When my wife and I are out and about and our respective Apple iPhone 7 Plus’s happen to be running low, there are times when we don’t have a charging cable handy. Although relatively rare, the handful of times it has happened has proved frustrating, forcing us to either put our phones into airplane mode or turning them off entirely, pretty much defeating their intended purposes. As such, I went on a quest for a practical solution, ultimately purchasing a dual pack of the Avantree Keychain Lightning Cable (it’s also available as a single unit).

Operation is simple. Unsnap the case, plug one end into a USB port and the other into the bottom of your phone or tablet. You get a little over 2 inches of distance when fully extended. This particular lightning cable handles both charging and data. In my testing, both charging and data transfer went off without a hitch.

It’s a good size and fits well on my keychain.

About the only issues I ran into were that I had to clear some room with certain USB ports to get this to plug in because of the extended housing, and, due to the short cable length, snapping it back together was sometimes a challenge. These are two things I can live with, because I’d rather have something that I use occasionally like this be more compact than bulky, particularly since I don’t like having much on my keychain (I recommend the MantaRing by the way). Also, the simpler the design, the less chance that something will break, e.g., like products with retractable cables.

Pluses:

• Compact
• Works for both charging and syncing
• Reasonably priced
• One solid piece, so no fear of losing anything

Minuses:

• The practical nature of the design can make it difficult to plug into certain USB ports
• There is minimal distance between the two ends, so there are certain cases where your phone will have to dangle when connected
• Because of the short cable, it’s sometimes hard to snap the unit back together

Summary:
Despite the limitations inherent in this type of portable design, the Avantree proves an invaluable asset.