Kensington intros car kit, laptop chargers, mouse

Kensington on Tuesday announced a range of new products, including a hands-free car kit for use with Bluetooth cellphones, its SlimBlade TrackBall mouse and a pair of two space- and energy-efficient notebook chargers. The Bluetooth speaker clips onto vehicle's sun visors and can pair up with three different cellphones and holds three frequently-called phone numbers for each handset. Swapping between the three handsets or dialing any of the pre-programmed numbers is done via pressing a single button. Kensington has integrated noise-cancelling technology for the device that makes calls loud and clear. Two battery packs are included, providing users with 10 hours of talk time.

The SlimBlade Trackball mouse sports a top-mounted trackball that gives users greater control of web browsing, multimedia and other tasks on their computers. With Media, View and Navigation modes and an on-screen display, users have fine control of their Mac OS 10.5X, Windows Vista or Windows XP computers. In View mode, the trackball zooms in and out of photos in supported programs that include Adobe Photoshop, Elements and Lightroom as well as Apple's iPhoto and Aperture. In Navigation mode, users can scroll pages and control the cursor with the trackball in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers, as well as Adobe Reader and Apple Preview, along with Microsoft's Excel, Word, Numbers and Pages. The media mode has volume, play/pause, stop and next controls.

Kensington's Ultra Thin Notebook Power Adapters are meant for environmentally-conscious travelers, as they use up 33 percent less energy than conventional power adapters, the company claims. They are the first notebook adapters from Kensington to sport Energy Star certification. While both have a built-in USB port for charging other personal electronics, the Wall/Air Ultra Thin Notebook Power Adapter includes a travel pouch, a mini-USB cable and an Empower cable compatible with sockets found in airports and airplanes. Both adapters offer up to 90W of power.

The wireless Bluetooth speaker is priced at nearly $120 and will become widely available by the end of January, as will the SlimBlade Trackball mouse which costs nearly $130. The Wall/Air Ultra Thin Notebook Power Adapter is currently on sale on Amazon, priced at nearly $140. The Wall Ultra Thin Notebook Power Adapter costs about $120.

Kensington Hands-Free Visor Car Kit