A while back I bought a universal travel charger kit for my Palm Tungsten T3 (I also remember that I only paid $19.95 for it at the time, which is amazing as I’ve never found it for that price again; perhaps I was the lucky beneficiary of a mispriced item).  It consisted of a “wall wart” with interchangeable plug inserts, so it could be used in different countries.  The bottom of the wall wart has a USB connector.  It also included a USB sync cable for the T3.  So I can charge the T3 directly from the wall via USB or I can connect it to a computer (if the computer has a powered USB port).  Finally, the kit included a 12V cigarette lighter adapter with a USB port on the end.

It turned out that this was also handy for charging my iPod, given the USB power port.  It made things a bit easier to use the same wall wart for either device.  Someone also gave me a handy little kit that included a ZipLinq universal USB phone charging cord.  It was retractable, had a USB connector on one end, and an adapter plug on the other.  You simply selected the right adapter for your phone and you were in business.

So, my traveling kit usually consisted of the wall wart (with the U.S. plug), the 12V adapter, the T3 cable, the iPod cable, and the ZipLinq cable.  It sounds like a lot, but it’s significantly less crap to lug around than keeping a separate wall wart and separate vehicle charger for each device.

But my charger harmony was disrupted by the LG phone I got when I switched to Verizon.  The ZipLinq kit contained several LG adapters, but the folks at LG, in their fiendshly clever ways, had changed the plug ever so slightly from the previous models, making them incompatible.  According to the ZipLinq website, I needed the newer “LG3” adapter, which they list as being in “beta test,” hence it wasn’t available in any store I could find (online or off).

The only other USB solution for the LG is the USB data cable, and Verizon wants $39.99 for the kit that it comes with.  Asking at the Verizon store about just a USB charging adapter was like asking for a tofu sandwich at a barbecue cookoff (blank stares from the sales staff).

Enter eBay.  I found a complete kit with 12V adapter, wall-wart, and USB data cable for $11.93 (after shipping/handling, etc).  While I didn’t need the other two items, everyone else wanted $19.95 for the USB cable.  IMNSHO, companies should start using standard connectors.  I saw a phone the other day that had a mini-USB connector on the side.  Since this is a standard type of connector, any cable could be used.  Of course, this doesn’t give the companies an excuse to sell overpriced “connectivity kits.” 

Now I only need to pack a single wall wart and a single 12V adapter, which has restored my travel charger harmony.