My Belkin Micro Auto Charger turned up today.

It is a car 12v to USB adaptor that takes up a lot less room than older devices. I bought this to make my car look neater and I’ll be able to leave this permanently in place without it drawing any attention.

It certainly is neat – it sits just proud of the lip of the socket – which is ideal as it leaves just enough of its casing exposed so that it can be easily extracted – sitting flush might be even neater but would not be clever.

There’s not much else to say from here because my device was DOA – dead as a dodo – no amount of wiggling would make the LED on the device light up. I’ve tried it in a couple of sockets without any luck – so I’m back to using my old £2 USB charger and this will be shipped back to the retailer – as soon as I can figure out their return procedures (oh what fun).

So I can’t complete my review – I was going to let you know if it charges an iPhone 3G (my current one doesn’t) – but you’ll have to find this out from elsewhere.

Balls.

UPDATE – Lambda-Tek (where I purchased this) were very quick to refund my card. Now I need to find another supplier – This time I’ll use a shop just in case it has to go back too. I now need two – one for the car and one for the scooter (yes it really has a lighter socket under the seat).

UPDATE 15th June – My new replacement Belkin Micro USB chargers arrived (I bought two from Kikatek). I’m glad to say that both of these work out of the box. I’ve put one in my Mini and one on the scooter. There is not much to add to my comments above – other than the green LED lights up all the time it’s being supplied with power – but its not too bright to be distracting. Finally – yes it will charge my iPhone. That’s it.

Recommended if you want to tidy up your car or if you find a full size adaptor a tight fit. I believe that in a few years this will be the normal size for these devices , and by then maybe all new cars come with USB charge sockets as standard.