YBLTV Review: Mophie Juice Pack
My blue-haired great grandma always used to say, “The best things in life make you drunk, fat, or pregnant.” If she were around today, she would have added, “And drain the hell out of your smartphone’s battery.” Yes, our devices ostensibly meant to make phone calls are sodden with apps, some of which are infamous for their power drainage. Of course, like any good parent, I first point a finger at my kid, noting that if he plays on my phone for a half an hour, going from Netflix to YouTube to Pokemon Go, my phone will be handed back to me cold and lifeless. But I’m also a game developer, and I play a lot of apps that aren’t yet optimized for prime time, which means they use a lot more juice that they are (hopefully) going to use when they’re released. Don’t get me started on the story about the developers who tried to get a game with a Flash-based engine to run on Apple devices. You could actually feel the phone become hot to the touch while playing the game. Not a good sign.
There are a lot of tricks to saving battery life on your phone, but all they’ll do is prolong the process, not reverse it. That’s the department of portable chargers, and I’ve tried them all. We have stacks of portable chargers in every drawer which we forget to charge, and if charged, we forget to take with us when we go out. Enter the Mophie into our lives, a second battery to give you more juice when you need it that clamps onto your phone like a case and recharges when you recharge your phone. The perfect solution seemingly.
And for the most part it is. At least for me. I have an iPhone 6 Plus, so obviously I’m already resigned to carrying a brick around in my pocket. The Mophie Juice Pack makes a bulky item even bulkier, adding to its weight, but only a few centimeters to its length, width, and height. Friends don’t tend to notice until they actually handle my phone, when they ask, “What do you have on this thing?”
The primary function of the Mophie Juice Pack is to charge up your phone, but it also claims to protect the screen with its “3D glass” (um, isn’t all glass technically 3D?). I won’t claim to have rigorously tested the protection other than to drop my phone about the average number of times I generally do. More than once, the Mophie itself has fallen off the phone on impact, but neither the case nor the phone itself have suffered any damage. You just snap it back together. Easy peasy.
On its main purpose, charging up my phone, I have no complaints. There’s a button on the back to let you know how much charge your battery back-up has, on a scale of one to four blinking lights, and a switch you turn from red to green when you’re ready for the boost. On average, I’d estimate I used the Mophie to recharge my phone from near zero to near 100% about twice a day before it was drained and needed a recharge. You could alternately just leave the switch on green and keep your phone at 100% until the Mophie is drained, but that seems like cheating.
“The Mophie Juice Pack for the iPhone is an absolute life line - my phone looks naked without it,” - Ted Peterson, YBLTV Writer / Reviewer
One ding against the Mophie Juice Pack is that it uses a micro USB cable instead of the standard Apple lightning cord for recharging, so if you do need to charge it away from home, you can’t just use your friend’s cord. I have a dream that we will have universal cords for all our phones, or better yet do away with cords altogether, and maybe Mophie has that dream too, because the next generation for the iPhone 7s features a wireless charging case. Is it weird that now I’m considering upgrading my phone just for the battery pack I can get? Don’t answer that.
I paid a hundred bucks for my Mophie Juice Pack at an Apple store, but now I see them at half that price on Amazon. I’m fine with that. It’s saved me a hundred bucks of headache, and restored peace between me and my kid when he borrows my phone to watch Jake Paul on YouTube, so consider this my enthusiastic recommendation. I mean, for the Mophie, not for Jake Paul.
Product Features
- Provides iPhone 6 Plus with more than 60% extra battery
- Manufacturer claims up to 14.5 additional hours of voice time, 7.5 additional hours of web browsing, 8.5 additional hours of video playback, and 48 additional hours of music playback when it’s fully charged
- Offers phone protection with rubberized support points that enhance edge-to-edge protection while still fitting securely and comfortably in your hand
- 2,600Mah rechargeable lithium-ion polymer battery
- Charge and sync iPhone 6 Plus without removing the Juice Pack
Specifications
- Battery Capacity – 2600mAh
- Compatibility – iPhone 6s Plus / 6 Plus
- Dimensions - 3.27 x 6.85 x 0.57 in (83.1 x 174.0 x 14.5 mm)
- Weight – 3.9 oz (110.6 g)
- Warranty – 2 Year Warranty
- In The Box – Juice Pack, Micro USB Cable, Headphone Adapter
Pros
- Provides much needed extra power to power-drained phone
- Protects phone from impact
Cons
- Bulky
- Cannot work with standard Apple lightning cord
- Expensive (but not on Amazon)
Final Thoughts
The Mophie Juice Pack for the iPhone is an absolute life line, and now my phone looks naked without it.
Be sure to visit the Mophie website to shop all of their products.