The 3 Best Portable Power Strips and Surge Protectors With USB Charging
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With four international plugs and a protection rating of 100 to 250 volts, this charger is a convenient option for overseas travel.
If you’re traveling outside of North America, get the Allocacoc PowerCube ReWirable USB: It works with 100 to 250 volts, so it can be safely plugged in pretty much anywhere in the world, and it has the most outlets among our picks.
It’s small and light. This model is a 2.5-inch cube that weighs just a little more than 7 ounces. It has one outlet on each of its four outside faces, plus two USB ports on the face opposite its own AC plug. This design ensures full access to each outlet for almost any size plug, without any of those plugs blocking the other outlets.
It can charge more devices at full power. Unlike most travel plug adapters, which often have just one outlet, this Allocacoc model’s four outlets are convenient for charging up to four devices as fast as possible (with a sufficiently powerful wall charger). For instance, while working remotely on a two-month trip abroad, I found it invaluable to be able to charge a laptop, phone, power bank, and wireless headphones at the same time—and still have two USB ports to spare.
The USB ports share the available 2.1 amps, much as on our other picks.
It’s perfect for international travel. The PowerCube ReWirable USB includes four interchangeable AC plugs to fit Australian, European, UK, and North American (including the US, Canada, and Mexico) outlets.
There are a lot of pieces to keep track of. The plugs are easy to swap in and out as needed, and because they push the cube away from the wall, the wall plate’s second outlet remains accessible for most plugs and power bricks. However, the extra plugs are easy to misplace, so we recommend getting a designated bag organizer to keep track of them.
Don’t count on this model to provide surge protection. The PowerCube ReWirable USB is not advertised to provide any surge protection, but we tested it in that respect anyway, and it knocked 5,000-volt surges down to the same 900- to 1,000-volt range as our top pick. (That is to say, the surge protection is minimal, and we wouldn’t rely on it for that purpose.)
