a peek inside the fishbowl

Awhile back, the fine folks at Powerstick asked me if they could send me one of their gadgets to try.*  I agreed, and I am happy to report that it has saved my bacon a couple of times already.

Powerstick is a portable power charger for mobile devices: smart phones, tablets, GPS units, cameras.  Let me tell you about a couple of times I’ve used it in the past few months:

• At a daylong conference. My iPhone’s battery can’t go 8 hours of hard core use without an upcharge, and I use my phone at conferences A LOT. I take notes, I tweet stuff, and I use the GPS to get home at the end. :) I was way down in the red part and still had a lot of conference left to go, so I grabbed my Powerstick while sitting in a session and plugged it in to the phone to charge it. I managed to get a full charge out of it too, which was really great. I was ready to go in no time.
• I was shooting photos for the newspaper with my Samsung camera when I realized I left the house with only a partial charge on my camera. This gave me enough juice to get through the shoot.
• I use my iPhone to record interviews for work, some of which are up to an hour in length. Knowing I have a charged Powerstick in my bag gives me the peace of mind I need to get my work done.

Bacon. Saved.

Mark’s iPhone battery has been really wonky and unreliable lately, it’ll be at 40% one minute, and 0% the next. What if he had to make an emergency call? This is going to come in REALLY handy when we’re camping and hiking too, far far away from any chargers.

Here’s something that’s good to know: I can keep a charged Powerstick in my purse for months, and it’ll be ready when I need it.

The peace of mind it gives me is not even the best part of the story (although it IS pretty awesome). The best part is that Powerstick is a Canadian company, and they’re based right here in Ottawa. This is important for me, because I like supporting local businesses. (You can read more about them in this article that was published in the Ottawa Business Journal.)

p.s. I just noticed on that they have a special deal on their site just in time for Father’s Day. I don’t know how long it’ll be posted, but if you use the promo code FATHER you’ll get your Powerstick personalized for free. (All you need to do is upload a high res image!) So if you’re looking for a techy gadget for dad, this might be it.

*Transparency alert! I was given a Powerstick of my own but was under no obligation to post anything about it. As always, views remain my own.