Mogics Power Bagel – The Round Extension Cord

Ever been to a study/chill spot but there’s only one power outlet available and there’s this one person that’s hogging it for hours? Your battery is draining but you are too embarrassed to ask the person to let you charge your electronics. I’ve seen people bring their own extension cords in some cases, but for myself, I just whip out my Mogics Power Bagel during such scenarios and become a power-sharing life-saver.

You might get some curious glances, but yes, the Power Bagel/Donut by Mogics is an extension cord squeezed into the form factor of a disc/ring.

There is an integrated 90cm cable and a center-piece, which is detachable, that functions as an all-in-one travel adapter. Remove this travel adapter and connect the integrated cable (which is 2-pinned) to get access to power in 4-5 other sockets, including built-in USB ports. Other features will be discussed below later.

Difference Between Bagel and Donut

The difference between the Bagel and Donut is that the Bagel has outlets for Universal type plugs while all of the outlets on the Donut are meant US type plugs. The ‘Power Donut’ carries five US 2-pin sockets while the ‘Power Bagel’ carries four universal (UK, EU, US, AU) sockets and one US socket. Don’t get confused when you want to buy this, as the pastry-based naming of the product is not immediately clear if you don’t look at the specifications closely.

Other than the plug types, both the Bagel and Donut have two USB slots (up to 2.0A), so they do not support the latest Fast Charge speeds.

Pros.

Compact Size and Portability
The Mogics Donut is so small that it is only palm-sized! Compared the typical extension leads/cords, they are long, rectangular pieces that take up a lot of space and are difficult to bring around. Since the Power Bagel is so small, I almost always have it in my bag and I carry it everywhere I go.

Another great feature due to its round shape is that power bricks hardly ever fight over space to fit into the sockets. Unlike on an extension board, where power adapters sometimes clash to sit nicely next to one another (e.g. the HUGE Macbook Adapter), plugs attached to the Power Bagel points outwards away from one another. So far, I have not had major problems with my power bricks blocking another one (I do have a huge MacBook power adapter but no problems yet). I have also yet to feel my Bagel feeling hot despite charging two phones and two laptops at one time.

Functionality of Integrated Travel Adapter
The travel adapter, which is a separate piece from the power outlets, can be used independently when you don’t feel like unwinding the Bagel just to charge one device. I have used the travel adapter on its own on several occasions, but there is a serious problem with it that I will touch upon later

This thing has both impressed others and saved my ass more than a few times as I often need to charge my laptop and phone whenever I hunker down to study as a University student. I have used these in so many locations, from lecture halls, classrooms to libraries. The cost of the Bagel is on the high side for me (I got it for around SGD$70), which I feel could be lower, but I would definitely recommend this to those who often work/study outside and find yourself needing to charge several devices at once.

As with any device, there’s the good and now I will talk about the bad.

Cons.

Cable Length
The 90cm (3 ft) integrated cable were sometimes inadequately long because power outlets weren’t always next to the table I was working from. You won’t get any problems from power outlets just under or on the table itself, but often wall outlets give me problems. The outlets are just far enough that the Power Bagel ends up in a limbo, bringing power closer to me but not close enough that my charging cables always end up stretching at weird angles.

In an ideal situation, I would want the Bagel to be right at my feet or even on the table where I am working from, but the 90cm cable can’t achieve this about 50% of the times in my daily usage. Of course, if they were to increase cable length, the Power Bagel would become more bulky, so a trade-off would have to sacrificed there.

Build of Integrated Travel Adapter
The way the plastic ground pin swivels out and rotates before locking in place is a smart design but the pin is so thin and flimsy that you feel like you might accidentally break whenever you’re setting it up. Worse still, because I have to constantly use the travel adapter where I live (UK sockets), there is a constant fear that this plastic ground pin might break and get stuck in the power outlet.

As you can see from the image, the plastic pin has little support and a lot of pressure is placed at one point whenever you insert it into a power outlet.

Furthermore, I have encountered on several occasions where the shape of the power outlets were just incompatible, and the locking mechanism holding the extended two round pins could not hold them in place for me to insert the travel adapter. These moments were the most disappointing as the adapter become absolutely useless, and I have resorted to bringing my own power adapters just for situations when the integrated adapter doesn’t work!

Electricity Jumping
When you insert your plug into any of the power outlets on the Bagel, you might occasionally hear or even see a spark as electricity jumps from the socket to your pins. This always frightened me at the beginning, but I’ve gotten accustomed to it. I don’t know if this is supposed to be normal, but unless my device is broken, I think this pop is inevitable due to how the universal sockets are constructed. Hopefully, nothing bad happens to my devices nor the Bagel from prolonged usage.

Overall, I would give this a great buy depending on your budget and mileage of usage. I have used it so much as a student and in crowded places were power outlets aren’t always that abundant. I hope that in future versions they could maybe fix the design of the adapter and also put in update the Fast Charge capabilities of the USB ports, maybe even including USB-C ports as this new standard slowly becomes more adopted.