It features a lithium-polymer battery and can output 2,000mA at 5V, with a capacity of 6,000 mAh. The manufacturer claims that the ZAGGsparq can charge an iPhone four times on one AC charge. I don’t have an iPhone to test this claim, but I did get good results when charging the Overdrive hotspot and an iPod touch.

Physically, the ZAGGsparq is a square with rounded corners. It looks a lot like the charger from a MacBook Pro with a fold-out AC plug, and it is just slightly larger, at 3.5 inches square and 1 inch thick, weighing just over 6 ounces. The form factor fits well into a crowded power strip. As a bonus, the version I got came with an adapter for European plugs, although I’m not sure if that is standard equipment.

The ZAGGsparq has two USB ports. The top one is “optimized for smartphones and other devices that are capable of taking an optimized charge, including Apple’s iPhone, iPad [with a mini-USB adapter, not included] and iPod family of products.” The bottom port is standard USB. Both can be used simultaneously, although the manufacturer warns that both ports may not work when charging power-hungry devices like the iPad.

The device I got came about half charged, although I followed the instructions and let the initial charge run for a full nine hours. Subsequent charges have been much faster, at around two hours.

The device retails for $99.99.

Have a ZAGGsparq 2.0 or a similar device? Let us know what you think of it in the comments.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Are You Empowering Your Mobile Workforce?

The top surface of the Pug includes felt-covered mouse pads on each side, and a cup holder. In the center is a platform on which a laptop can be placed; it can be set to three different angles. In this platform, there are two fold-up tabs to hold the laptop in place, and a surprisingly powerful but quiet USB-powered fan to dissipate heat from the laptop.

The Pug can be used in several configurations. With the legs folded flat, it’s essentially a two-inch thick shelf. The legs can be extended halfway, to make it into a tray about 11-1/2 inches tall. With the legs fully extended, it becomes a table about 20 inches tall — about the height of a coffee table.

After working with the unit that LapDawg sent me to try, I’m guessing that most people will find the Pug most useful with its legs in the middle position. Configured that way, the Pug should be comfortable for most people to use while sitting on a couch. I also experimented with using the Pug while propped up in bed, and it was quite comfortable. I try not to bring my work to bed, though!

The Pug is made of lightweight plastic; LapDawg says it weighs 4.5 pounds. But at 24.5 x 13 x 2 inches, it’s really too big to put in one’s luggage, though it could be easily packed in a car.

The Pug feels sturdy and well-constructed. My only complaints are minor: the leg joints require enough force to click into place that I was afraid that I was applying too much pressure. Also, the USB cable supplied with the Pug is very short, and you’ll probably need an extension cable if your laptop happens to have its USB ports on the left.

The Pug is available from LapDawg’s website for US$59.00, plus a whopping $22.65 for ground shipping to the U.S. It’s available with free shipping in Canada, since the company is headquartered in Toronto.

LapDawg also makes the X4, which is a simpler, but more flexible (and more expensive) tray. I haven’t tried it, but Charles Moore wrote about it, and other similar products, a few months ago.

The LapDawg Pug is a well-designed and well-built product; it comes with a lifetime guarantee. But although LapDawg offers 30-day returns, I recommend that you consider how you plan to use it before you buy. Some people may prefer to sacrifice the larger size of the Pug, plus its mouse pads and cup holder, for the increased flexibility of the X4, or one of the other options Charles recommended.

How do you balance your laptop?

I want to find the perfect flash drive like baseball pitchers want a perfect game. The perfect gadget is elusive and amazingly rare, and I’ve often come tantalizing close to finding it without actually getting there. I think I’ve found the perfect drive now, but I’ve thought that in the past, too. So, here’s a run down of where I’ve come from, and where I’m at now, and why I think I’ve come as close to perfection as possible.

Monarchs of Old

Two flash drives come to mind when I think back on the long parade of USB keys that have come and gone over the course of my life as a gadget-addicted web worker. Both shared some similarities, but I liked them more for their differences than for what they had in common.

Lexar FireFly

The FireFly represents the first time I paid attention to the case design of a flash drive. Before this, it didn’t matter what it looked like, and to my mind, none really looked that good anyway. It didn’t matter that there were complaints about the speed of the drive, and even some murmurs about high failure rates. It felt solid, had a blue glow, and genuinely resembled its namesake.

When I started using a FireFly, a 512MB capacity drive was all that I really needed. I still have the neon green one that I had back then, and it still works, though I don’t use it any more because all of my documents are now online, and at that capacity there’s very little else I can carry on it. They’re still available from Lexar, but the capacities don’t seem to be increasing and keeping track of the cap started to become a nuisance, so I moved on.

SanDisk MicroCruzer

To escape the tyranny of caps, I moved on to the MicroCruzer, which again boasts a pretty attractive form factor, but with a retractable USB connector to eliminate the need for protective covers. A reassuring orange glow lets you know it’s working, and you get the reassurance of using a SanDisk flash product, a company I’ve found to be tremendously reliable. Many of my MicroCruzers are still in service.

But not all. The retraction trick may prevent the connector from getting damaged and reduce the need for a cap, but with lots of repeated use it seems to wear down, and now some won’t catch when extended, making it much harder to connect them to the computer. And it shares the same small but chunky design with the FireFly, which means they still feel like a bulky imposition in my pants pockets.

Current Ruler

LaCie CooKey/IamaKey/WhizKey

The flash drive so nice they made it thrice. LaCie originally released the IamaKey model of this drive, which I bought as soon as I became aware that it existed. It’s a USB key meant to resemble an actual key, thanks to a housing designed by 5.5 Designers for the Mac-friendly accessory maker. When that model took off, LaCie introduced two further designs that essentially replicated the form factor.

Which is a good thing, because it’s actually perfect, insofar as my current flash memory needs go. The keys come in a range of capacities, from 8GB to 32GB, and they sport a rugged metal design. They’re as thin as house keys, so they fit can on your key ring. The connector is one-sided (doesn’t have the traditional box of a male USB connector, only the business side with the contacts), which allows for the thinness of design.

A little plastic cover is provided for those who are paranoid about damaging the contacts, but as someone who promptly lost that cover on his first key, let me tell you that it isn’t at all necessary. The construction of the contacts is such that they seem impervious, even when kept with the rest of your keys in a pocket filled with change and other bric-a-brac. They’re easily portable, functional, unobtrusive and stylish. Plus clients and people I meet in the course of doing business almost always fall in love with them, so they help with networking and they make great corporate gifts, too.

Have you found the perfect flash drive?

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

• “Do Consumers Care Where Their Content Is Stored?“
• “Bringing Moore’s Law to the Data Storage Market“

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Do Consumers Care Where Their Content Is Stored?
• Bringing Moore’s Law to the Data Storage Market
• Connected Consumer Market Overview, Q2 2010

Optimize Your USB Flash Drive. Many people own USB flash drives that they got as gifts or were passed on from someone else, and high-capacity versions have become very cheap. Even on drives with relatively low capacity, you can put entire suites of freeware and open-source applications on your flash drive, keep it in your pocket, and have useful applications to use no matter where you are, even if you need to work on someone else’s computer. PortableApps is my favorite site for downloading a suite of Windows apps optimized for a flash drive, while MacLibre is a good equivalent for people on Macs.

Next-Gen Note Taking. Recently, I’ve been using the Livescribe Pulse smartpen (shown above), which you can get for $149 to $199, for capturing digital notes. It’s a writing instrument, but it has a computer and camera onboard. As you jot down notes on special paper (it has millions of dots embedded in it), every move you make is digitally captured so that you can take handwritten notes right into software applications. What makes it better than other similar digital pens is that it also records audio, and creates a time line so that you can jump to various parts of a recording and review anything you were taking notes on at that point. Highly recommended.

Better Battery Life. Low battery life remains a chief complaint among users of portable computers, but there are a number of simple steps you can take to radically improve it. In this post, you’ll find nine tips that can make a big difference. Also, this post illustrates how much juice the display on your portable computer consumes, which is an incredible amount. One of the quickest and easiest ways to get much more battery life is simply to turn your brightness down.

The Lowly Mouse. In my post, “Nine Ways to Make Your Mouse Roar,” I made the point that many of us spend more time sitting with a computer and a mouse than we do with any person. The post details a number of ways to get more out of your mouse (not many people read mouse documentation), including using a scroll wheel directly within productivity applications, scrolling horizontally, and speed scrolling without using the scroll wheel.

Get More From Wi-Fi. Many of us rely on Wi-Fi all day long, but I am constantly surprised by how many people there are who don’t optimize their Wi-Fi setups. As just one example, a couple of years ago, I wrote this post, recommending using access points around a home, and many commenters responded that they use a router only for home Wi-Fi, and haven’t considered access points. That’s fine in some homes, but in others, especially larger ones, an under-$50 access point can provide huge performance and range benefits. Check out more tips on inexpensive Wi-Fi hardware upgrades here.

Share your hardware tips in the comments.

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There’s a new functional trend emerging with these portable productivity tools now that Asus is starting to offer integrated wireless broadband in the product line.

But that begs a question about wireless connectivity: do you go with integrated or opt for a plug-in solution?

The answer is a personal choice of course, but there’s a key factor involved: do you plan to web work on a single device or will you be using several? If you’re going to work mainly using just one device, an integrated solution ought to work just fine. There’s a wireless radio inside the device, similar to a WiFi or Bluetooth card, and you can seamlessly connect to the web anywhere your provider offers coverage. It’s as simple as using WiFi to connect to a hotspot: it just works.

Using more than one device though? Here’s where it gets sketchy because that wireless broadband card in your notebook only offers fast Internet service to that notebook. There are software solutions to share that connection by essentially creating a WiFi hotspot, but that means you have to have the computer with you. At that point you might as well use that one in lieu of any other that doesn’t have wireless broadband, right?

Multiple device owners are better served with a card or dongle that offers the same 3G capability. You can find them available in a number of form factors: PC Card, ExpressCard and USB.

I opted for this small USB device shown which works with every one of my PCs and Macs. This allows me to be connected to the Internet wherever I am and with whatever device I have with me.

Remember, these wireless 3G plans can set you back around $60 a month: why limit the plan to just a single device if you have many that can use it?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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