.

After saying all that, the JAVOBooster for Palm Treo 650 is a good way to provide that emergency power source. But still, make sure you pack along your charging JAVOSync cable and the JAVOMetaCharger to supply your main source of power and for charging it up.

Thanks again to JAVOEdge for supplying the product for this review. The JAVOBooster is available for many different portable devices. Please check out JAVOEdge for the model that is right for your device.

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