Mophie Juicepack Air: Apple Juice Defined

Mophie Juicepack Air: Apple Juice Defined
"Apple iPhone & iPod Touch"

The claim: "The world’s thinnest rechargeable battery case for iPhone 3G & iPhone 3G S. Now available, the brand new mophie ‘juice pack air™’ is designed to virtually double the time you have to Rock, Talk, Surf and Send with your iPhone 3G or 3G S. The juice pack air™ is a rechargeable external battery concealed inside of a protective form-fitting case for the iPhone 3G & iPhone 3G S. It offers you the full protection of a hard-shell case while providing virtually twice the battery life of the iPhone alone; all in an ultra-thin, light-weight, low-profile design. The juice pack air™ is available exclusively through mophie.com and Apple stores world-wide. This is the first Apple certified “Works With iPhone 3G” attached battery in the world!"

The hardware: Packaged in a slim plastic shell, the Juicepack Air from Mophie offers protection and claims to double the battery life of the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but we all know how battery life claims work. Is this the one you should believe? Well, actually, I'm not telling you yet. Read on!

The details: When you open the box, you can tell one thing right away: the Juicepack Air is meticulously designed to fit the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The black model (the one I had) matches the plastic nicely and doesn't look out of place when clipped on. It comes in two pieces; the top half goes over the headphones, sleep switch, volume controls and silent switch. You can see those in the photo above. Below, you get a good feel for the bottom of the Juicepack Air.

The design remains clean on the bottom. A MicroUSB (not a mini; figures, I have 3,000 mini cables) and a power switch to turn off the battery. Doing so will turn the Juicepack Air into a standard case that does one heck of a job protecting the scratchable bits on the iPhone. A very nice feature is that you don't have to remove the iPhone from the case to charge it. You can simply plug the other end of the included MicroUSB connector into your computer and voila: charging and synching while inside the case. On the back is a button you can press and four LED lights will tell you how much of a charge is left in the battery pack.
so now you know what it looks like. Does it work?

The verdict: I'm not going to lie. I didn't perform exhaustive battery tests on the Juicepack Air. Instead, for about a month, I used it nearly daily. I used it to supplement my battery, and I used it to recharge a dead iPhone. In all cases it performed better than I expected.

Typically with my 3GS, the battery will be half dead by 3:30 or 4:00 (I take it off the charger at about 7:00 in the morning). With the Juicepack on, the battery easily made it a whole day with only approximately 20 percent battery loss total. To me, that's worth it. Mathematically it isn't a doubling of battery capacity, but it's a gigantic improvement.

If your iPhone dies, the Juicepack can recharge it from the dead, but doing so basically means you can't use the Juicepack until you get some juice back into it. That means finding a USB port somewhere because it doesn't come with an AC adapter, something you can easily buy online for a few bucks if you want to have it along with you.

Overall, the Juicepack is great. It's a tad expensive, but if you measure its price against the frustration you feel when your battery dies, it's a small price to pay. I'm glad I got a chance to try one out and would highly recommend it if your battery just isn't lasting the day.

Where to buy: The Mophie Juicepack Air is available in Apple Retail Stores and in various online stores, as well as from Mophie directly for $79.95.

Editor's note: I used press images for this review only because every photo I took of the Juicepack Air came out terribly bad. Rather than spend all night trying to come up with better pictures, I just used stock ones. I apologize if I've offended any of you!

Posted in: apple,IPhone,iPhone 3G,iPhone 3GS,ipod,ipod touch,software review