aLLreLi is a consumer electronics retailer. I was offered the opportunity to review their Dual USB Car Charger, and given that I always charge my phone while in the car, I’m always interested in seeing what’s out there.
Its appearance is simple. The unit is mostly black, with some white on the top, where the brand name is printed in gray as well. Save for the metal contacts, the exterior is completely made of plastic. It plugs into the charging port/cigarette lighter, is comprised of two pieces that are hinged near the middle. The enables the outward facing portion of the unit to flex into one of three different positions: straight ahead, and forty five degrees up or down from the horizontal position.
The obvious advantage to this is that users can position the head to their liking, making the units pair of USB ports more accessible. The ports are positioned horizontally, side by side. Above them is an LED display of sorts. The display has a black tinted face, so when not in use it blends in with the rest of the unit. Once power passes through it, information is displayed in blue, with red being reserved for a warning. All told, it’s not a bad color scheme. The unit also includes a “car holder” kit, which I’ll be reviewing at a later point.
The functionality of the unit, on the other hand, is questionable at best. First, the blue lights indicate two specific pieces of information: the amperage of the USB charging port in use, and the current charge of the vehicle’s battery; should the vehicle battery become low(or apparently too high), a red warning will flash on the display. Second, its two USB ports both charge devices, but they have differing amperages. The lefthand port charges at around 2.4 amps, and is slated for tablets, while the right hand one is for phones. This is where I ran into my biggest issue. I use a stock Nexus 6, which was released in 2014. As soon as I plugged my phone into the right hand USB port (and every time after), the charger’s display began to flash and indicate a low battery for my car.
This did not occur when I used the left hand/tablet side for my phone; that side also had no trouble with my NVidia Shield tablet either. My suspicion is that modern and semi modern smartphones (such as mine) draw more amperage than what that port is capable at putting out (which appears to be a single amp), and this is a trend that isn’t going away. As smartphones have become pretty close to standard, putting out a charger that can only handle one amp is questionable at best. To confirm my suspicions, the phone port had no difficulty charging my mothers flip phone, concurrently with my smartphone that up was using the tablet port.
All told, this car charger is fairly easy to recommend, in that I recommend you avoid it if you have a smartphone. The fact that one of the ports is capped out at a single amp makes it impossible to justify purchasing. Yes, it can handle two devices at once, provided one of them is a soon-to-be antiquated piece of technology. While the flexible head is a redeeming quality, and I am imagining the vehicle battery readout will be useful in certain situations and for car enthusiasts, I’m hard-pressed to see such information having mass appeal. So I’m going to give this a 3. I would grade it worse, but it will work as promised, but it’s only going to shine for a shrinking and aging set of devices.
http://www.allreli.com/product/allreli-dual-port-3-4a-17w-usb-car-charger-magnetic-car-cell-phone-mounts-holder
