It's Time to Upgrade Your Charger
Like just about everyone I know (including my 87 year old grandmother) I am addicted to technology. I manage a good portion of my life with my phone, I use my laptop all day long, and I even read the majority of books on my iPad. I'm a big proponent of using technology to make life easier, and I'm always on the lookout for a new nifty gadget to add to my menagerie. One of my favorite small but mighty tech upgrades? A dual port USB wall charger.
You know that plug that came with your phone? It's trash. You deserve better, and for less than $10 you can have it. There are a lot of options out there (and you can even choose to have more than two ports), but my personal choice is this one from Aukey. It has foldable prongs, which is great if you take your charger on the road a lot (I do). It also has a small footprint, about the same size as an Apple charger, so you're not losing space on your power strip while gaining a USB port. The benefits don't stop there! Not only are you able to charge two devices with one tiny little charger (as long as you have two USB cables, but since you get those with every device, you probably have them in spades), this little baby actually charges them faster. You can follow this link to read some technical specs on how it charges faster and just how much faster, but speaking as a civilian with real world experience: I regularly charge just my phone, and it's noticeably faster.
I tend to only charge two devices at once when I'm traveling or in a dire situation, but when that does happen I'm not really worried about time constraints, so it's a non issue for me. I tend to do the ol' double charge overnight anyway, so what do I care if it takes two hours or four?
In addition to my powerful little charger, I'm also a big proponent of buying a longer charging cable for your phone. I have a six footer, and it's a vast improvement over the measly three feet that my phone came with. The way my bed/nightstand situation is set up, I can't charge my phone and lay in bed using my phone at the same time. This is a no-go for me. Like I said, my life is on that phone, I need to be able to use it no matter what. Six feet is the perfect length of cord to keep my phone juiced up and still be able to use it with ease. This is also really helpful when traveling, when you don't know where your closest plug will be. Having some extra length in your power cord can be the difference between checking Twitter in a nice warm bed and getting up to cross the room every time you get a text. Amazon Basics cords have never let me down, and they're cheap.
What are you waiting for? For less than $20 you can make your most used electronic devices even more usable. It's a cheap but immeasurably beneficial upgrade.
