Finding a Spare Treo Battery Travel Charger

For a while now I have been complaining that I need a “spare battery travel charger” because as much as the Treo batteries seem to last forever (even more so with my new Seidio 2400mAh Extended Battery) I still typically need to have two batteries fully charged at all times when I’m traveling.

As seasoned traveling Treonauts will undoubtedly know there are currently only three options (not all viable) to charge a spare battery while on the go:

1. Use your Treo: this is probably the option that most Treonauts are using today – placing the spare battery in our Treo and letting it charge overnight.  However, this is not entirely practical since typically one battery will be empty while the other is charging and you will not want to sit around in your hotel room waiting (my current problem).
2. Use the Palm Cradle Kit: you could do this since the cradle has a built-in spare battery charger but the main issue is that the cradle weighs a whopping 550g (not including the Hotsync cable).  I love the Palm cradle kit which I use both at home and the office but it is clearly ridiculous to carry around when traveling.
3. Use the Seidio Battery Charger: it’s funny that I’ve had this battery charger for nearly eight months (using it principally as a desk charger) and it wasn’t until yesterday that it dawned on me that it might just be light enough to carry with me when traveling.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the unit only weighs 128g while its 40inch long USB cable adds another 75g for a total of 203g.

So, with the Seidio Battery Charger I was nearly where I wanted to be but not quite yet.

There were two more issues that I needed to resolve:

1. I wanted to reduce the weight of the solution further.  Evidently I could not do anything about the charging unit itself but I sure knew that I didn’t need a 40inch long cable.  By reducing this to a 6inch long USB cable I was able to save about 35g so I was down to only 168g.
2. Next on my list was the fact that I wanted a solution that would allow me to let my spare battery charge in the hotel room while I was out and about working with my PC.  Since the Seidio Battery Charger is powered by the USB port on my PC what I needed was therefore a USB wall adapter.  This adds 85g to my package for a total of 253g but at least I finally have the solution that I was looking for.

[Another alternative is to skip the USB wall adapter and charge both batteries overnight using two USB sockets on your PC simultaneously – the one battery charging in your Treo and the other charging with the Seidio battery charger.  This will leave you with an option that weighs either 203g with the long USB cable or about 168g with a shorter one.]

For now I’m extremely happy with my new spare battery travel charger kit but I know that there has to be an ever better solution. 

For example, I’m working on getting Seidio (or another company) to add a simple built-in wall adapter on the current Seidio battery charger which could work without the USB cable nor the external wall adapter and thus deliver a package weighing less than 150g – something adequate for the professional traveling Treonaut.  Hopefully we’ll see something like this appear in a few months…

Also, if you’re new to the Treo and would like to learn more about what accessories to purchase please read my Treonauts Accessories Guide.

Treonauts always work fully charged…