Travel Technology - PDA and powerports and UK Voltage.

Okay, I am not much of an international Traveler, but I do have a trip to LHR coming up. With about 9-10 hours of flight time, I expect to take a couple of ebooks for my PDA. How well does a PDA work with the power ports on a 777. Also how about voltage conversion in the UK. Would I be risking my PDA (and a cell Phone) with a transformer?

Are you bringing a laptop as well? The reason I ask is that there are adapters that allow you to charge/use some PDA's via a USB port of a laptop.

What model PDA?

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[This message has been edited by businesstraveler (edited Jan 03, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mapsmith:
Okay, I am not much of an international Traveler, but I do have a trip to LHR coming up. With about 9-10 hours of flight time, I expect to take a couple of ebooks for my PDA. How well does a PDA work with the power ports on a 777. Also how about voltage conversion in the UK. Would I be risking my PDA (and a cell Phone) with a transformer?</font>

An IGO Juice in flight power adaptor with an accessory cable for your PDA should work fine on the plane. Likewise, it will allow you to charge your PDA in Europe if you have the proper adapter to plug it into the English socket. You dont need a voltage adaptor with it, just something so the plug will go in the socket. Many power units that come with PDAs are dual voltage so they will work in Europe as well, again you just need an adaptor for the plug. Not all of the units that come with PDAs are dual voltage however, so not all will work in Europe. You need to check the power supply unit and see what it says for input voltage and cycles. None of the ones that come with the PDAs will work on planes to the best of my knowledge. Another option for the plane is a simple battery extender pack available for some PDAs. The one for my IPAQ holds 4 rechargeable AA batteries and works great. I have a Kodak travel charger for the batterys to charge them when I arrive (again, it just needs a plug adaptor, the voltage adaptor is built in). I can Go from NY to Tokyo with a fully charged IPAQ with PCMCIA back (and battery) and two sets of double AAs in the extender. Using the IPAQ for both reading and music.

However, if possible, get the IGO Juice adaptor and the accessory cord for your PDA. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread in my opinion.

I have a Garmin iQue which does not allow battery changes. It has only the Li-ion battery. will look for the Igo.

No laptop this trip as it is purely pleasure.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mapsmith:
I have a Garmin iQue which does not allow battery changes. It has only the Li-ion battery. will look for the Igo.

No laptop this trip as it is purely pleasure.

</font>

Make sure that IGO has an adaptor for that PDA. Also, there may be battery extenders available for it. Let me clarify a bit. A battery extender is an external battery pack that plugs into the normal charge port on your PDA. Except it just has some AA or AAA batteries in it and it doesnt plug into the wall. You might be able to find out more about what is available as far as extenders for your PDA at www.brighthand.com (http://www.brighthand.com) or www.pdastreet.com (http://www.pdastreet.com) The IGO people will have a list of available adaptors, They are at www.igo.com (http://www.igo.com)

BTW; Kensington now sells an OEM version of the same IGO hardware.