In-Car Chargers to Keep Your Laptop Alive on the Road
Laptops, tablets, and netbooks have all strived to improve in terms power consumption, but sometimes, you really just can't help running out of juice at some point in the day. Equipping your vehicle with a DC to AC laptop car charger allows your laptop battery to stay topped off as you drive from place to place so you're never left with an empty battery.
What Kinds of Car Adapters and Chargers Can I Buy?
- OEM: ASUS devices are always better off plugged into an OEM charger rated exactly for that device. One example is the ASUS multi-purpose combo car charger. It is a flexible DC to AC charging device with a streamlined design that makes it ideal for cramped spaces like a car cabin. It comes with multiple plugs for any type of laptop from the brand and can even charge a phone.
- Universal: Choosing this kind of laptop charger requires more caution than OEM chargers because the former may damage the charging circuitry on your laptop if you do not match their respective voltage and ampere ratings. Universal laptop chargers often have interchangeable charging adapters to accommodate laptops from multiple brands. These can also include USB power jacks for charging the battery of small devices like phones.
- Model-Specific: These DC to AC laptop car chargers are relatively safer bets compared to universal chargers so long as you choose an OEM charging adapter. Take special note of the output voltage. One example is the Eee PC charger that works on any model in the Eee PC series. It has a moderately sized power brick with a long cable at both the 12-volt cigarette port and the laptop power jack end. It even comes with a ferrite bead to reduce signal interference.
How Big Are In-Car Chargers?
- Netbooks: Netbooks are usually very power efficient and have low wattages. This means that their DC to AC charging adapters are small compared to laptops but larger compared to those of tablets.
- Laptops: Laptops range widely in terms of power requirements, and hence, the DC to AC adapter size may depend on how power-hungry your laptop is. Notebooks that have discrete graphics cards require larger external power supplies, so bear this in mind when choosing a car charger for your gaming laptop.
- Tablets: Tablets require a little more power than smartphones; thus, their adapters can be much smaller than those of netbooks or laptops. The OEM multi-purpose combo car charger includes a smaller adapter built for Padfones and Transformer tablets with a similar plug to that of the original USB power cables of these devices.
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