Desktop toys: Power Station to the rescue

The holiday season is approaching fast. In fact, it seems to approach faster every year. For those of you in the giving spirit around the office, it can be difficult to find that special gift for the person on the other side of the cubicle wall. It cannot be too expensive and it should reflect a certain amount of lightheartedness and fun. I mean, after all, gift giving in an office environment is really about generating smiles and feelings of goodwill with your co-workers.
With that spirit in mind, TechRepublic has acquired several inexpensive yet tasteful and useful desktop toys for review. One of these fine gadgets or gizmos should appeal to even the most difficult to buy for in your office.
Next on our gift list is the Power Station, which comes to us courtesy of KlearGear.com.

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Mark W. Kaelin

As you can see, even before you open the box, the Power Station is a fairly simple concept. It is essentially a power strip or extension cord surrounded by a plastic case. It is by far and away the most practical desktop toy TechRepublic has covered so far this season.

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Mark W. Kaelin

There is not much in the box. There are very few parts and the documentation is only one sheet of paper long.

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Mark W. Kaelin

The Power Station is very light plastic. It is sturdy enough, but I wouldn’t sit on it or allow it to fall to the floor too often.

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Mark W. Kaelin

Stylistically, the Power Station is about as minimalist as you can get. But it does what it is supposed to do.

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Mark W. Kaelin

You can plug in adapters, like our camera battery charger pictured here, into the inside tray or use the small extension cord that ships with the Power Station.

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Mark W. Kaelin

While the adjustable tabs for holding your devices in place work adequately enough, they do approach the task with a certain lack of imagination. Odd shaped devices will take some manipulation to stay in place. Once you get a configuration that works, I would stick to it.

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Mark W. Kaelin