On a scale of 1 to 10, the Mophie Juicepack for gen. 1 iPhones stinks of fallibility.
Wow. That sounds harsh. I actually think the Mophie Juicepack is a really cool gadget. Basically it’s an external battery for your iPhone. The product design is fantastic – it’s got a black, slightly rubberized, really high quality feeling to it. The colors (black outside, green inside) look sharp, and it has a neat light-up battery meter. Sol got one for his 3G iPhone and loves it. Loves it. (I sent a message to Mophie prior to publishing this review, but they’ve declined to comment. )
Once I saw his, I knew I wanted one also. When your phone is starting to run down mid-day, just pop it into the Juice Pack and boom – you get at least another 3 hours or so out of your phone, and you’re still totally mobile. Sounds great right? Well, it is great. When it works.
My first Mophie Juicepack was a dud. A lemon. It didn’t work. I charged it up over night (using a regular 10
pin iPod cable) and the following day, after my phone was about half dead, I popped it into the Juicepack. Immediately I heard the little upbeat “ping” noise that means the phone is charging. Sweet. Until 4 seconds later, I heard the downbeat “pong” noise that means you’ve just unplugged your iPhone. Weak sauce.
Basically, the iPhone would find the power source, ping the connection, show the “charging” icon with the lightning bolt, and then lose the connection and stop charging. Naturally I called tech support, and they were honestly great. The guy I spoke with had me run through some crazy diagnostics, including sticking a butter knife in the connector (it was pretty sweet) to test whether it just needed a reset. But the test and reset did not fix the problem, so the Mophie guys sent me out a replacement. It came in two days. I have no complaints on tech support, they were stellar.
Sadly, the new one didn’t do a whole lot better. It has a slightly less severe, but even more annoying version, of the same exact problem. What happens is this: I plug in the iPhone. “Ping” goes the connection and BOOM! we’re charging. Awesome. Until 30 seconds or so goes by, and the phone “pongs” because it lost the connection. For 5 seconds. Then “ping” we’re charging again. In the 3 hours I had my iPhone plugged into the Mophie Juicepack, it connected, disconnected, and then reconnected no less than 81 times. I kept count for a while, but got bored. Do you have any idea how distracting it is to hear your phone going “ping,” “pong,” “ping” in your pocket over and over again? “Gee David, why not just turn it on silent?” Nice try. Vibrating in your pocket ever 15-20 seconds is, if anything, even worse than pinging and ponging. I had the one of the most annoying, distracting, frustrating dinners of all time on Friday with my damn iPhone buzzing on and off every quarter minute.
Now, as I said, Sol has one of these for the 3G and loves it. And the new “Air” Juicepack for 3G’s looks sweet as well. So maybe just the Gen. 1 version has quality 
control issues. The look, style, and feel of this device is so cool, but the performance on two in a row was awful. And at $99 (a damn hefty price for an accessory) I’d expect solid, reliable performance. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt on the first failure. But two in a row is two too many for me. If I were forced to give the Mophie Juicepack for gen. 1 iPhones a numeric rating between 1 and 10, it’s a 3 for me. Outstanding marks for design, dismal scores for quality assurance and performance. Below is a 12second video of the Juicepack in action.
Mophie Juicepack for Gen. 1 iPhone on 12seconds.tv
{ 1 } Comments
Sounds like a cool add-on, but at a price of $99, I would surely be thinking twice before grabbing one, even if it worked perfectly. I guess it all depends on what type of user you are (out in the field vs in the office).
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