A battery pack charged by MagSafe! Too good to be true?
If you want to take a bunch of your Apple gear traveling with you, you can end up tied down with cables. This battery pack, which can give any iPhone more than a full charge from its USB port, can be charged using the MagSafe 2 connector from a MacBook Air or Pro (it also has a micro-USB port for charging from elsewhere).
The manufacturer has reworked the internals so it can take high power throughput, meaning that it can be fully charged from a power outlet in 45 mins. In fact, it takes just 15 minutes to charge sufficiently in order to take an iPhone 5s from 0 to 100%. That means taking one less charging cable when traveling, as well as less time charging. It can also be used as an adapter to power a 12-inch MacBook from a MagSafe cable, since its USB port can output the 2.1A the MacBook needs (also suitable for iPad). There’s an optional car charger with a MagSafe, too.
It all worked great for us; it was fast to juice up an iPhone 6s Plus (which used about three quarters of its overall capacity), and it really does charge quickly over MagSafe. Some users have reported that it gets overly hot when charging, though we didn’t notice any issues – and it stops drawing power once it’s full, in any case.
The aluminum finish is really high-quality, though a tad on the heavy side. We’d also prefer if it were higher capacity with a second USB port – but maybe we’re just greedy.
It’s currently on sale in limited runs at the above price – expect that to go up later. Our only big concern is whether Apple will shut down sales of the device, but the manufacturer is confident that won’t happen. Time will tell.
A really great and useful portable battery pack.