Just Mobile Highway USB Car Charger Review
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Just Mobile's passion for aluminum continues with its latest and greatest gear for the 'iDevice' user, and we love every bit of it. The Highway isn't just appropriately named, it also seeks out to replace your fugly old car charger with good handsome looks and industrial design that with all due respect, hasn't really found itself in what's available on the market today. More on the Highway after the jump!
First impressions are very positive once the Highway found itself unboxed. Like with many of Just Mobile's products, this one is well put together even though it is merely but a car charger. It might be the fanciest USB car charger you've even seen. For $34.95, you can pick up one in either silver or black to better match the interior of your daily driver. Apart from instructions, a sticker and a really useful coiled Apple USB charge & sync cable, the Highway is all you really need.
I'd like to point out that the charging cable provided is thick enough to last a long time and has identically slim plugs on either end to what Apple includes with all of its current iDevices that will fit any protective case you might be using. The coiled cable can extend to the same length as the one Apple provides, and unlike those overly long cables, it has worked tremendously well in keeping my driving space well organized.
The Highway isn't anything out of the ordinary. It isn't fitted with any new concepts or works in mysterious ways. In other words, it's exactly what you'd expect a car charger to be. However, it is the most refined car charger I've ever used by far. It connects to any cigarette lighter port inside a car, truck or what have you and provides you with a USB charging port with 2.1a of output power. That means the Highway is capable of quickly recharging your iPhone, iPod and even iPad when in desperate need of juicy power.
Comparing the Highway against what I have been using for the past years, the Griffin PowerJolt, and you can tell how great the difference is between the two. I may have not noticed an increased performance in charging time using the Highway, but I sure do appreciate the Highway's more elegant design and compact form factor. Even though the Highway is so small, its aluminum head was just enough to keep the spring port cover of my car's power/cigarette lighter port from complete covering the USB charging port. Whereas the PowerJolt would shove its bulky, plastic body and get in the way of my cup holder when a Starbucks Venti coffee cup would otherwise sit. Unlike the PowerJolt, the Highway has a non-replaceable fuse to protect against a power surge. The good news is that not once have I had to replace a car charger fuse.
Looking at the Highway and one will immediately notice of compact it is compared to others. It fits inside your car as if it were a feature that your car came with in the first place. And because the Highway's USB head is built using aluminum, it feels superb and well built. Something you won't mind using inside an uber expensive automobile. Just Mobile never seems to disappoint. As soon as you plug the Highway into your car's power jack, a bright green LED indicator lights up and remains lit definitely. It doesn't change color even while charging, and that's a bit of a letdown. Considering you would like to know once your device is fully charged and ready to go by only looking at the charging LED indicator, this might upset you in a way. Even my old PowerJolt changes colors to signify various charging statuses.
If I had one small complaint to point out, it would be for a dual-USB port Highway. And what do you know, Just Mobile has just come out with a second version of the Highway called the Highway Pro at $39.95, which features two USB ports for charging more gadgets on the go. You can't beat that. Granted both Highways are pricer than most car chargers offered by known brands, but none are quite as unique and well put together.
You'll have to ask yourself if the exterior design of a car charger is more important to you than how affordable it is. If you don't mind paying a bit more, then we can recommend the Highway USB car charger. Put simply, the Highway is designed as the modern day, practical USB car charger. But it lacks a bit of attention to detail. We do think Just Mobile should have only released the Highway in a dual-USB port configuration at the $34.95 price tag instead of releasing another for only $5 more.
