I wandered into T-Mobile on Black Friday looking to pick up a free signal booster for my apartment which gets rather poor reception most times, and came out with a lot more than I’d bargained for: for very nearly the same price I was already paying, I added a business line and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0. With all these new mobile devices, though, my charging situation was definitely in need of an upgrade.

It sounds odd, but charging technology has changed quite a bit since the last time I bought a charger. Everything is smarter and more powerful than it was back when I bought my now-3-year-old smartphone. My car adapter was the old standard of 2.5W charger – not very much at all. I’d gain about 20% of a charge on my commute home after work, but it was really just a trickle. At home, my old chargers were also legacy 2.5W models, and my phone would just have completed fully charging over night when I’d wake up for work the next morning. These new tablet and second phone came with their own high-capacity chargers which are handy at my desk at home, but I needed something new for the car.

Then, I discovered some pretty great little charging products from Anker on Amazon – specifically, the 24W car charging adapter.

It charges my phone almost completely by the time I get home from the office, and it can charge up two two at a time. This high-capacity model can deliver 12W x 2, and it automatically detects many new devices which attempt to actively negotiate their charging power to make sure they charge as fast as possible. It’s cheap, too – only $9.99. It came in ridiculously easy packaging, too – completely recyclable paper and cardboard with no frustrating plastic clamshells.

With this, a set of three USB charging cables, and an awesome high capacity 16000 mAh external battery pack (that’s enough to charge my Tab 3 a full 4 times, or my phone 7.5 times) I’m fully set for a lot of mobile computing without worrying about running out of juice. Normally I don’t write much about cell phones but these products really impressed me with their price and quality – I’d highly recommend them all.

Anker® 24W 2-Port Rapid USB Car Charger with PowerIQ Technology $9.99
Anker® [3-Pack] Premium 3ft Micro USB Cables
Anker® 2nd Gen Astro E5 16000mAh External Battery Pack with PowerIQ™ Technology