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I'm now back travelling regularly for business after a few years of pretty much leisure only travel with a netbook and iPhone.

I now find myself regularly travelling with a HP work laptop, iPad, work Blackberry & iPhone. I don't mind lugging the hardware but I'm looking for the beat way to optimise powering each device by
1) bringing the fewest mains chargers
2) bringing a portable charger than can cope with the variable power consumption of the iPad, iPhone & Blackberry.

I would imagine my combination of gadgets is fairly standard amongst many posters so how are you dealing with powering your devices when you travel?

I only I have one real constraint, I really don't want a solution that needs me to power up my laptop to feed USB ports to charge the other devices if avoidable. Too much hassle as my laptop has so many boot up security features it takes an age to get going.

If you search Amazon for "ipad charger" you'll come up with a host of AC-to-USB adapters that will pump out the 2.1A necessary to charge the iPad. A couple of these have multiple USB ports, too.

Buy one of these. It is a wall charger/external battery with two usb plugs. You can charge your iPad, iPhone and Blackberry from this WITHOUT a wall plug. Just charge it up when you are near a wall socket and then you will always have a way to charge up your handheld devices.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I would also suggest short cables for each device. There is generally no reason to have three feet of cord for charging. Most of my cables are six inches long.

Mini-USB
http://www.amazon.com/Charging-Cable...sr=1-1-catcorr


Mini-USB to micro-USB adapter

http://www.amazon.com/Micro-USB-Mini...1&sr=1-2-fkmr0

iPod/iPad short cable
http://www.amazon.com/RadTech-ProCab...5478018&sr=1-1

Even shorter cable similar to above
http://www.amazon.com/RadTech-ProCab...5478018&sr=1-4



Sounds like you will need to bring your power brick for the laptop.

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Many thanks. I've just bought retracting cables this week actually.

I was hoping that I could bring one power brick for all (something like this Kensington
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html?pd=1&a=B000QJ7UAS ), but I can't seem to find one that has USB ports that can cope with the 2.1A the iPad needs.

Any USB port will power an iPad, even though it will say it is not charging, it actually is, just slowly.

I gave up on the retractable cables. They sound nice, but they all break at the connection from the wire to the plug over time, too much stress at that point from all the pulling to retract.

But only if the iPad is off. Not sleeping; off.

Not true. If the iPad is sleeping it will still charge, although slowly. Works for me all the time.

I use a tekkeon mp3450 r2 charger, charges iphone, ipap, laptop, blackberry, cameras, gps deivces, gps watch, etc.

I use the Callpod system for my iPhone, iPad, GPS, BT headset and my wife's Samsung cell phone.

If you're going to buy cables use monoprice.com instead of Amazon or really anyone else. They are generally the least expensive out there and are just fine quality-wise.