Hardware Bistro

Product: AC090N
Manufacturer: GlacialPower
Supplied by: GlacialTech
Price: 48USD/RM149
Launch Date: 8 Sept 2010

 

The demand of laptops has been increasing since pass 10 years ago and with such huge opportunities, AC adapter is one of the potential business either getting it for replacement purpose or as an additional spare adapter to be used at different places. It is easy to get an adapter but looking for a reliable vendor is not the simple. Let's introduce the latest 65W universal smart adapter from GlacialTech; AC090N.

 

Company Profile

GlacialTech Inc. was established in June 2001 by a team of 8 world-class researchers (PHDs) and three factory owners. Its technological areas of expertise include specialized thermaltheory, soldering and mounting technologies, mechanism design, test and verification environment build-up and advanced conduct material development.

As a total thermal solution provider, GlacialTech is committed to using lighter weight materials, lower noise and lower manufacturing cost to deliver superior cooling solutions. All this has brought about the increased value for our customers with lighter system board loading, quiet working environment and optimal price performance. Price performance, noise performance and weight performance are our three cooling design philosophy.

 

Features

● Slim & Portable -Compatible with most of laptops
● 8-level output voltage selectable for your laptop
● 5V/1A USB port to charge 3C devices
● Protections: SCP/OVP/OCP/OTP
● Power efficiency > 88%
● Multiple output plugs to convert various DC plugs
● RoHS compliance and 2 years warranty
● Maximum peak output power 90W

 

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

GlacialPower AC090N adapter comes with a pretty big container but we prefer a smaller and compact packaging for convenience and safety purposes. The specifications and output plug sets are described clearly at the back of the packaging and you probably able to find a suitable output plug for your notebook.

 

There should not be any issue even for a local notebook vendor as most of the notebook input voltage and current are quite standard but you have to ensure the required voltage and current are available with the suitable output plug. Anyway a small window is available on the front packaging where the adapter and output plugs are visible.

 

A multi-language user's manual is bundled for GlacialPower AC090N adapter together with 7 output plugs and a two-pin power cord. An output plug holder is provided but it is only able to keep up to five output plugs; hopefully this will be corrected as the 6th output plug can be lost since it is not being stored securely (assuming the 7th is being attached with the adapter).

 

A Closer Look On GlacialTech AC090N

Some of you may not know that basically GlacialPower is one of the subsidiary company of GlacialTech so don't be confused if we mixed them up in this review. GlacialPower doesn't sound strange to us because we have been reviewing their products quite some time ago and the reason why you seldom hear of them is because OEM sector is their major business but we believe stepping into retail business is one of their plans for the upcoming years. 

Currently there are quite limited consumer AC adapters from GlacialPower but they do have 100W adapter, 65W adapter and 12-36W wall adapters which are being used on gadget devices and netbook. GlacialPower AC090N adapter is the latest adapter and it is a universal or so called smart adapter because it can support almost all the notebooks. Don't be confused with the naming of GlacialPower AC090N as it is a 65W adapter not a 90W adapter; a little bit misleading naming for this product.

The dimension of GlacialPower AC090N adapter is 104 x 57 x 17mm and weight approxiamtely 0.2KG. Such convenience size and weight are really benefiting the users as most of the adapters out there are pretty bulky and heavy. 2-year warranty is provided for GlacialPower AC090N adapter which is pretty satisfied and if you are not aware most of the adapters only come with 1-month to 1-year warranty as adapter is one of the notebook accessories that tend to be broken easily.

 

This regulatory label is important as it tells us a lot of information that you have to be aware of. The AC input of GlacialPower AC090N adapter is 100-240V with auto switching mode so no worries where you are gonna to use this adapter. The DC outputs are very important for choosing a right adapter; make sure your notebook input voltage is fall between 12-24DC while the current is auto adjusted to get 65W power output (exp: 18.5V * 3.51A = 65W).

 

Here is the output voltage selector of GlacialPower AC090N adapter and please ensure right output voltage is selected; you may refer back to the existing adapter or the notebook specification. The output voltage has to be adjusted by certain of tool so that the value will be not accidentally adjusted. You may notice the USB port on the GlacialPower AC090N adapter and basically it can be used to charged any USB device as well like iPhone where the output voltage and current are 5V and 1A.

 

Here are the output plugs of GlacialPower AC090N adapter and there are total seven plugs; three of them are in black color while remaining four are in different colors; green, yellow, blue and white. All these output plugs are identified with the labeling at the back of the adapter with alphabet A, B, C till J; please refer to the output plug table for choosing a right output plug.

 

Some of the notebook vendors have different output plugs like HP so besides ensuring the voltage and current are right; the right size of the notebook power connector has to be identified as well. The output plug has to be installed on the power cable of the adapter and it is only one way installation since it is a DC device. A cable stripe tie is provided to shorten the unnecessary length for the power cord so that the cable management can be arranged in a better way.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

GlacialPower AC090N adapter is a plug and play device without any driver or software installation. However we have to repeated again please ensure right output plug and output voltage are selected to avoid any disaster happens; this is one of the drawbacks of a universal adapter but it is not an issue at all if the user is careful and knowledge enough. There is a built-in blue LED at the voltage selector area when GlacialPower AC090N adapter is powered up; quite a simple but useful feature as most of the OEM adapter doesn't come with any power indicator.

 

Test Bed

Notebook: HP EliteBook 2540p
Processor: Intel i7-640LM @ 2.13GHz
Memory: 4GB DDR3 1333MHz
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM
Display: 12.1" LED-backlit WXGA anti-glare
Graphic Card: Intel HD Graphics
Optical Drive: Panasonic 9.5mm DVD RAM
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: Arctic Sound P311
Operating System: Window XP Pro SP3/Win 7 Pro
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

 

We have selected HP EliteBook 2540p to test out the GlacialPower AC090N adapter. For the output plug, we have chosen "H" plug and set the GlacialPower AC090N adapter with 18.5 output voltage. There isn't any official benchmarking tool to test out an AC adapter hence we have tested it with a very simple method by comparing the charging period between the original adapter with the GlacialPower AC090N adapter. The charging process only takes an hour and a half to charge up the HP EliteBook 2540p from 10% till 100% which is pretty identical with the original 65W adapter. In term of the quality of GlacialPower AC090N adapter, we feel that it is well-built as it does not generate huge amount of heat like the original adapter. Overall we are very satisfied with GlacialPower AC090N adapter and do not encounter any problem with it; thanks to GlacialPower for producing such great product.

 

Verdicts

Looking for an additional adapter is one of the common things that most of the users will do for their notebook as it is quite inconvenience to carry the adapter around especially the bulky and heavy one. In this case GlacialPower has provided a universal 65W adapter; AC090N which can support more than 15 notebook vendors and besides that GlacialPower AC090N adapter can be used to charged up any USB device as well like iPhone. With the reasonable pricing at 49USD, we don't see what is the reason to hold back for getting such useful adapter if you are still looking for a suitable adapter.

 

Pros:

+ Universal AC adapter supports most of the notebooks
+ It can be used to charged any USB device too
+ Slim & light weight
+ Fast & reliable charging

Cons:

- None

 

Thanks to GlacialTech for providing this sample for us to review.

 

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