Steve Litchfield

The idea was originally to review this for AAWP (see link, right), but having examined and tried this neat little Tronsmart gadget, it seems too Quick Charge 3.0-centric for the world of Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile, where 'fast charging' refers to the USB Type C 'Power Delivery' system, i.e. 5V at high current (up to 4A in some cases, but more usually 3A max). It's true that this  Tronsmart Dual Quick Charge 3.0 36W wall charger also outputs up to 2.4A at 5V, so that it's technically compatible with Microsoft Lumias, Google Pixels, Apple iPads, and so on, the majority of the world which doesn't use Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0. But it's not optimised as such, so the USP here wouldn't be appreciated by users of any of these devices - plus their original 3A chargers would give a faster charge. However, many of us have multiple device these days, certainly around a family, so a mix of 2015/2016 phones with both 'Power Delivery' and Quick...

At first sight, what I'm doing makes no sense, the 'late 2009' Macbook is now seven years old and should be nigh on unusable, even with the efficiencies of Mac OS. Yet Apple's design decisions in the Macbook arena as we moved into 2015 and then into 2016 don't really appeal to me at all. I like the Magsafe connector, I like having a charging indicator, I like having an optical drive, I like having a full ethernet port, I like having USB-A ports, I like having a proper keyboard, I even like having a glowing Apple logo on the back. Money being no object, I guess a 2014-era Macbook Pro would give me all of the above with faster performance, but we're still looking at £1000 or so, which got me thinking... How could I breathe new life into my much beloved, but ageing, Macbook? Here's what I did: Had the peeling rubber bottom replaced by Apple (free of charge, it was a design defect) Had the battery replaced by Apple (£80 or so, a year ago) Upgr...