Universal laptop travel power supplies?

[J. MacDonald]

I recently got a new laptop for work. In the past I had a Powerbook and had three supplies, one for the office desk, one for the home desk and one in my laptop case for traveling. My company recently merged and the new company is PC only so I got a shiny new Dell Latitude 610 In my old company, I always got my boss' hand me down computer and that meant it usually came with a bunch of accessories. This time, it's a brand new machine to me and so it only came with one power supply.

It's a pain in the ass to keep crawling under my desk at the office to plug in the power supply and remember to take it with me at the day's end, so I've been looking at getting one of the universal type power supplies for travel so I can just leave the stock Dell supply at my office desk. I've looked at the I-Go and some reviews of the Kensington. My boss has an I-Go but has broken a couple tips and the reviews aren't that great on it's overal durability. From what I've read, Kensington had a 70 watt model that wasn't highly regarded either, but they now have a 120 watt model that seems a newer design. Ar ethere other manufacturers of this type of device?

I like the idea of one of these things as it seems with the right tips you can charge your laptop, cell phone and PDA as well as power them in a car or on an airplane, but I'm confused as to which one to get.

Does anyone have any experience with these things?

 

[Ken C.]

I've had good luck with the Targus power adapters. Your laptop is supported so it will be just a matter of ordering the correct tip.

http://www.targus.com/us/accessories_power_adapters.asp

 

[Gollnick]

I like the idea of one of these things as it seems with the right tips you can charge your laptop, cell phone and PDA as well as power them in a car or on an airplane...

There was an idea floated a few years ago that airplane seats on commercial jets might be equipped with power jacks for all sorts of stuff. Nobody bothered to check with the electrical engineers responsible for power systems on commercial jets. Once resuscitated, the engineers in question responded, "You want to do what?!? Ain't no way we'll certify that safe!" As far as I know, the "standard" was never widely implimented.