96 MACWORLD SEPTEMBER 2020
WORKINGMAC REVIEW: ACCELL POWER DOTfind that makes it easier to plug in regular
power cords. Unfortunately, the Power
Dot’s pivoting outlets aren’t all that useful,
and it takes a lot of effort to move them to
boot. If that design feature is responsible
for making the Power Dot so expensive, it
was a mistake.
The Power Dot provides 1,080 joules of
protection across its four outlets, with 400
volts of maximum clamping voltage on
each leg (line-neutral, line-ground, and
ground-neutral). A “protection” LED will
glow until the unit’s MOVs have burned
out, but the LED’s location above the on/
off switch and beneath the top surface
The Power Dot’s four outlets pivot, but it takes a lot of force to move them.
makes it difficult to see.
The position of the LED is especially
problematic if you arrange the Power Dot
so that its 8-foot power cord goes straight
to the back of your desk, as that puts the
switch on the right-hand side and out of
your line of sight. (Should you find that
cord too short, there’s another model with
a 16-foot power cord [go.macworld.
com/16ft] that’s priced at $60.) The LED
was tough to spot even when I arranged
the device so the switch was facing me—at
least when I was standing (since I’ve
started using an Evodesk XE Pro sit/stand
desk [go.macworld.com/evxe], I rarely sit