Hitting the road this summer? Why not carry a huge battery with lots of plugs and even an air compressor that you can use in an emergency? Or maybe a little tiny recharger for your iPod or other USB-compatible devices? Or a 10-pound solar charger?
At any rate, Duracell and Xantrex have you covered. They are now selling a selection of fairly hefty chargers and emergency systems for homes and cars. Take, for example, the Duracell Powerpack 300, an 18-hour battery with jumper cables and air compressor along with two AC outlets and an LED flashlight. The entire package is about as big as a boom box and charges off of wall current when its not in use.
Then you’ve got this beast, the Powerpack Solar. It can charge multiple devices using the healing rays of the sun and weighs about 10 pounds. They also launched a few smaller chargers including the XPower PowerSource, a USB battery that can apparently charge an iPod Nano seven times.
It’s hard to get really excited about batteries, but if you’re in a brown-out or tornado area, I’d say the Powerpack 300 ($80) or the massive 600 — three AC outlets and 36 hours of power — would be a great investment. They’re available now online and in stores under the Duracell name.