One of the biggest battles between my kids and me is around iPhone charging cables and how they seem to disappear magically. I have labeled them. I have hidden them. I have done almost everything apart from chaining them to a specific location. They seem to devour them like pasta. But times are changing. Newer smartphones now have wireless charging built into them, and I’m relishing the day when all of the smartphones in our home have wireless charging capabilities. I’m getting prepared as well by outfitting as many rooms as possible with wireless chargers. And, as luck would have it, I got my hands on two wireless charging products from Mophie, specifically, the Mophie Charge Stream Desk Stand and the Mophie Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL. (*Disclosure below.)
These two wireless charging solutions from Mophie are similar yet unique. One, the Desk Stand, allows you to charge your smartphone on your desk (obviously) while the Power Station Wireless XL offers the ability to charge your smartphone (with or without wireless charging capabilities) on the go.
Both of these wireless charging gadgets serve unique use cases, but their overarching solutions is to juice up those smartphones that gobble up batteries.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these charging solutions from Mophie. I’m going to guess that you are going to want at least one of them!
Mophie Charge Stream Desk Stand Wireless Charger
The Mophie Stream Desk Stand serves a single purpose. With its upright yet slanted design, it allows you to charge your smartphone on your desk while keeping an eye on notifications or other phone activity. It supports two modes, portrait or landscape mode. And it easily adapts to support the desired mode.
In fact, you can actually remove the charging “puck” and place it flat on your desk if that is how you want to charge. So, in reality, it supports three modes.
The Stream Desk Stand supports Qi-enabled smartphones. And, it is optimized for both Apple and Samsung Fast Charge. It can wirelessly transmit up to 10W of power which is pretty much the max that most current smartphones can handle.
Also, it is designed to be flexible enough to handle portrait and landscape charging. In the landscape mode, you slide the “puck” down to its lowest setting physically on the metal arm. But, depending on your phone, you may need to slide the puck back up to be in the center of the smartphone when using portrait mode. At least, that is what I had to do with my iPhone XS Max.
So how well does it work? Put it this way, I never leave my desk without my iPhone being fully charged, and that’s a great thing. I have an Apple iPhone case covering my iPhone, and the wireless charger works great through the case itself.
The build is solid. The stand “sticks” or at least doesn’t slide when on a desk. There is a long cord that comes out of the top of the puck or charging pad which plugs into an included wall plug. One thing to note about the wall plug, It’s a QC 2.0 wall adapter that is designed to provide optimal performance. But, don’t try to use a non-QC plug as the charger won’t work (you can use other QC plug adapters though).
Also on the cord is a magnetic part that allows for the cord to be attached to the base so that it is out of the way. This is especially helpful if you are changing the orientation of the charging pad.
And remember, you can take the charging pad/puck off to have it lay flat on a table without the need of a stand.
The angle of the charging stand is pretty much ideal so that you can see notifications or watch movies while comfortably sitting at your desk. And the charging cable is long enough to find that plug stashed far away – it’s 4.9 feet long.
The Mophie Charge Stream Desk Stand retails for $69.95 but as of this writing, is on sale on the Mophie site for $49.95. You can also pick it up on Amazon for $69.95 (but as this is a new product, I expect the price on Amazon to drop in the coming weeks).
Now let’s take a look at the Mophie Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL.
Mophie Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL
Apart from never being able to find Apple charging cables at home, another issue my family always faces is running out of battery on their smartphones. So, anytime we make an extended trip, even if for a day, I always make sure that I have a portable battery in my pocket or back (and yes, with a cable or two). But wouldn’t it be nice to leave the cables at home? Well, with the Mophie Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL, you now can!
There are multiple versions of the Powerstation Wireless portable battery available. The core point here is “wireless” which I will go into shortly. The one that I received to review is the XL version which has a 10,000 mAh battery. There is another version that has a Lightning connector (so you can use your precious Lightning cable to charge the battery). That version also has a 10,000 mAh battery. And there is the non-XL version which still has wireless charging capabilities, but has a slightly smaller battery capacity of 6,040 mAh.
All three of these Powerstation Wireless batteries have a high-output USB-A port so you can charge a smartphone that doesn’t have wireless charging capabilities or charge something like a smartwatch at the same time as charging a smartphone wirelessly.
The Powerstation Wireless batteries all can charge Qi-enabled smartphones. To activate the wireless charging, you need to simply press the button on the side and then place your smartphone on top of the battery. It will immediately start charging. The button press also shows the battery level of the Powerstation’s battery.
The wireless power output is 5W. And when you have your smartphone wirelessly charging, there is a small, white LED that turns on to indicate that it is charging. And, the circuitry allows for the battery to be plugged into the wall to recharge but also wirelessly charge your smartphone. In those occasions, priority is given first to charging the smartphone wirelessly and then charging the Powerstation’s battery itself.
The Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL has a grippy top and bottom which means that your smartphone won’t slide off and the battery stays anchored to the table. It weighs about 8.29 grams (not too heavy) but packs loads of power for recharging – something like adding an additional 48 hours for a smartphone. That’s about 2 full charges for the iPhone XS Max.
Once you remove your smartphone from the top of the Powerstation, the Powerstation will power down and not try to charge wirelessly. With my iPhone test, it doesn’t NOT turn off when the iPhone’s battery is at 100% so keep that in mind. It will continue to trickle-charge the iPhone to keep it topped off.
You recharge the Powerstation Wireless XL with the included USB-C to USB-A cable. You connect this cable to the Powerstation’s USB-C port and plugging the USB-A into a compatible wall charger. Note: Mophie does not recommend charging via a computer’s USB-A port but instead use a wall charger with at least 2.1A output.
I loved the fact that I had both my iPhone and the Mophie Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL in my pocket and didn’t need a cable to charge the iPhone. I just made sure they were both touching and was able to charge up my iPhone. The wireless charging even worked through my iPhone’s case.
Both versions of the Powerstream Wireless XL retail for $99.95 ($99.59 on Amazon because it is a new product) and the smaller Powerstream Wireless goes for $79.95 (also $79.95 on Amazon because it is new). While this may be slightly more expensive than simple portable batteries, the extra cost comes from the fact that you can wirelessly charge your smartphones. Yay! No more cables!
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The power of wireless charging is here. And I love that I no longer have to have charging cables all over my home and office. The Mophie Charge Stream Desk Stand is great for a stationary wireless charging solution and looks and works great in just about any environment. And when you are on the go, the Mophie Charge Stream Powerstation Wireless XL portable battery bring wireless charging (and corded charging) on the go with you. So you might want to pick up one of each to recharge those new smartphones!
Disclosure: I have a material connection because I received a sample of a product for consideration in preparing to review the product and write this content. I was/am not expected to return this item after my review period. All opinions within this article are my own and are typically not subject to editorial review from any 3rd party. Also, some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate” or “advertising” links. These may be automatically created or placed by me manually. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item (sometimes but not necessarily the product or service being reviewed), I will receive a small affiliate or advertising commission. More information can be found on my About page.
HTD says: I have always been a Mophie fan and have used many of their products to charge my iPhones and other devices in the past. Now, wireless charging has allowed me to forget the charging cables and has added a lot of conveniences. These two wireless charging solutions solve some crucial challenges.
