Right now and during the past few days, CES has been churning out item after item of hybrids, wearable tech, innovations and whatnot, I’ve gotten into the habit of not reporting any of it especially since I’m not there… maybe next year? who can tell haha. Last night however while browsing around a Sony retail store we found an accessory for my partners Z Ultra – a charging dock.
I remember on some releases of the Z Ultra that this comes bundled instead of the usual cable for the device but since it doesnt transfer data well its better off like this I reckon.
The packaging is very minimal with just a few folded cardboards to hold the miniscule item in place along with several pieces of paper which hold product information. It comes with two differently sized cradle adapters to enable charging the Z Ultra even with some covers.
You can see above that the right cradle adapter has a wider clearance for a thicker phone. the left cradle fits the Z Ultra snugly within its jaws. According to the sales rep its simply a positive and negative pin with a magnetic strip in between and it does seem to appear so… if it had some way to transfer data while being docked (apart from wireless solutions) then that probably would have been better… even more so if you could detach the USB ended cable from it, but then this design ensures that you will never lose the same.
Its quite amazing seeing it work with the Z Ultra being that small youd think it’d fall down.. here it is compared to some cradles around the office:
On the left is a Samsung cradle/charger designed for the first generation Galaxy Note which allows charging of a battery on a flap behind the cradle while holding your phone with a rubber stop, its a simple flat affair, detachable usb cable for charging; on center is a Capdase stand with two locking positions which is designed for the Nexus 7, made entirely of high grade plastic and folds flat for storage, takes up the most space but very stable and can hold a variety of devices even the 10” Asus Transformer; on the right is the Sony dock and it is unbelievably stable even though it has not much depth as a counterbalance definitely because of the balanced weight centered perfectly by the magnet.
In hindisight it looks like a huge Bravia monolithic TV for toys (and it really can be). I could imagine dioramas being built with this in mind. We got the item for close to 1.6k not too shabby all things considered especially the lesser strain that it would yield on to the microUSB port which is notoriously fragile.
So there we have it, a desktop accessory, perfect for placing the phone on the desk and charging at the same time while working. Its nifty and elegant all at once.
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