Take a deep breath because this next sentence is going to be a long one. The Macally PowerLink is an extra-wide 2GB thumb drive, impromptu iPhone sync cable, and emergency battery pack, but it’s slow to transfer files (USB 1.1), only fits MacBook-sized laptops, and won’t actually charge your iPhone (just provide an external power source). It’s a great idea for an all-in-one device, but it sacrificed too much on its way to the assembly line.
Design
The PowerLink is a beefy little accessory, but it’s still pocketable and lightweight. The finish is shiny and scratches fairly easily (like the back of an iPod Touch), but the paint makes this hard to notice. There’s a male 30-pin connector for the iPhone on one end, and a male USB plug on the other end (both of which feature removable plastic caps). The middle of the PowerLink is rounded out by a set of four lights (three to indicate battery, one to indicate data transfer) and a power switch. The whole accessory feels quite solid, but how well do all of these various parts perform?
USB Drive
In this day and age, I’d really expect almost all USB peripherals to be USB 2.0 compliant, and I have no idea why the Macally Powerlink is stuck on what seems to be USB 1.1. File transfer speed on Windows 7 and Mac OSX was about 2 MBps, or about 500 MB over 5 minutes. This is about five times slower than a $20 4GB USB 2.0 flash drive I can pick up at my local Best Buy — and the PowerLink costs about 2.5x more. The extra-large size also makes it a little more difficult to use, since it tends to block any adjacent USB ports (tested on my desktop PC and MacBook Pro).
Battery
As I stated earlier, the PowerLink functions only as an external power source while on-the-go. It can’t actually charge the iPhone unless it’s attached to a computer and functioning as a sync cable. To be fair, Macally clearly states this on their website, but it’s the first time I’ve ever encountered a device that powers, but doesn’t charge. It probably has to do with the size of the battery (a mere 270mAh), since charging probably uses up more juice than simply supplying power.
Using the PowerLink as specified is awkward, since you have to keep the accessory attached (and turned on) at all times. It isn’t heavy, but it is long (half the length of the iPhone). The “battery” portion of the PowerLink really serves best as an absolute last-resort extra, than a primary selling point.
However, when you do have to pull it out, Macally claims it should provide 25 minutes of talk time to a discharged iPhone. In my own tests the PowerLink lasted for about two hours of music listening, surfing, tweeting, and a few phone calls (though my iPhone wasn’t discharged). I think this is a respectable amount of time, but it’s still strange to have half an iPhone’s worth of battery sticking out of the bottom of your device while you use it.
Sync Cable
Using the PowerLink as a syncing cable would be problematic given its size, but the added extension cable makes it behave much like the default iPhone cable (but in black instead of white). I have no concrete data for iTunes transfer speeds during an iPhone sync, but the PowerLink didn’t seem noticeably slower for syncing 50 MB worth of apps from my Mac to my iPhone.
There are two caveats, however. The first is that the PowerLink really only fits laptops that are as thin as the MacBook Pro. Every other laptop size will need to use the extension cable, or risk gravity breaking your USB or 30-pin iPhone ports. If you do happen to be a Mac user, however, you ‘ll also have to eject the PowerLink ‘s USB drive every single time you disconnect it, or risk damaging it. This is something you simply don ‘t have to think about if you use a ‘normal ‘ sync cable on a Mac (PC’s don’t need to manually eject flash drives).
Conclusion
When I first heard of the PowerLink many, many months ago I was quite excited to check it out. I thought (and still do, to an extent) that the idea was genius. Unfortunately, Macally ‘s execution of that idea leaves quite a lot to be desired.
The PowerLink packs three interesting and genuinely useful features into a relatively small package, but it doesn ‘t really nail any one of them. I really do love the concept of all-in-one devices, but the PowerLink just sacrifices too much functionality in trying to jam a battery pack, flash drive, and sync cable into one accessory. All of the parts work, but not nearly as well as you’d expect in such a pricey accessory.
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The Macally PowerLink is available for about $65 and can be found on MobileFun’s iPhone 4 accessories page. It’s also available directly from the Macally website..
The PowerLink was provided by MobileFun.co.uk for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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