Travel adapters are the sort of thing we all tend to leave it until the airport to buy - or, worse, from our hotel once we land on the other side and realise we forgot them. That’s a great way to pay inflated prices for a limited choice though, and you can save a lot of money by planning ahead and buying a couple of power adapters online before your holiday, especially if you remember to keep using them on every trip.
Adapters have come a long way over the last few years too. There’s no longer any need to build up a collection of different adapters for different countries, as it’s now easy to buy an adapter that can be, uh, adapted for just about any region, so that one piece of kit can cover you wherever you go.
You can even find some world-to-world adapters, which will take any plug type, and connect to any socket type - ideal not only for travelling, but also for any foreign tech that you end up bringing back with you from your trip and want to use back at home.
Even more useful are travel adapters that incorporate USB sockets, which mean you can use one plug to charge multiple devices, since most of the tech you travel with probably charges by USB anyway. Some now even include a USB-C Power Delivery port - useful for owners of USB-C laptops such as Apple's newer MacBooks.
Most adapters come with USB-A sockets - some phones and laptops ship with cables with USB-C connectors at both ends now, so make sure you have a USB-A-to-USB-C cable with you to keep those topped up. But USB-C ports are appearing now, as with the OneWorld PD and Syncwire Quick Charger 3.0 USB-C 48W Wall Charger below.
Regions And Voltages
The most important thing to check before you buy a travel adapter is what sort of plug the area you're travelling to uses. For the sake of this article, we're going to assume that you're based in the UK, which means you'll need an adapter to travel almost anywhere in the world, with rare exceptions like Hong Kong and Singapore that use the UK plug.
For the most part, there are three broad regions of plug beyond the UK type: the round pinned plugs used across Europe, the flat straight pins used across America and some parts of Asia, and the flat slanted pins used in Australia and the rest of Asia. Not every country uses the sort of plug you'd expect though, so it's always worth double-checking with a quick Google search ahead of a trip, and there are a few other unique plug types out there to watch out for.
Voltage can also be an issue. UK plugs use 220-240V, which is conveniently what you'll find across Europe and Australia. US sockets only run at 120V though, while Japan offers an even skimpier 110V. For the most part, this isn't an issue, but it may mean that some devices charge more slowly than you're used to, and some of the most power-intensive might not work at all if they can't draw sufficient power from the mains to run. Unfortunately, there's nothing a travel adapter can do about that, as they don't convert voltage.
2-pin vs 3-pin
One thing to look out for in travel adapters is whether or not they support earth pins. While 3-pin plugs are the standard in the UK, elsewhere in the world they're either not used at all, or are only sometimes found.
Earthing helps protect both you and your gadgets from electric shock, so in general you might prefer to opt for 3-pin adapters, which offer an extra level of protection. However, be warned that this may limit where you can use them - the US and EU have both 2-pin and 3-pin sockets, so you may find that your 3-pin plug simply won't fit into some sockets, and you might wish you'd risked it with a 2-pin model.
The OneWorld travel adapter requires an extra standard EU adapter because it uses only grounded 2-pin plugs to meet rigorous safety standards so it can be used for heavy-duty charging.
TEC UK to EU Travel Adapter Twin Pack
- £4.99
Let's start with something dead simple: this is a twin pack of UK to EU travel adapters, which will let you use your UK tech just about anywhere in Europe.
They're cheap and cheerful, but they work - and for most people, that's enough. They're also an awful lot cheaper from Amazon than they would be if you bought the exact same ones in an airport newsagent.
If you know you mostly travel in Europe, or just have a specific trip coming up that you need an adapter or two for, this is the cheapest way to charge your gadgets once you're there.
TEC UK to US Travel Adapter Twin Pack
- £7.99
Along very similar lines, here's the exact same adapter, but for the US, and other countries that use the same standard, which include Canada, Mexico, Japan, most of South America, and a few others.
Remember that it won't convert the voltage, so you may find that some of your UK devices charge more slowly in the US, and a rare few might not even charge it all if they can't draw sufficient power - but in our experience this is pretty rare.
Go Travel Duo Earthed UK to EU Power Adapter
- £13.99
This handy power adaptor from Go Travel will let you charge up to four devices simultaneously through just one plug: two through the UK mains sockets, and another two through the included USB-A sockets.
This model is perfect for using across Europe, but you can also get an essentially identical one for using in the US and Canada and other compatible countries.
Bear in mind that both are earthed, meaning they're ideal for safely charging high usage devices like laptops, but it means the US model comes with a non-removable earth pin, and so won't fit into 2-pin sockets in the US.
OneWorld Travel Adapter
- $49.99
The fully earthed OneWorld travel adapter (fromOneAdapter) is powerful enough to charge a laptop via a built-in USB-C port, alongside four other devices – and it’s one of the safest travel adapters you can buy.
It features three old-school USB-A ports and one USB-C port, as well as being a standard travel adapter with US, UK and Australian plug types. Add an inepensive standard EU adapter for that region; see later for why this is required.
Unlike most travel adapters, it’s fully earthed, and its 10A universal AC outlet is designed for high-power consumption appliances such as hair dryers.
It is BS8546 approved with fully grounded connection for the highest safety protection and 10A of power consumption, including over-current protection that automatically shuts down if any abnormal usage is detected.
The USB Charger supports broad input range (100-240V) for international voltage requirements.
OneWorld’s built-in USB-C PD charger can charge MacBooks, USB-C laptops, and other devices such as the Nintendo Switch directly from the adapter without the need to bring the device’s factory charger. Note that it charges such larger devices at a maximum 18W so won’t be the fastest laptop charger – Apple’s MacBook, for example, requires at least a 30W charger for full-speed charging.
The three Quick Charge 3.0 (12W) USB-A ports in the adapter can be used for fast-charging phones and tablets.
The new BS8546 standard demands that all connections must be grounded, which sadly means that it is not possible to include a European plug (with ground) into the main body.
You can detach a part of OneWorld to still use the adapter’s USB ports wherever you are (150 countries), but you’d need another extra standard EU adapter to use it to plug in a non-USB device in Europe.
The OneWorld PD with USB-C and three other USB slots costs £39, €44 or US$49.99 from the OneAdapter store. There’s also a version called OneWorld Duo, without USB-C (if you don’t need it) and two USB-A ports for £31, €35 or US$39.99.
Skross World Travel Adapter MUV USB
- $29.99
Skross is one of the best recognised and most trusted names around when it comes to travel adapters, which is why we've picked its MUV USB adapter for our round-up.
Designed for 2-pin, un-earthed devices, this is perfect for less power-intensive tech like razors, phones, tablets, or e-readers, but might not be able to keep up with a laptop or hairdryer's power needs. On the plus side, that means its 2-pin outputs will work in all US and European sockets.
However it has the advantage of accepting input devices from the UK, US, Australia, Europe, and most of Asia, and outputting to all of the same countries.
You also get two USB-A sockets, which share a 5V power supply. You can use those to charge two USB devices while simultaneously charging something else through the main socket, making this ideal for anyone with a few devices they need to charge all at once.
Skross World Travel Adapter Pro Light USB
- $47.99
This Skross adapter looks pretty similar to the one we listed above, but it has one significant difference: it includes an earth pin, and is rated for up to 1575W, meaning you can safely use it to (quickly) charge high power devices like laptops.
As with other 3-pin plugs, note that it means it won't fit every plug socket - the earth pin isn't removable, so won't fit 2-pin sockets in the US or Australia, meaning you might find some sockets you just can't use. Also note that this does support European plugs, but only through using the detachable plug section, which then means you can't use the included USB sockets for charging - though those will work in every other region.
Syncwire 4-Port USB Charger
- $16.99
Here's something a little different. This four-port USB charger from Syncwire comes with interchangeable plugs for the UK, USA, and Europe, so you just grab the one you need for your trip and you'll be able to keep all of your USB devices charged.
Obviously that also means this is ideal to use at home too, so it won't just sit and gather dust between holidays, unlike most travel chargers. Two of the ports are only rated to 1A/5W, which is a bit slow, but the other two offer 2.4A/12W, which should be fast enough for most purposes, though it might take a while to fully top up a laptop.
Anker PowerPort 4 Lite
- £12.99
The Anker PowerPort 4 Lite lacks Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0 compatibility but not every device is compatible with that anyway, so these four standard USB-A ports will be fine for most, with enough to satisfy a small family on the move.
It does feature PowerIQ and VoltageBoost, however.
It features interchangeable UK and EU plug heads, but strangely none for US or Australia/New Zealand.
TEC UK To India Adaptor
- £5.99
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka require different travel adapters, and these can be expensive at the airport, so buy before travelling.
You can adapt an EU travel adapter using a pen stuck in one of the wall-socket holes, but - if that sounds unwise to you - just buy one of these.
Actually, you get two, as it's a twin pack, so even better value for money.
View the original article here
0 comments:
Post a Comment