Before I get into the nitty gritty details of things, I do want to disclose something right off the bat.
Here in Canada there is a very well known chain of stores called Canadian Tire. Now as the name would suggest, they do sell a lot of tires and automotive related gear, but they are equally well known for carrying a full range of items - everything from power tools to kitchen appliances to fishing tackle.
I tend to spend a lot of time at my local Canadian Tire store, so when Canadian Tire started up a program, called "Tested For Life in Canada" and sent a call out to their customers looking for volunteers that would be willing to evaluate some of their products that they sell, I jumped on that opportunity pretty quick.
Up until now, I've just been asked to provide feedback on things that I had bought at Canadian Tire - which I am always glad to do, since I subscribe to the notion that in order for a company to offer the things that you want, you need to tell them what you like!
This has gone on for a few months now, but one day a mysterious package showed up at my door.
Inside contained this and a note...
The note basically stated that Canadian Tire would like for me to give the NOMA Flexible Power Bar a bit of a test drive and to let them know what my thoughts were on it.
I'm always keen to try new stuff out, and I will be providing Canadian Tire my feedback, but for the sake of this post I did want to mention that I did get this product free for review, but since I'm not really beholden to follow a "PR script", I will aim to be as honest as possible here.
So - the real irony was that I was actually seriously considering buying this power bar a couple of weeks before this package arrived. I was certainly very intrigued by the concept that this power bar presented and I know I haven't seen a power bar on the market before that you could flex into whatever shape you needed for the situation at hand.
The only reason why I didn't walk out with the Flexible Power Bar that day was due to me just being cheap The price of the power bar was about $50, while I could buy a power bar with the same number of outlets and USB ports, albeit a regular straight power bar, for half of the price or less.
Granted, the flexible feature of the NOMA Flexible Power Bar certainly would make it command a premium for the price of it, but considering that it is hanging on a large store rack with literally dozens other power bars, it has a lot of competition.
Once I got the power bar out of it's package, I was immediately impressed on how flexible it was.
This was something that I didn't get a true sense of when I was in the store looking at it originally.
Obviously you kind of knew that it was flexible since it was bent into a half circle in the package, but to really appreciate it, you needed to be able to "play" with it to see what kind of shapes you can mold it into.
The more I folded the power bar to fit into any tight corner that I could think of, I became more impressed by it. I guess the comment I could make here is that if I could have some how been able to try it out like this in the store, I would have more have likely bought that power bar that day a few weeks back.
Where the NOMA Flexible Power Bar really shines is that it can easily fit around objects like table legs, which makes for a much neater look than the typical nest of wires that you usually get with other power bars.
Another neat feature of the NOMA Flexible Power Bar is that it's been designed such that the outlets are perpendicular to the length of the bar. What this means is that this eliminates a particular pet peeve of mine when it comes to power bars.
I sometimes need to plug in devices that require the use of those brick "wall wart" adapters. When using one of the more traditional power bars that have the outlets "in line" to the length of the power bar, this often means that the wall wart covers up more than one outlet on the power bar due to the size of the wall wart brick.
The NOMA Flexible Power Bar is designed so that the wall wart brick sticks out from the side of the power bar, not covering up any other outlets on the power bar itself.
The power bar arrived at my house at a time when I was in the midst of doing a renovation of the family room in my house, so I was able to immediately able to put it to use to power the various bits of equipment that I needed during the renovation.
I was quite pleased on how easily it seemed to handle what I was throwing at it. During the renovation work, the power bar supplying power to everything from power tools to computers, with no issues or complaints.
Likewise the USB charging ports of the power bar was able to charge up my smart phone and my tablet computer at the same time with not issues what so ever.
The NOMA Flexible Power Bar also has a lighted on/off switch, which is typical for most power bars, and a blue indicator light at the USB ports that lights up when the power bar is turned on.
One small concern that I had though was that the USB light tended to be a bit on the bright side, which may be a problem if you have the power bar in a bedroom and you're someone that likes to have a very dark room to sleep in.
For a full demonstration on what the NOMA Flexible Power Bar is capable of, I put together a quick video of the power bar doing it's thing.
In the end, I was quite impressed with the design and durability of the NOMA Flexible Power Bar. It is certainly a very unique product and I think people will be very willing to take advantage of the flexibility that this power bar provides.
I think the main thing is to just get that awareness out. Like I said before, in the store, this power bar blends into a sea of power bars. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to alter the packaging in order to give prospective buyers a chance to try it out - otherwise it just comes across as another, rather expensive power bar.
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