Charging your BlackBerry is really no big deal. All you do is plug your charger into the wall, and plug the other end into your BlackBerry. RIM has made this even easier in the past few years. You can now use a single cord to connect to your computer and to a wall charger. You can even use the BlackBerry PlayBook charger to rapidly charge your smartphone.
Yet there is an alternative to the typical wall charger. PowerMat has an interesting solution, which they advertise as wireless charging. It’s not quite that, but it is an alternative. 
PowerMat takes advantage of a two-piece system for easy charging.
The first is the mat itself, on which your smartphone sits. The other is a receiver that connects to the USB port on your BlackBerry. Once the receiver is connected to your BlackBerry and is touching the mat, you’ll hear a sound to indicate that it is charging. Another sound signals when the receiver is removed from the mat.
This seems a bit overly complicated for a simple task such as charging your BlackBerry. After all, it’s easy enough to just plug a charger into the wall and then connect it to your BlackBerry. Why the need for such an intricate and expensive device instead? In the future we’ll have alternative methods of wireless charging.
Nokia, for instance, is working on a method that will use a WiFi signal to charge your phone. There are also truly wireless charging mat solutions in the works and on the market. That makes something like PowerMat seem obsolete. Yet it’s still there, sitting in the BBGeeks Store.
I ask you, BBGeeks readers, if you have used PowerMat before. If so, what are your impressions? Do you enjoy it? Or was it just a waste? In the meantime, you can check out PowerMat’s line of products. There’s the PowerMat Portable Mat, which is pictured above. It goes for almost $100.
There is also the Home or Office Mat, though I’m not sure I can tell the difference between them. For those who want to charge multiple devices, they have additional power cubes for $30.
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I have a Powermat that I use when I am on the road. Hotels are notorious not having a lot of outlets, so it comes in handy for charging my Blackberry, my wife’s phone, my iPod, and my son’s 3DS. You can actually charge 4 things simultaneously using the unit pictured above….3 on the surface, and a fourth connected via USB cable. It sure beats supporting an army of wall warts.