Mophie: Bad or Good?

[AndyR757]

I recently bought a mophie air pack for my iPhone 5 so I could have more battery on the go. As I've read reviews of them everywhere people are saying that the cases die after a month and are just bad. Should I just return mine now and save the hassle?

 

[frozentoast]

They offer a standard 30–day return policy including 1 year warranty on all products. Enjoy your Mophie case and try not to diagnose yourself with others’ problems.

 

[maflynn]

My wife has a Mophie for her iPhone 5. Its going on a year old, and the battery is not lasting very long. In fact she blames the case for draining her main battery faster.

A quick search here and google seems to support that idea to some degree.

She will (nor I) will ever buy another one of these, first because it doesn't last that long and second because it drains the main battery

 

[ECUSnare]

I have two- the Helium and the Air. I accidentally ran the helium through the washer and dryer last week, but it still holds a charge. I tested by plugging in my phone for about 5 seconds. I'm scared to do it more than that though because I'd rather not ruin my phone.

The air is great. I don't use it on a regular basis, but if I'm going to be out for the whole day or if I'm going out of town I take it with me just to use it as a charger. I like slimmer and lighter cases but it's great as a backup when you need that extra juice (and who doesn't with how iOS 8 is, right?).

 

[Iphonedai]

In honesty, i think mophie is great, if your phone has like 1% battery and you can continuously charge. What i feel happen a lot however (including myself), is turning mophie on and using the phone at the same time. I really feel doing that kills the battery though, had to change mine out after the first year.

 

[Supermallet]

The Wirecutter recommends the Lenmark Meridian due to its large capacity, fast charging times, and long term ability to hold a charge.

They had this to say about Mophie:

Mophie is the top seed of this product category, but there’s no good reason to get a Mophie Juice Pack over the Lenmar Meridian. While their Juice Pack series of iPhone 5 battery cases is pretty impressive, none of them can match the Meridian’s price and performance. Even their flagship model, the just-released Juice Pack Plus, only has a 2,100 mAh battery—that’s still 200 fewer than in the Meridian. Besides not being able to charge as well, the Plus costs $120, or $65 more than the Meridian. The Plus gets points for having integrated buttons that make it easy to operate the phone with the case on, but the price hike and second-place performance make it a much worse value than the Meridian.

Mophie also has two other cases: the Helium and the Air, which have 1,500 mAh and 1,700 mAh batteries respectively. The Air costs $100 and the Helium is $70, but because they can’t come close to fully recharging an iPhone, we wouldn’t recommend either to anyone who needs really extended battery life.

Their newest addition, the Mophie Space Pack, packs the same 1,700 mAh battery as the Air and 16 or 32 GB of extra space. Reviews, like this one at TechCrunch, say it’s basically a souped-up Air. We already don’t recommend the Air, and without some seriously glowing reviews, the Space Pack is no different: For $95 more than the Meridian, you’re paying for a worse case and some extra space. That’s just not worth it.

 

[mdlooker]

I've always kept the morphine off until my regular battery reached 1-2%. After I cut it on, I always let it get a full charge then recharge the case by itself. Probably a round about way of doing things but I wanted to ensure I'm truly seeing how much help it was giving my phone. It was okay but like all batteries, they drain after a while.

You can probably return your case within a year if you find that it's not holding its full charge but I'd hardly think its not proving any additional life to your phone. Your call.