Although they may not always seem useful, docks can frequently be an amazing purchase if you have numerous iOS devices. Griffin’s latest dock, the PowerDock 5, is capable of holding as many as five Apple devices and is also capable of routing power to all of them.
The PowerDock 5 comes with five plastic walls which can be inserted into the main docking area to provide support for multiple devices. Once those are installed, you are pretty much ready to use the PowerDock after plugging it in. Of course, you do have to use your own charging cables with the dock and therefore, the only thing Griffin really provides is a place to neatly set and keep your iOS devices.
Using your own cables is normally the best thing to do (especially when dealing with Apple devices) since the lightening connector switch resulted in multiple cables being necessary depending on which generation iOS device you have.
Once you have five cords running from the base of the dock to your devices, the setup can be quite messy and the cords are pretty much out in the open. If you are someone that likes to keep your desk as clean and organized as possible, the PowerDock 5 may stand out.
Since you are relying on the dock to charge your devices, the actual charging process will generally be a bit slower than if you were to plug in your phone/tablet to a wall outlet. The difference in charging time was not substantial and in some cases, it may better to slowly charge your iOS devices anyways.
Unfortunately, the $100 price tag on the PowerDock 5 makes it difficult to recommend. While it is nice to charge all of your iOS devices in the same general area, the clutter produced by charging five devices with full-size cables can be annoying.
If Griffin were to come out with a set of lightening/30-pin charging cables which were shorter, the PowerDock 5 would be a far better product. If you are a family or business which relies on USB charging for your iOS devices, having a PowerDock 5 setup may be useful, but for $100, make sure to carefully consider whether or not a charging dock is actually necessary.
Rating: 6/10
Price: $99.99
