Who sent me? Keeping my desk free of cables is an obsession of mine, but not at any cost. There are many magnetic chargers available. However, The average price is generally between 100 and 150 dollars. Anker, which generally offers products with very good press, Belkin and other manufacturers working with official Apple licenses They offer several models with 15W Qi charging. My goal was to lower the limit price. Lower it as much as possible. In fact, the charger I bought cost me 15 dollars. And maybe I could have saved a few extra dollars with a coupon.
This is my experience after a week of use with a 5 in 1 induction charger, with an alarm clock, two types of night light, a clock, headphone charging, an Apple Watch and all types of iPhone at 15W.
What is the difference between a 150 euro charger and a 15 euro charger?
Let’s start with the basics, unpacking. Because there is not much to report here: a bag with bubble wrap wrapping a crushed box with the charger in question. It is also available on Amazon: if you are interested in this product, you will at least receive neater packaging. In, instructions in five languages (Spanish included!) and a male-to-female USB-C cable
Of course, the first thing I did as soon as I installed this charger on my desk was the obvious one: banish the three cables I had in between. The 1 meter magnetic charging cable for the Apple Watch, the official 60W USB-C charging cable for the iPhone 15 Pro, also 1 meter, and the iPad Lightning connector cable. The three total 75 dollars, and you will still need a connector to plug them into the mains.so I agree that magnetic chargers are not that expensive if you get rid of all that in exchange.
On the other hand, it must be taken into account that magnetic charging is slower and less energy efficient. And the Qi2 standard has not yet been formally adapted. A good part of these watts is transformed into thermal energy, around 35%., so it is not easy to quantify how much electricity is used to charge our devices and how much is dissipated. But we can recognize that the slower the charging on an iPhone, the less stress its battery experiences. Unless in exchange, during the exchange of energy, the iPhone supports temperatures so high that it is forced to dissipate this additional heat, slowing down the performance of the system. Ultimately, it’s about profitability.
With this lesson in mind, my goal was to get rid of cables and use this charger almost constantly. The problem is that we are faced with something problematic. Cheap is expensive, there is no doubt about it. First of all, it’s a slow charger, only 15W compared to many competitors of 25 and even 36W for almost the same price. It doesn’t include other input ports in case you want to connect something via USB and, even worse, It emits a constant buzzing sound which becomes annoying after several hours of use in close proximity
The build quality is what it is, tinted plastic that weighs little and clicks a lot. But that wouldn’t have mattered to me without the happy electric buzz that also travels through my headphones. Everything that is connected to the same outlet, whether it uses a power strip or not, becomes a transmitter of this gray noise, this murmur that I can’t get rid of.
Of course, several advantages should be highlighted: an alarm clock that you can program with two daily alarms, a pleasantly bright night light beam, really useful in the middle of the night or on any desk and, in detail, an additional light that illuminates the 15W logo, to be able to adjust it correctly in the middle of the night. They are a nice addition to the functions of this Qi charger that I haven’t even found in much more expensive solutions.
Another detail I appreciated: when I tried to charge the iPhone 15 Pro with my wireless headphones, the charge of said earphones has been exhausted
In short, we are faced with a product that is dying of ambition, not poor resolution of what it offers: he who covers a lot does little. Of course, the big difference from that other charger I was using months ago is obvious: the iPhone 15 really heats up. I detected an increase of 40ºC on the back of the phone. Thanks to the thin braided case, the official case for iPhone 15 Pro with MagSafe, this temperature dissipates more easily and consistentlyI therefore recommend its use at all times.
However, it is clear to me that using this magnetic charger in the middle of summer is counterproductive., even dangerous. I would have loved to integrate it into my office as another daily use product, for fifteen dollars I can’t ask for much more. But that won’t be possible. They come back.
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