The Duracell myGrid charging device is a product you want to like. Imagine the possibilities, you come home and toss your phone, iPod or other device on the pad and walk away. No wires to plug and unplug, no more having several chargers plugged in the wall outlet. A wireless home power grid, truly the wave of the future.
In reality, though, this is truly a product that is far from being ready for prime time and is not the "wave of the future" powergrid you would think it is. More accurately it is an "extension cord" that transfers power via contacts in a totally traditional way.
It ships with 3 tips that fit an infinitesimally small number of phone models. Unfortunately, not MY Blackberry nor MY cell phone. The design of the power tips prevent them from being used on any other device than the exact model specified.
There are two glaring problems that Duracell should have considered and abandoned the whole concept of a power grid. One is that the location of the charging receptacle varies from phone to phone. On mine it was impossible to fit it in and have it connect to the included charging adapter.
The other problem is the charging adapter itself. It is a fairly large disc that you have to glue to the back of your phone with double-stick tape. Whaaat? Are you kidding me? So to make it line up with the little charging tip it is probably 90% likely to have to be glued over the phone's camera, flash or rear speaker. That's just plain dumb!
Not to mention, now you have a cell phone that you bought to be as small and convenient as possible, that you can slip into your pocket or purse or nice leather carrying case ... but no more! With a fragile adapter sticking out of the side or bottom of your phone, plus the clunky odd-shaped stick-on disc, your phone no longer fits easily into pocket, purse or case and has to be handled with extreme care so the extra pieces don't break off and get lost. Plus, with many phones that use a mini-USB connector, that same connector may be used for headphones, car speaker accessories or data access. So you have to remove the power tip each time. How is that more convenient than simply plugging the phone into a charging cord?
You can also get an optional overpriced "powersleeve" for a miniscule few devices which is a rubber boot that fits over the device with an awkward hump on the back and bottom of the device. Maybe a slightly better concept than the glue-on disc but so far I have seen them for only one model of iPod and one model of Blackberry.
Another major failing of this products is that if you travel a lot you probably have to take a charging adapter with you. You certainly won't take the power grid. That means removing the power tip each time and reassembling it to use with the grid at home. That would get very old after the first time.
I fail to see the slightest advantage to the entire product; it's like a bad April Fools joke. Someday someone will come up with a way to transfer electric power without wires; I understand that technology already exists. When Duracell or someone else comes out with a power grid that doesn't need ill-conceived adapters I'll be interested.
As far as the "instruction manual" goes, it is almost non-existent. For a product like this that most people have never used before, it is severely lacking.
Sorry Duracell, I can't give this more than one star for "interesting idea".
This product is meant to be mistaken for an inductive charging system and has 3 major problems:
1. The box says it charges up to 4 devices-well, two iPhones would just barely fit on it... so you'll not be charging 4 of those. The power supply that comes with this is a 1A power supply, and the iPhone itself needs more or less an amp to charge at full speed... so you can't charge 2 iPhones at full speed.
2. When your product requires your customer to use a special case... Make sure said case is not a ill-fitting and unattractive.
3. The case must be removed to sync, or charge off a normal charger.
If you are willing to accept these limitations, all you win is the ease of not plugging in your iPhone when you get home... Is it really that hard to do?
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I was very excited to get this item because between the kids and me we have an iPhone and two iPod Touch units. I was thrilled to see I could buy skins to fit the iPod Touch units and use them on this charger (as opposed to it just being for the iPhone) and thought this would make charging much easier than trying to plug one unit in for awhile and remembering to come back later to switch over to another one.
The setup couldn't be easier. You simply place the skin over the phone, plug the charger into the wall, and lay the phone on the charger. It immediately connected and started charging. The phone charged quickly and fully with no problems at all. I have no complaints at all with the functionality of the charger.
So, the two big drawbacks... I have an iFrogz case that I love as do both the kids (we actually know which iPod Touch belongs to which child based on the iFrogz color). To use the charger, you have to remove any existing case and use the Duracel skin instead. The second drawback is that to synch your phone, you have to remove the skin to be able to plug in the cord to connect to the computer.
If you are okay with using the Duracel skin all the time and the synch issue doesn't bother you, this would be a great device. It works perfect and does everything it claims to do. But, those two usability issues will bother a lot of people.
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Let me begin by saying who I believe should buy a charging pad such as this one: if you have multiple cell phones that you would like to charge, or if you are very tired of having to go search for your ordinary plug-in charger and then fiddling to plug that into your phone. Also, this particular kit only works for owners of Motorola, Nokia and Blackberry phones. Users of any other brands can forget about this as chances are high that the right charging plug is not included. iPhone users, do know that according to Duracell's website an iPhone version of this pad is supposed to be out in Spring 2010.
So what is this product? The Duracell myGrid charging system basically allows you to place your cell phone on a mat to charge instantly, without having to fiddle around for a charging cord. Many similar charging systems that are now out use a physics concept called induction to charge the phone, where there are no exposed metal contacts on either the charging pad or the phone. The Duracell myGrid is NOT one of these chargers, however. Probably in the interest of cheaper costs, Duracell chose to use the older, very common concept of conduction where metal contacts on the phone and charger conduct charges.
So what does that mean? It means that the myGrid charging pad is actually one large pad with a large metal surface area. When turned on, this large metal area IS energized with electric charges. At first glance, you might think that you can shock yourself by touching the pad. Nothing to fear folks, as the electricity flowing through the pad is too weak to create any noticeable shocks. And to add peace of mind, if the pad detects your finger or anything else that conducts electricity (like keys, jewelry, etc.) to be touching the pad, then it shuts off the current.
How do you use it? To get the juices flowing into your phone, Duracell includes a special "clip" that has three tiny metal contacts on the bottom. You are supposed to stick on the "clip" with the included adhesive to your phone. The clip then connects to a charging plug which is inserted into your phone's charging port. That completes the setup. To actually charge, just place the phone on the pad with the clip in contact.
What are the flaws? Well, the charger still works if you don't 'stick' the clip to your phone. Instead, the catch is that you'll have to be careful when taking your phone off the pad. The clip is literally a magnet that sticks on to the pad, so you'll then have to exert careful pressure to remove the phone+clip from the pad. I think that's a bad design aspect in that if you were ever to switch phones, you would have to attempt to peel off the clip from your old phone and stick it on to your new one. Also, if you did stick on the clip, then you have an ugly and oddly-shaped piece of plastic stuck on to your phone for most of the day. It can get in the way of your hand gripping the phone, you can't exactly use many cases with the phone, and it just looks odd. Oh, and personally I think the pad just looks plain ugly. The whole metal pad with its black and chrome trim seems like something Doc Brown would've had in his DeLorean back in the 80s.
What could be improved? I think Duracell should do what other manufacturers of similar charging pads are doing and creating sleeves where the phone can be kept in a sleek-looking sleeve all-day that can do double-duty as a nice case. In fact, they seem to be doing this. The iPhone charging system that I mentioned earlier is on their website seems to have this very sleeve. Now if they were smart and brought it to the other brands as well.
Also, this product is being marketed and designed for cell phones only. If Duracell could find a way, I would like be able to charge my other devices on the pad, like my bluetooth headset, PS3 controller, iPod, etc. If a wide-variety of devices could be charged all using this one pad, then I would say the myGrid is guaranteed to be a hit! At the moment though, for just a few cell phone models I am not surprised to see the naysayers here on Amazon shooting down this gadget.
Overall, it's a gadget that is meant purely for convenience sake. If the clip design were improved (and maybe the overall pad design was more sleeker), then this pad can be a big seller.
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The Duracell myGrid is a awesome idea that went very wrong somewhere between their R&D labs and their packaging and marketing departments. The idea of having a conductive mat to charge multiple phones is something that is cool and could be used by many households. Duracell's implementation of this idea utterly fails for a couple reasons, though.
First, what's in the box in underwhelming. You get the mat, the AC plug, one swivel clip, and 3 adapters. The 3 adapters are 2 mini-USB adapters (one right side up, the other upside down) and 1 Nokia adapter. Clearly, the mGrid has been in development for years and is only being released now. This is evident because mini-USB plugs are typically found in phones 2008 and older, and the Nokia plug, while useful world-wide, doesn't have as high a penetration rate here in the US. Or at least, as high a rate among the type of early adopters that would be interested in this product. There is no iPhone adapter (until Spring 2010?), there are no Palm adapters, and unbelievably, there are no micro-USB adapters (commonly found in 2009 and newer phones). So if you're still rockin' your RAZR from 2006, maybe you'll find what's in the box to be useful. I did not purchase this product, it was given to me, and I actually had to bust out my old RAZR just to test it...
Second, the conductive clip part has an adhesive back that you are supposed to stick to the back of your phone, and then have one of the 3 included adapters jammed into the side or bottom of your phone. Yeah, adhesive, as in--it's gonna be on there forever. Adding all that bulk to your phone. No joke. On top of that, if you have a smartphone that you want to sync with your computer through your 2008 mini-USB port, um, well, you can't do that cuz you have the adapter jammed in the plug. Even if you slip out the adapter, the clip on the back is still going to block many of the USB connector cables out there. Finally, if you're using your mini-USB phone from 2008, you're probably going to get a new one in 2010 (when your 2yr contract expires), which means you somehow have to peel off the adhesive to place it on your new phone (assuming you can buy a new adapter from Duracell's website in the future that fits your new phone). I was able to position the clip and adapter in my RAZR without using the adhesive, but the magnet is surprisingly strong. Pulling the phone off the mat caused a lot of strain on the phone's USB port. Repetitive usage like this could easily damage the port on the phone. In addition, without the adhesive, it took me way longer to insert the clip + adapter in the RAZR and carefully pull it off the mat when finished than it does to simply just plug/unplug the regular AC charger, thereby eliminating all advantages of using the mat.
I will mention that the grid does indeed work and does charge up a RAZR in about the same time as the regular AC charger. But Duracell totally failed in the execution of the device. These people make batteries! What we need are Duracell-made battery replacements with the small metal conductance nubs on the back. This way you just pop in the new battery and can lay the phone, without any extra bulk, directly on the grid. Palm does this with their Pre phone and the Touchstone accessory and it works incredibly well. Also, Duracell should offer replacement batteries/adapters for cameras, video game controllers, and other electronic devices. This would be a 5-star, highly versatile product if they did all this. But no, instead we get 2 mini-USB plugs, a Nokia plug, and one swivel clip. A craptastic failure pile in a box!
As a techie gadget lover, I want to really like this product. The actual grid itself is cool. Unfortunately, there is no other word to adequately describe the adapters + clip idea other than "stupid." At the time of writing this, the Grid goes for $70-90. If they dropped the price to $50, included adapters for video game controllers and cameras, and offered conductive replacement batteries on their website like I mentioned above, this thing would be a gadget-person's dream charging station. Until then, I'm not sure how the people at Duracell pushed this out to market. Too bad...
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