Best wireless chargers
Here’s what to look for when picking out a charger for your iPhone, AirPods or Apple Watch. Jason Cross reports
Over the past few years wireless charging has gone from novelty concept to being a conventional function of any modern iPhone. We won’t pretend that wireless charging is always an ideal substitute for plugging in, but it’s a very hassle-free way to keep your phone topped off throughout the day. Freed from the bother of plugging and unplugging, a wireless charger on your desk is as good a place as any to set your phone, knowing the battery is being steadily replenished, and ready for your next outing. A wireless charger by your bed makes it easy to grab and go in the morning, or just to ‘check one thing’ without fussing with the lightning cable. We’ve tested a wide range of different wireless chargers. Here are our favourites.
AIRPOWER TERMINATED
On 29 March 2019, Apple officially acknowledged that AirPower will never see the light of day. The wireless charging mat was announced in the autumn of 2017 and was expected to be released early in 2018. It was an attempt to do something no other
wireless charging pad can: charge up to three devices on a single pad of different shapes and sizes. Apple simply couldn’t get it to work reliably.
“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project,” said Apple hardware engineering chief Dan Riccio in a statement. “We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.”
Now, your only option to use the wireless charging capability of your iPhone or the AirPods Wireless Charging Case is to buy a third-party Qi-compatible product, like the ones in this buying guide.
THE BEST WIRELESS CHARGERS
Wireless chargers tend to come in three variants: stands, pads and multidevice chargers. A pad is great for your bed-side table or lying inconspicuously on your desk, but there are times when a stand makes more sense. In particular, they’re useful for iPhones with Face ID, as a good stand with a steep angle will point your phone at your face enough for Face ID to work. This makes it a lot easier to unlock your phone to quickly check something without taking it off the charger.
Stands are great for reading your phone while it charges, but sometimes you want it to lie flat. It’s less conspicuous on your desk or bedside table, and easier to just plop it down in any direction. Wireless charging pads tend to be a little less expensive than stands, too.
Now that AirPods have an optional wireless charging case and the Apple Watch is so popular, we’ve also seen an explosion of 2-in-1 and 3-in-1 chargers meant to charge several Apple devices at once.
These are our picks for the best pad, stand, and multi-device charger, but there are a great many such products out there; you may find a different device at a different price better suits your priorities.
LOGITECH POWERED 3-IN-1 DOCK
Price: £139 from fave.co/374TDUJ Most iPhone users don’t really need a 3-in-1 wireless charging dock. It’s only of use if you have an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods with the wireless charging case, and you really want to charge them all in the same place.
If you want something clean and simple to put on your bedside table
or desk to charge all that stuff at once, Logitech’s Powered 3-in-1 dock is a quality solution, though at £139, it’s going to cost you.
The dock is a little on the large side, but with clean lines and a nice matte finish that keeps it from being an eyesore. It also includes its own Apple Watch charger – many similar docks require you to insert your own.
The steep angle of the phone stand make it easy to use your handset while it charges, and is well-placed to ensure Face ID works without requiring you to pick up your phone. The wide flat area to the left of the stand can charge any Qi-compatible device, including other phones or AirPods (with wireless charging case).
I had no trouble charging my phone with a thick case on it, either on the stand or the pad area. And you don’t have to be too precise with the placement, either. The charging lights are tiny and dim, so as not to be distracting next to your bed at night.
The charging cable is a proprietary DC barrel connector, which is more annoying than USB-C or Micro-USB, but not uncommon on these multi-device chargers. The cable at least is thin and flexible, with a nice matte finish, and a built-in cable management tie.
Logitech basically gets everything right about a dock that combines an iPhone charging stand, Apple Watch charger and charging pad for AirPods (or other devices). The only real gripe I have is the price. If you see it listed for less than £100, it’s a good buy. Otherwise, there are other options that might not be quite as nice, but are a lot easier on the wallet.
MOSHI OTTO Q
Price: £44 from fave.co/3fxKAPM Moshi’s Otto Q is meant to look like furniture. Moshi says it’s “inspired
by Danish furniture” and the name is meant to invoke its purpose: an ottoman for your phone with Qi wireless charging.
That might be a bit of a stretch, but the subdued grey fabric and slim profile does look good on almost any end table or nightstand.
The charger uses a USB-C connection (yay) and Moshi supplies a USB-A to USB-C cable (yay) that is about a foot shorter than it really should be (boo). The price –
£44 – is reasonable but as there is no power adapter included, you’ll have to either use one of the many USB-A power adapter you probably have lying around or add the price of buying a new one.
With the right adapter (one with 9-volt output like most Quick Charge adapters), the pad supports fast 7.5-watt charging for iPhones and 10-watt charging for supported Android phones. In fact, Moshi says it has been tested to be the fastest wireless charger by the German magazine Mac&I. I don’t know about that (we don’t test charging speed of all wireless chargers), but it definitely charged up my iPhone 11 Pro quickly and reliably, even with a relatively thick case on it.
This is a great wireless charger, it just needs to cost a little less given that it doesn’t come with a power adaptere.
BELKIN BOOST CHARGE WIRELESS CHARGING STAND
Price: £29 from fave.co/2UZgmfp Belkin’s Boost Up wireless charging stand always worked well, but we weren’t really fans of its high price and proprietary AC adaptor. Also, it was sort of ugly.
With the new Boost Charge wireless charging stand, Belkin has made a couple of welcome tweaks. Instead of a proprietary power adapter that ends in a barrel plug, it uses a standard USB power adapter with Micro-USB cable. That’s a great shift – there’s no real need for devices like this to give us yet another cable and plug we can’t use with any of our other gear.
Unfortunately, the design is nearly identical. A couple of small LED charging indicator lights are gone, and the finish is matte instead of glossy, but that weird retro-future circular pod design is the same as it ever was. It’s comfortable and easy, but it doesn’t exactly look good on your desk.
The stand supports 7.5watt charging on iPhones, so you get the fastest charging available. I had no trouble getting a solid charging connection with a relatively thick case on my iPhone XS Max, too. The price is a lot more reasonable this time around at £29. That’s still more than we’d like to pay for a basic plastic wireless charger, but it’s a lot more reasonable.
MOPHIE DUAL WIRELESS CHARGING PAD
Price: £79 from fave.co/3nNogVs The closest we may get to the longlost AirPower experience may be something like Mophie’s 3-in-1 wireless charging pad, which has a spot for your phone, AirPods, and Apple Watch. That charger, and many others like it, are not quite the ‘place anything anywhere’ experience that AirPower was going for, but it’s the next best thing.
With Mophie’s Dual Wireless Charging Pad, the company obviously took the base of its 3-in-1 pad and put it in a different shell to make a charging pad that can charge two phones, or a phone and AirPods, at once. It’s available exclusively from Mophie and Apple, but the company makes a slightly more squarish-shaped version with a soft felt top surface that you can buy on Amazon for the same price. Beyond those cosmetic differences, it seems functionally identical.
For its intended purpose, it works well enough. Place two phones (or AirPods with the wireless charging case) on either side and they charge reliably. It supports Apple’s 7.5watt charging rate and I successfully charged phones with average-sized cases on them.
There are two annoyances, however. First, as with many other Mophie products, the pad is powered by a rather large wall wart and a proprietary barrel connector. Either Micro-USB or USB-C would be preferred. Second, there are two distinct charging spots, clearly marked with a thin silver line, and you have to be quite particular about placing your devices right on them. Put them in the middle, and they won’t charge.
When charging a single phone, I found myself often readjusting my placement in order to get the phone to start charging. That’s not what you want in any wireless charging pad; you want to drop it down and get a reliable charge. When charging two devices, one’s natural tendency to place them apart makes it easier to be ‘casually accurate’. You may think this is fine, because you’ll have your AirPods on one side all the time,
but there’s no little divot for their placement like there is on Mophie’s 3-in-1 charger, and I found myself sometimes knocking them out of alignment by accident.
The dual-charging pad has an extra USB-A port in the back. If I had to guess, I’d say this is the circuit for the Apple Watch charging pad in the 3-in-1, rerouted to a USB-A plug. This lets you plug in another cable, such as your Apple Watch charger, when necessary.
If you have a side table, kitchen counter, or some other area where multiple people often place their phones to charge at the same time, this is a good solution. It’s a single, elegant, attractive pad that easily charges two phones at once with a port for another when needed. I think most wireless charging pads sit on desks or bedside tables where they are used by a single individual, and this is not the best solution for that.
ANKER POWERWAVE 7.5 STAND
Price: £25 from fave.co/3nVjuW2 Anker’s new PowerWave products greatly improve quality over its older wireless chargers.
The new stand looks good. A small blue charge indicator on the front is subtle enough to use on your bedside table. The angle is steep enough to make it suitable for unlocking your iPhone X with Face ID while your phone is resting on your desk.
Anker includes a Quick Charge 3.0 compatible power adapter and a matching Micro-USB cable. The charger supports 7.5-watt charging on Apple devices and the 10-watt fast charge mode on the latest Samsung flagship phones.
The power coils inside cover the entire back of the stand, so we had no trouble charging our iPhones in either
portrait or landscape orientation. A little cooling fan blows air out a vent in the rear to keep the charge coils cool, which keeps the charge rate from slowing down. If it’s especially quiet and you put your ear up next to it, you can hear the gentle whirring sound.
SAMSUNG FAST CHARGE WIRELESS STAND
Price: £34 from fave.co/33gGVRy Like its flat charging pad cousin, Samsung’s fast-charging wireless stand isn’t much of a looker. The round shape is all wrong for a stand, as it sticks out awkwardly to the sides when you put your rectangular phone on it. Still, at least it loses the clear plastic coating in favour of a uniform glossy black finish.
This stand is a good deal at around £34. It supports fast charging and it comes with a Micro-USB adapter that’s powerful enough to enable it. There’s even a little fan inside that keeps the charging coils cool. Don’t worry, you can’t hear it unless you really strain in a very quiet room.
The angle is appropriate for activating Face ID, and the stand resists tipping well enough that a little gentle phone use won’t
cause it to wobble.