Recharge4 versus Proporta Charger

This has simply got to be the best gadget for gadget lovers. A portable battery pack that you can carry around with you to recharge your gadgets when you are away from a power supply. No longer do you have to carry a variety of chargers unnecessarily filling up your bag with unneeded items. But which to choose the Recharge4 or the Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger? Well, I have used both and this is the definitive test…

Both devices are simply a high capacity battery pack that come with a generic lead onto which you can attach a variety of head to suit different devices. There are a multitude to choose from covering phones, PDAs, BlackBerrys, handheld games machines and iPods to name a few. What is interesting is that the heads from one device are interchangeable with the other allowing you to choose where you get the head from. Both the Recharge4 and the Proporta are roughly the same weight and although they are different shapes both will easily slip into a gadget lovers bag.

While the Proporta can be charged from any USB socket (this includes computers, wall plugs and car chargers) the Recharge4 requires a dedicated charger. In practice this means that the Proporta takes longer to charge but you don’t have to carry around an additional charger. Also the cable supplied with the Proporta is much neater as it is retractable. Not only that as it is a standard USB plug at one end it is also possible to use it as a USB charge cable.

The Recharge4 has a series of lights on the top that indicate how much charge remains in the device. With this you can instantly see when you need to recharge it again. The Proporta device has only a single light which is either green when charging a device or red when being charged. You get a visual indication when the charge is low but there is no way of “asking” the device how much charge is left as you can with the Recharge4.

In use both units did what they said on the tin and recharged multiple devices a number of times without issue. The Recharge4 seemed quicker but without timing it I cannot be certain.

So which to go for? Well, you can’t go far wrong with either device but the Proporta pips the Recharge4. This is because of the ability to charge from USB rather than having a dedicated charger which means less to carry around. Also the Proporta has a dedicated iPod head which comes as standard and for most people this will be a major use so it’s one less thing to purchase.

All in all I’m not sure how I managed before these devices came along.