Useful USB phone straps

John Chan | Apr 10, 2008

Instead of hanging that Hello Kitty face on your mobile phone, you could actually put something useful there. Case in point, the Triforce stylus featured earlier this week. Well, here's another one which doesn't require you to have a touchscreen display, the USB Smart Cable.

Though it isn't as cute as the mouthless cat, this lanyard from USB Geek lets you charge your mobile phone using its USB connector. So if you have this hanging on your device, you won't have to worry about running out of juice as long as there's a free USB port near you. It even has its own microSD slot so it works as a card reader, too.

Doing a one-up on this, no doubt, is Brando's Ultra-Smart Cable (pictured above). It does everything that cable can, plus the ability to sync data. It costs more, though--US$14 compared to the USB Smart Cable's US$9 price. Both products can be purchased from the companies' Web sites. But if you are feeling really cheap, we're pretty sure Dealextreme will carry something similar in time to come.

USB Geek's Smart Cable: