Sherman's Travel

During a recent business trip, my companions and I made the not-so-shocking discovery that a morning of heavy emailing and app usage had left many of our smartphone batteries almost completely tapped out.

What was a bit surprising was that I was the only one in the group wandering around that day with a portable USB phone charger. Inevitably, as the power pack got passed around, it became less effective, though, fortunately, it did give many of us the “jump” we needed for just one more achingly insightful tweet.

Why, I began to wonder, would anyone leave the house without one of these nifty little recharging gizmos? Being as these chargers have been saturating the travel gadget market in recent months, it was time for a quick round-up of four portable phone chargers that stand out from the pack.

Read more