Mobile USB Chargers discussion (Buyer Beware: see post 1)

[stampeder]

I have a Nokia N900 and it requires more power than a USB port or a typical 12V car charger can provide, so I've blown out several of the above due to the little unit's big current draw. The N900 is a Linux computer after all, running lots of my neat apps, and I tend to run it with the CPU wide open. I could order the proper Nokia DC-10 car charger from Europe for it, or...

When I plug my Nokia N900's AC wall charger into my old Belkin 150W inverter I can't use the N900's FM transmitter to listen to my music over my truck's radio because of all the nasty RF and/or line noise coming from the inverter. When I run the phone on it's normal battery the FM sound is free of noise.

Edit - Buyer Beware:
Sigh... I bought one of the Scosche 1 amp USB chargers and it does not work on a Nokia N900. The reason is that the N900 adheres to the official USB spec requiring that chargers must have the D+ and D- pins shorted by a 200Ω resistor, as seen on pages 7 through 9 in this document:

http://www.usb.org/developers/devcla...arging_1_1.zip

So why do these common USB chargers not follow the spec? Probably because the vast majority of MP3 players, Blackberrys, iPhones, and other devices use their own non-standard pin assignments rather than the official USB ones.

[recneps77]

What current does it need?
I know 2A car chargers (USB port) exist, which is 4x the usual 500mA USB chargers out there.. should be enough to charge even the most power hungry devices.
If not, how much battery capacity does this thing have? :P

[stampeder]

The reason it uses so much power is because I run it hot with lots of stuff going on it (GPS, FM transmitter, 3.5G and/or WiFi, Bluetooth, HD movie & photo camera, flashlight, etc. etc.) and a full battery charge lasts about 12 hours. The AC wall adapter puts out 1.2A so that would be nice to find in a car charger device.

Regarding a high amps USB-enabled car charger can you tell me what brand name and model number to look for?

[recneps77]

Well I have a belkin USB charger (was a dell deal) and that's 1A
If your wall charger is 1.2 that should do it, provided your phone doesnt "know" its a usb plug vs wall charger - usually they dont if there's no data, but sometimes you have to have a cable with the pins shorted. (e.g. my nexus one knows its a 'usb' port, even though there's no data and defaults to 500mA. I have to get a charging-only cable with no data pins to fool it into charging at full, or to cover/short the pins on my regular usb cable)

Anyways, the charger I have is (box is still here, hah.. need to clean off my desk)
Model is (cant seem to find it on the box, this is what dell says it was):
F8Z446

Regular $20, I got it on sale for half, so decent deal. I just tossed the ipod cable in the junk bin for if someone i know with an apple product needs it.

If you think you'd need more than 1A, I know of Griffin's model (pretty much the same as belkin, designed for ipod, so just toss the cable :P)
GC23095

A bit more pricy (especially if you source it from canada - best buy.ca wants double what a US source wants!)

[i6s1]

Buy dot com has a 2.1 amp USB car charger for under $10. Any of the 1-2 amp car chargers are going to be cheaper than a new pure-sinewave inverter.

[stampeder]

The N900 is USB data/charge aware, btw, and comes with the appropriate USB cable. If it senses that choice it offers a screen option on whether to proceed with data or charging or both.

Regarding cheap no-name USB chargers, even the high amp ones blow out too easily due to poor construction, from what I've read. I'll check out the models you guys suggested.

Cheers