Mophie wants to sell the Juice Pack Wireless as just one part of a complete wireless charging solution. To that end, it’s launched its own set of wireless charging pads alongside the new cases.
There’s three of those “Charge Force” pads in total: a standard charging base (on the left above), a car mount (in the middle), and a desk mount (hanging over the top). The idea is to grab all three, place them where appropriate, and make it so you always have a place to take advantage of your fancy new tech.
In reality, most people will be fine with the regular base. That comes paired with the iPhone 6/6s case in a $100 bundle — $130 with the 6/6s Plus model — while the desk and vent mounts each go for $60 on their own.
Nothing about that is cheap. Each pad works just as well — though the desk mount isn’t strong enough to hold the 6/6s Plus upright — but simply pairing the included base with an ordinary charger is a better deal.
Plus, if you already own a wireless charging pad, you’re free to skip Mophie’s models entirely. The company says its cases work with “virtually all wireless standards,” including Qi, the most popular one.
Judged purely as a case, the Juice Pack Wireless isn’t much to look at, but it does what it’s supposed to.
There’s exactly zero flair to this thing, what with its all-black finish, basic curves, and plastic build. It trades looks for function in a big way.
That said, the case stays on tight, has all the necessary button covers and port openings, and is sturdy enough to withstand basic drops and dings. Its two-piece design goes on and off easy enough — though it’s nowhere near as fluid as Apple’s own alternative — and a handy set of LED lights on the back to show you how much power it has left. It’s smooth.
Aside from it making the mute switch and headphone jack just a bit too recessed — Mophie puts an extender for the latter in the box — and being prone to smudges, it’s perfectly fine. It adds even more heft to the iPhone 6s Plus, yeah, but that’s the way it goes with battery cases.
The battery within that case should be strong enough to keep your phone alive through most situations. For the money, though, it could stand to have more power.
You have to really want that wireless charging to see the value here. Compared to something like the Anker Extended Battery Case, the 1,560mAh pack in the iPhone 6/6s Juice Pack Wireless dies sooner, even though it costs more. It’s a similar story with the 2,420mAh battery in the 6/6s Plus model.
And per usual, the case itself connects through microUSB, instead of the Lightning cable that came with your iPhone. (Only Apple’s case avoids this annoyance.)
Still, provided you keep it charged, it should still be enough to last you through your next train ride or Saturday night out.
In my own testing — in which I kept the screen on, at 50% brightness, with nothing else activated — I was able to get a dead iPhone 6s Plus up to 62% over the course of 100 minutes. Keep the screen off, and it’ll get close to a complete refill before passing out. The case itself takes about two hours to refill. All of that’s okay, but nothing more.
The wireless charging is the only real reason to take the plunge, but it does work, and it’s pretty cool.
If you’ve never owned a phone that supports wireless charging before, you’ll probably enjoy this. Much like you would with a Galaxy S7, you simply plop the phone on the pad and let magic (i.e., magnetism and vibration) start the charge. When you need to go, you pick it up. It just works, as Apple likes to say. It doesn’t get terribly hot, either.
But the term “wireless charging” is still a misnomer, and it’s not the fastest way to get things done.
The “wireless” part of wireless charging refers to the fact that you don’t have to plug any cables into the phone. That’s great. But the power’s still got to come from somewhere. So instead of plugging in the phone, you’re just plugging in the pad. (Again, through microUSB.) It’s really not any more portable than doing things the normal way.
It’s also pretty slow, relatively speaking. Plugging a dead 6s Plus into a good portable battery, with the same settings noted above, I fully refilled the phone in two hours. Putting a dead, Juice Pack-covered 6s Plus onto Mophie’s wireless charging base, it took me three hours. That’s regardless of whether or not the battery case was turned on or off.
So you’re paying to solve a first world problem more than anything else.
Wireless charging, in its current form, is a fun trick. It’s convenient and nice and better, at least in theory, than charging the old-fashioned way.
It just isn’t much more than that. If you’re aware of this, and you can afford it, Mophie’s got a decent battery case and a functional solution that’ll make your iPhone more versatile. Just know that there are cheaper and more efficient ways to keep your device charged.