Like all of us, I carry several gadgets and gear with me when I travel. I used to carry a bunch of wall outlets for my various phones, pda's and so on but have been trying to reduce the number and variety of cords that I lug around. I am not up to speed on the difference between types of USB cords, or why some cords allow for charging only, some charge the device only, and others do both...I'm interested but not enough to figure it out I guess. Anyway, I'm looking for some guidance that hopefully doesn't involve a bunch of custom tips and big power blocks.

I currently carry a Blackberry Bold, a Motorola Razr, a garmin GPS, a Dell Latitude laptop, sometimes a second Motorola Razr when the Mrs. tags along, and an iPod. I have other stuff but these are the biggees.

I currently carry one of these with me: Kensington charger.

What I'd ultimately like to be able to do is carry that Kensington charger and find retractable cables for my Blackberry, Motorolla, Garmin and iPod. In a perfect world, the same cable could be used on everything but the iPod since they all have the same ports on them. Also in a perfect world, the same cable would let me charge from the Kensington, and also both charge and manage the devices when connected to my Dell.

I thought I had found the right cables but the Razr is giving me a problem. When I plug in the cables I had bought the phone recognizes it as being connected to a computer whether it is or is not, and doesn't seem to charge (at least the visible indicator isn't there telling me it is charging).

I've looked at other charging schemes and jsut don't like the big blocks and custom power tip approach if I can avoid it. Any insight or suggestion is appreciated.