The Bracketron Universal USB Power Dock Pro Flex (from AutoAnything) is a 12-volt power adapter/device holder for most any car. The dock itself can hold devices up to 5.25″ high by 3″ wide. The long neck and sturdy base, along with standard USB port with high capacity 1.5A power, will support and charge just about anything, from any 12V power port in your car. I used the Power Dock Pro with my rather large-and-power-hungry Lumia 920 in both my tiny commuter Nissan Versa and the Land Yacht Chevy Traverse to see how well it worked.
UnBoxed
In the box is the combination power adapter/base/neck, adjustable device dock, a micro-usb cable, and the instructions. The dock is attached to the ball joint on the top of the neck with a compression fitting. The USB cable (or your own, if your device doesn’t use micro-usb – for example an iPhone charge cable) plugs into the base, and you’re ready to snap in a device and go.
The base of the unit has a standard USB port to supply power, and a blue LED to let you know you’ve got power.
The dock adjusts in height at the press of a button. It clips over the center of the top of the device you’re holding. The base of the dock isn’t adjustable, but it will most likely capture the two bottom corners of your device.
Here’s a view of the dock mounted on the neck.
And here’s the whole thing ready to insert into a 12V power port.
The dock was able to accommodate my Lumia 920 easily (and securely.)
The central location of the top clip does cover the headphone jack. That’s unfortunate.
This is the whole assembly using the provided power cable.
Docking With Two Cars
The first car up for docking fun is my cramped Nissan Versa with the power port located awkwardly to the right of the hand brake. In the shot above you can see the blue power indicator, which means I managed to get it into the port correctly.
And here you can see the less than stellar results. The phone is visible, barely, in the lower right corner of the shot between the two seats. On the plus side, the neck did allow me to position the phone such that I could still operate the hand brake, but it wasn’t a great location. It certainly wouldn’t be very useful for phone-based GPS navigation in the Versa.
And here we see it installed in the 12V port of the Chevy Traverse, which is located at the bottom center of the dashboard. In this configuration, the phone doesn’t obstruct anything, and it is easily viewable by the driver for navigational use. I used this set up for a six hour drive to Los Angeles using Nokia Drive as my GPS, and it worked beautifully.
More Power
Speaking of six hour drives using phone-based GPS navigation, the other important part of the Power Dock Pro is its ability to provide sufficient power. I can say with confidence that it does deliver the full 1.5 amps of power to devices that need it – like the Lumia 920. On lesser power adapters, the Lumia, like several other high-draw devices, will (slowly) drain the battery during GPS use on 0.5-1 amp power source. On the Power Dock Pro, I pulled up at my destination in LA with the battery at 100% thanks to the 1.5A power supply, even with a full 6+ hours running the GPS navigation software.
Flex It
The Bracketron Universal USB Power Dock Pro Flex delivers on all of words in its name. It can support a wide range of device sizes, using any kind of USB power up to even power hungry 1.5 amp devices. It is flexible enough to be used in most any car with any kind of sane 12V power dock placement. Even in my somewhat insane Versa, it was able to hold my Lumia where I could at least see it. You can purchase it at AutoAnything for $34.95.
Product Information
| Price: | $34.95 |
| Manufacturer: | Bracketron |
| Retailer: | AutoAnything |
| Requirements: |
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Filed in categories: Car Gear, Reviews
Tagged: car charger, car dock
AutoAnything Bracketron Universal USB Power Dock Pro Flex review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 10, 2013 at 11:00 am.
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