Mophie’s universal smartphone battery chargers can be life savers

Back in August, Mophie unveiled its latest lineup of universal external power chargers for mobile devices.

The products include Powerstation USB chargers, Powerstation USB-C chargers for the newest smartphones, and Powerstation Plus chargers with removable tips. They were aimed at keeping Mophie the No. 1 battery-charging case maker in North America (as measured by market researcher NPD Group).

I tried a number of the chargers, and they all share one thing in common: They’re life savers when it comes to keeping your smartphone juiced up. I paid $99 for a Mophie charging case that I’ve used for more than a year, but that model is now as cheap as $46. It protects my iPhone 6, and it can pretty much keep it charged for the full day. But when I use it on trips or have a heavy-use day, it runs out of power.

At those times, I have to head to a Starbucks or some other place to charge at an outlet. But when I used the Mophie universal power chargers, I was able to get through the day without heading to a coffee shop. And I was able to get my smartphone charged quickly. It takes a relatively short time to get the power charged up to 100 percent.

I have a couple of older charging packs and a bunch of free ones that I’ve used over time. Most of those charge slowly. But the Mophie juice packs that came out this fall can charge much faster.

I tried out a new Powerstation Plus, which features a covered wire that you can pull out from the end of the pack. You can plug it directly into either an iPhone or an Android device. It comes with a removable tip that you can use to plug into the iPhone’s lightning socket or an Android phone’s USB-micro connector. It starts at $60 and comes with three charge capacities: 4,000 milliamps, 6,000 milliamps, and 12,000 milliamps. And it comes in space gray, gold, and rose gold colors. This one can recharge my iPhone 6 maybe three or four times before it needs to be recharged.

I also tried out the fourth generation of Morphie’s Powerstation family. That includes the Powerstation Mini (3,000 milliamps), Powerstation (6,000 milliamps), Powerstation XL (10,000 milliamps), and the Powerstation XXL (20,000 milliamps). The Powerstation Mini features “five bold colors inspired by the vibrant street art of Los Angeles,” including pink, blue, purple, black, and white. Once again, this one carries enough of a charge that I can keep it in my backpack for a while and use it when I need to. And I don’t need to recharge it every night, which makes it a lot more convenient.

The Powerstation comes in four colors — space grey, gold, rose gold, and white — while the Powerstation XL is offered in space gray, gold, and rose gold. Built with three USB outputs, the Powerstation XXL is the largest-capacity universal battery from Mophie, to date, and is offered in space gray and rose gold. The new Powerstation family is currently available at Mophie.com starting at $30. That’s a big discount compared to previous models, which started at $60. I liked these the most, as they can recharge my phone multiple times and don’t take up a ton of space.