Satechi Aluminum Power Strip features 4 USB charging ports and Apple-esque styling
Charging your devices can be such a damn hassle. At the end of the day, you may need to charge your laptop, smartphone, tablet, smartwatch and lord knows what else. It can be a pain in the ass to find your chargers and run around your home looking for free outlets. If you are married or live with people, this becomes increasingly difficult and messy.
Today, Satechi announces a really cool power strip that can solve this dilemma. The unimaginatively named Aluminum Power Strip features four traditional AC outlets, but it has something extra that makes it infinitely better -- four USB ports!
"The Satechi Aluminum Power Strip, available now, features four AC outlets and four USB ports in a sleek, compact design ideal for reducing clutter and conserving energy. The energy saving Aluminum Power Strip is equipped with IC smart technology, which automatically adjusts the amount of power being used to the amount of power needed to match the plugged in devices' requirements in order to avoid using surges and the use of excess energy", says Satechi.
The company further explains, "the versatile, compact Power Strip not only saves users from using more than one power outlet to plug in up to four AC-powered devices, but it also is equipped with four 2.4A USB ports to quickly and efficiently charge tablets, smartphones and other USB-based devices without the need for additional single-port wall adapters".
Clearly, this is designed with Apple users in mind, and if you own any of that company's great products, this will fit in beautifully. With that said, it will work equally well with Android and other USB devices too -- no one should fear the white and aluminum colors.
Where the strip seems to possibly fall short, is surge protection. While Satechi promises protection for the AC outlets, it does not share specifications, such as joules. More worrying, however, is that the USB ports do not seem to feature surge protection at all. In other words, your expensive USB-based devices could be damaged in a storm.
I have reached out to Satechi and will update this article with additional specs when or if I get them. Please note, if your house has a built-in surge protection system, outlet-level protection is arguably moot.
If you are interested in purchasing, the MSRP is $39.99 and it is available on Amazon here. As of this moment, however, it is on sale for $34.99.