Review: Ridings Slimplug power lead

If you’re always carrying a laptop bag around you’ll appreciate the compact head of this power lead.

The three prongs fold away, saving 2.2cm and making it thinner than most laptops. As a result the prongs don’t jut out in your bag and potentially scratch equipment. Of course, although this design it saves space, it’s doesn't make things any lighter.

Folding the prongs in and out is quite easy. A tug on the two sliders, which are placed on either side of the plug head, releases the prongs.

As soon as any device gets more moving parts it means there’s greater chance of it breaking, but, that said, we saw no evidence to suggest that it might happen with the Slim Plug.

The lead is 1.8m long and has a figure of eight connector as used by the majority of laptops. You will, however, still need to keep your notebook's power supply as this connects into it and not into a laptop directly.

If you’re an international traveller using power adapters attached to the plug head you’re probably not going to retract up the prongs, so no space is saved.

If the lead had been retractable we’d be looking at a must-have for travellers, but at almost three times the price of a regular power lead it’s expensive.

We’d recommend that if you’ve lost your laptop power lead or need to pack compactly this is worth considering.