My Mophie Juice Pack Air arrived yesterday, much to my excitement. I was kinda bored, so I thought very briefly about doing a traditional unboxing, but nixed this idea in about a nanosecond. Not only do my hands shake enough that taking a multitude of legible, good pictures with my iPhone camera is a daunting prospect, but also, as excited as I am to get an external battery pack, I’d be snapping pictures of an (admittedly impressively small) shipping box full of bubble wrap with another box in it with some more packing material in it before I even got to the cream filling case. That being said, I did snap some usable pictures, and include the link to the Flickr photoset here. Some brief thoughts…
Size and Weight
It’s certainly heavier than my last no-name case (two transparent pieces of plastic that snapped together), and I would expect it to be, given that there’s a battery hidden inside it that’s supposed to double the capacity of the phone’s internal power supply. My phone went from feeling like it weighed nothing to feeling like it weighed (a very little) something. That doesn’t seem to be too much of a tradeoff. In terms of extra height, width, and depth, the added mass is certainly noticeable, but not in a bad way. The added width does not make the phone awkward to hold, especially as the long sides of the case are curved and tapered, creating a nice grip and presenting a very thin edge around the front of the phone. Similarly, very little thickness is added to the top, no more than the length of the average well-trimmed male finger nail. On the bottom (below the iPhone’s button) there is at most 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick.
Overall, while there’s a noticeable increase in dimensions and weight, it’s so small (and so well done) that I very much doubt you wouldn’t be able to get used to it and forget about fairly quickly. Unless you tend to wear very tight fitting leather pants and need every extra quarter of an inch of pocket-space, it shouldn’t be a problem at all.
Handling
As I previously said, the shape of the case gives it a nice, comfortable fit in the hand, and some people might actually find the extra mass gives them a chance to get a better grip on the phone. Which is, I’m afraid, where one of my minor quibbles with the device comes into play. Whatever material they used to make the case, it feels a bit slick. I haven’t had it slip out of my hand yet, but the texture is smooth enough that I find myself self-consciously making sure it’s not going anywhere when I pick it up. I think this is probably something you get used to.
Appearance, Controls and Indicators
I really like the clean aesthetic. There are no buttons or indicators on the front, and the front facing Mophie logo is unobtrusive. On the back you’ll find four very bright blue power indicator LEDs, and a button next to them to toggle them on and off when the device isn’t charging. The standby switch on the bottom is very easy to flip with a fingernail or the pad of your finger, and tight enough that it can’t be easily accidentally moved. I’m sure, being a mechanical moving part, the switch would eventually wear down and loosen up, but I doubt very much this would happen during the case’s operational lifetime.
My other minor quibble is with the way the power indicator works in standby mode (e.g.: with the battery turned off) when the phone is in the case and the case is plugged into its charging/syncing cable. When I make a phone call, I notice the rightmost blue LED begin to blink, as if charging. From my understanding, in standby mode the battery should be out of the circuit and the case’s charing cable should be charging the iPhone’s internal battery. Perhaps that’s what the blue blinking light is telling me is happening, but since the LED also blinks when the Mophie is charging, this is ambiguous and a bit confusing.
Overall
Barring some unforeseen major flaw, I can’t recommend this enough. I’m very happy with its small footprint and simple operation, and once I get used to the plastic’s texture and figure out exactly how the LEDs in the back work, I won’t have anything to complain about.
Sidenote: Right now, when you register your Mophie product on their website, you get a 20% off coupon for your next purchase of anything from their store. I’m not sure how long this promo lasts.
Edit: My Flickr plugin isn’t working the way I want it to. Until I get it fixed, here’s a link to the photos.
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