If you have a tablet, or a new smartphone with a large screen, odds are you've worked out two things — using it throughout the day uses up battery fast, and charging from a PC or laptop is slow.
If you're on the road regularly, or if you drive to work in the morning and home in the afternoon, you've got the option to charge your mobile device using the 12V cigarette lighter port.
Not all car chargers are made equal, though — usually there's a compromise between being bulky and powerful, or small and gutless. Especially if you've got a car charger that's a few years old, chances are it's not putting out enough power to charge your tablet or smartphone as quickly as possible.
Ideally, what you want is a small car charger that's both small and powerful, and Kensington's 2.1 Amp-capable PowerBolt Micro fills that role perfectly.
It's barely any larger than a standard 12V cigarette lighter socket in the first place, so if the port is hidden away behind a panel it won't get in the way of it closing. It protrudes barely one centimetre past the socket.
The Powerbolt Micro includes a 30-pin cable to connect your older iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, but it'll work with any micro-USB cable for Android phones or tablets or any Lightning cable for iPhone 5 and new iPads and iPads mini. It would have been nice for it to include another cable or two, but they're cheap and we have plenty around anyway.
The Kensington PowerBolt Micro is available for a $29.95 recommended retail price, but you might also find it cheaper if you shop around.