PowerCube Review

So it has come to this, reviewing a powerboard, I mean it is a thing that everyone knows, understands how they work and why you use them, but it was not until I got the Powercube in my hands that I understood that this is a shift and in the right direction.

Right off the bat, you will notice that the shape of the Powercube, is unlike any sort of powerboard you will have seen before and that is its biggest strength. Depending on the board you replace it with, it can save significant space and given its overall small footprint can take up very little room wherever you place it. The unit comes with a nice 1.5m length cable, giving you a lot of space from your wall socket to the cube, and if you are someone who likes to keep their cables nice and tidy, there is also a small bracket that can be screwed into place, keeping the power cable tucked away.

The actual cube face has 5 outlets, but if you mount the unit, as is recommended, you will only get access to 4 of them, which is still a good amount. Mounting the cube is really easy as well, as you get a plate and some sticky pads, much like on those reusable hooks, you just need to place it over the point, depending on how you want to orientate the cube and that is it. The only caveat with your layout choice is that on the back there is a reset switch, in case of a power surge, so you need to keep that in mind.

If you find that you require additional slots, you can actually purchase an adapter that will plug into one face of the Powercube and given you an additional series of slots. If you do this though, it is recommend that you avoid having the cube mounted, as the additional weight is too much for the connection for it hanging, more so once you plug things in.

There are two things that do make using the cube a bit of a hassle though, if you are using power adaptors that have those big bulky plugs, having a few of those attached, takes this compact cube and makes it very large. While the outlets all face different directions, you should not run into plugs butting up against each other, but if you think more along the lines of Katamari and then you’re on track, of course, this will only impact you if you have the big bulky plugs. The other strange thing is that, the two models of the Powercube come with a wildly different function on one and not the other. The one I was given for review, did not contain any USB ports, but the other model that exists replaces a full face with two ports.

At the end of the day though, the Powercube is one really great piece of tech, it takes decades of powerboard design and distils it down to the basics. This is not going to help with the bulkier power adaptors, but for the slim line setups, you can’t go wrong.

Thanks to Allocacoc for supplying the item for review and if you are thinking to pick one up for yourself, you can find them at Harvey Norman, OfficeWorks and Howards Storage World.