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Also, a special BIG THANKS to Dieter Bohn and Mike Overbo of TreoCentral for referring to Palm Discovery in their recent weekly podcast #30 that referenced my How To Automate Podcasts Transfers article. Check out the show notes for the link to the podcast. I am a subscriber myself and it’s quite an honor to be mentioned and linked from TreoCentral. Thanks again!

Palm Discovery would like to extend a BIG THANKS to Thomas of USB Fever for providing the product for this review.

For those of us who own those cigarette car charger cables for our cellular phones and mobile devices, don’t you wish that you could use these cables other than just in the car? It seems silly and terribly expensive to pay so much for a cable that can only work with the car’s cigarette lighter port and not also have an adapter that can enable us to use it inside the house so that can can plug it in the wall. I have personally often wondered why there isn’t such an adapter available (and I have been looking for one for a long time) but thankfully, there is one now.

USB Fever’s AC to Car Lighter Socket is exactly that, a socket or adapter that will enable us to plug our car cigarette lighter charging cables and then plug the entire adapter with cable into our wall. Eureka!

No longer are we stuck being able to use the car charging cable only in the car but we can now also be able to use it inside our house or hotel room, etc. This is quite remarkable because, rather than spend much more money on another cable, we can simply purchase this adapter and use it with any of the car charger cables we may have. That means, after a day of driving with your GPS device, or other mobile devices, you can bring it with you in your hotel room and charge it up so that when you’re venturing out by yourself the next day, you have a fully charged GPS device or whatever device you need charged. You have one less cable to bring and one less cable to buy. That’s why I think it’s remarkable.

For those who want to skip over all the detailed review and just want a summary, you can jump to the review summary

As for the overall product itself. It’s as simple as what you see in the picture and it works. Simply plug in your car cigarette lighter cable into the adapter/socket and make sure it’s pushed right in. Then, plug in the adapter with your cable and mobile device and watch the LED light turn on to indicate that electricity is passing through. The LED light is strangely located at the bottom.

Here are the pictures of the adapter. Click on the thumbnail images for a bigger picture.

And the video

AC to Car Light Socket video

Video at YouTube

More details taken from USB Fever:

Specifications :

Note: If no options are to be chosen before checking out, we will ship the one most suitable to your shipping destinations. To avoid unnecessary miscommunications, it is still recommended to choose your favourite Plug Type before checking.

Here are my observations: This is a great and inexpensive way to avoid buying extra cables just for the sake of being able to charge your portable device into the wall outlet. I know that I used to hate buying those car charger cables for my cell phones (and of course, I have to buy new ones every time I get a new phone) because they are expensive and does only one thing: charge my cell phone in the car. With USB Fever’s AC to Car Lighter Socket, you can use the same cable to plug into the wall and be able to charge use your device outside of the car. This can be handy when you need to charge something when you’re not at the car and have the engine running.

One of my quips of this device is that the LED light/power indicator is located at the bottom of the adapter. I found it a bit strange to have it there, because I would have expected it to be at the top or even at the front, so that when it is plugged into the wall that the light could easily be seen either at the front or at the top of the socket. But, since both prongs are of the same size, you can easily flip the adapter upside down so that the light will show up at the top. Sometimes, designs can be a bit strange to us in North America as it’s quite possible having it at the bottom for Asian users would make sense since a lot of wall outlets, as I have previously noted in another review, are near the middle of the wall.

Also, another thing to note. Depending on your car charger cable or adapter head, you may need to give it a good push to make sure it gets in the socket. Originally, I was using Palm’s car adapter and I thought I had it in but when it didn’t charge my Treo, I was starting to wonder. So, I tried another car adapter and it fit okay. I re-examined it and tried again, and it works with the original car adapter too. So, for some car adapters, you may need to push it a bit further to make sure it is snugly in.

Review Summary

USB Fever’s AC to Car Light Socket adapter is an excellent solution to that problem a lot of us may have: a car charging cable that gets very limited use in the car. This socket/adapter will enable you to use the same cable or adapter and plug it into the wall of your house, hotel room, office, etc. So, rather than paying for an extra charging cable for plugging into the wall, you won’t need to with this socket/adapter.

It’s a simple adapter. It’s small, lightweight and offers a light/power indicator to show electricity is flowing through. If you’re annoyed or dissatisfied that you are limited to using that expensive car charging cable or adapter only in the car, you can now make it work outside of the car, wherever there’s a wall outlet. It’s not earth shattering, but it certainly is a great solution to this problem.

Thanks again to Thomas of USB Fever for the product and thanks for reading.

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