Laptop car charger, what do you recommend?

I wanted something to charge up my laptop and occassional psp and cell phone, I bought this from Walmart.

http//cgi.ebay.com/POWERLINE-MOBILE-DC-TO-AC-INVERTER-AC-OUTLET-0900-59_W0QQitemZ260173350853QQcmdZViewItem

It charges up the laptop when in use and when the battery isn't in the laptop but when the battery is in the laptop, it wont charge it up.

My laptop uses 65 watts......

This thing is 200 to 400 watts...

Should I take it back to walmart and get something else?

Personally, I wouldn't recommend these after market type chargers.
I used to have a Pelican external power brick for my PSP that provided an additional 2 hours of play time.
However, when I would use it, the brick would get [b603eda0b6a]very[/b603eda0b6a] hot.
Then, when I looked online I found a whole bunch of people who said those types of things can explode.

If I were you I'd try to get one (if possible) from a more reliable company.
Those cheap power supplies are never very safe.

That's a AC/DC power inverter, not an external battery or charger. They're perfectly safe and do not "explode." They provide a 120VAC outlet from a vehicle's 12VDC power, into which you plug in your normal AC charger.

topbillin, if I had to guess I'd say that due to cheap construction and marginal specs, it can't provide enough continuous current to both charge and power a laptop simultaneously. 65W is most likely the output wattage to your laptop that charges the laptop & battery (19V @ 3.42A is common for a lot of laptops, including mine, which calculates out to 64.98W). However it's not what the charger requires from the AC outlet. My laptop PSU that is also a 65W output, draws 1.5A on the input side, which calculates out to 180W. I'm guessing your inverter cannot sustain 180W of clean power continuously, despite its specs, and so the laptop charger is malfunctioning.

You get what you pay for, in other words. I've used inverters with laptops before and not had any trouble, but they were more expensive models too.

While inverters are more universal in nature, since they provide power to any AC device, they aren't conveniently portable given their size and cables, so you might be better served to just buy a 12VDC adapter for your laptop. Then you could toss it in the laptop bag and use it anywhere you have a 12VDC socket.

Whoops..I missed the line that said "inverter" oops .

Thanks, I thought it would be best to take it back, I'll do that.

I seen a targus one that was made for notebooks, here is the link... what do you think?

http//www.targus.com/AU/product_details.asp?sku=APD10AU

That should work, but be careful with the universal supplies and their "tips." The tip tends to be a physical weak point, so they wear out, short out, or come loose and get lost if you don't treat it carefully.

If that's a concern, I'd first try to find one made for your specific laptop, either from your laptop maker, eBay, or through one of the many laptop battery/PSU vendors on the web.