Thursday, April 21, 2011

Panasonic Chargepad wirelessly juices up mobile chargers, nothing else

We've seen plenty of wireless charging solutions that employ inductive power and other technologies to charge devices directly (heck, your next car may even have a Powermat in its console), but Panasonic's Chargepad may be the first such product to charge, well, other chargers, rather than gadgets themselves. At launch, the Chargepad will only be compatible with two models, the QE-PL101-W and QE-PL201-W, which you can use to juice up cell phones and other USB-compatible devices on the go. We'd love to see the company embedding inductive charging components in its cameras and other devices instead, but if you're an early adopter who happens to live in Japan, then you can expect to pay between $110-130 (open pricing, depending on battery capacity) for the Chargepad and a mobile charger when these hit stores on June 24.

Update: As reader SegueToNowhere points out, the Chargepad has a Qi logo, meaning it should work with your favorite Qi devices.