Kensington PowerLift battery for iPhone: Beatweek Best of Show 2011

External iPhone batteries which snap onto its bottom are nothing new, and we’ve also seen such products which can be folded into the shape of a self-supporting stand. But the new PowerLift from Kensington takes the concept to a new level. A metal leg kicks out to allow the iPhone to be positioned at different angles. The dock is wide open enough that an iPhone inside a thin-ish case can still be docked with the case on. And perhaps most intriguingly, the PowerLift has a built-in USB cable for the sake of recharging its battery, along with syncing your iPhone to your computer. The product is a traveler’s delight, and the whole thing can also be folded up nicely enough such that it can be used as if it were a simple snap-on battery for those times your iPhone is in your hand. Most impressively, its $49 price tag is in line with those simple snap-on batteries of yore. As such, the Kensington PowerLift is a Beatweek Best of Show winner at CES 2011. And unlike most of the new products which just debuted at CES, this one is already available for pre-order.