Usually focused on cases, Incipio sometimes dabbles in standalone electronic accessories. Its latest is Desktop Charging Station ($40), available in graphite, gold, or silver. The compact charger houses two USB ports, each of which is capable of putting out 2.4-Amps of power, enough to charge iPads at full speed. Along with the charger comes a power adapter and a USB extender, the latter of which isn’t necessary, but is a nice extra.
Just over 2” long, Desktop Charging Station tapers down from 1.5” at its tallest point to about 1”. The colored housing is metal, while the rest of the body is plastic.
You’ll find the two USB ports stacked on top of each other on the face of the unit, and the power input is on the back. The huge power brick is the biggest downside to the accessory. Because it’s 2” wide, it has the potential to block adjacent outlets on power strips. The overall volume is slightly less than that of two of Apple’s 12W USB Power Adapters, though.
To test and verify charging speeds, we connected both a fourth-generation iPad and an iPad Air to Desktop Charging Station.
Thankfully, the device lived up to Incipio’s claims, providing a 30% charge to the former, and 54% charge to the latter in the space of two hours. An adhesive pad on the underside of the charger is included to hold it steady on a desk, but we found in our testing that it isn’t quite sticky enough. When we went to pull the cables out, the charger came with them, unless we held it in place.
Despite its huge power brick, Desktop Charging Station is a nice solution for charging a pair of devices on your desk. All that’s visible is the relatively small, well-designed base.
