Mophie Juice Pack Air Review

There are quite a few options nowa days for extending battery life for iPhones: you can now choose from three broad categories of batteries, each offered by multiple companies, and differing chiefly in pricing, physical styling, and capacity. There are backpacks and semi-cases, ugly and inconvenient snap-on battery wands such as the Dexim/RichardSolo 1800, and cabled batteries including Just Mobile’s Gum and Gum Pro.

Yet so far the most impressive looking from the get go is a combo protective case and battery charger from Mophie, called the Juice Pack Air. Mophie’s Juice Pack Air ($80) available in either black, white, red,  or purple glossy plastic, it fits snugly on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and adding a slightly more than quarter-inch lump to its rear, bringing its thickness up to about 0.75”. It also adds roughly 0.375” of height and roughly 0.15” of width to the iPhone 3G, bringing its total height up to 4.9” and width to 2.59”.

There are two ways to look at these dimensions: first, they make the Juice Pack a bit smaller than Incase’s Power Slider, which measures 0.86” thick by 2.6” wide by 5.1” tall—fractions of an inch larger in each dimension. Second, and critically, Mophie achieves this feat by diminishing the capacity of the rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery cell that’s inside.

I have personally bought 2 of these packs one for me and one for my sister and we both have nothing but great things to say about this case/combo battery charger. It greatly increases my battery life since I am always browsing the web or using battery hogging apps. I almost never have to use the iPhones actual battery, it would be almost the days end by the time the Mophie case stops charging my iPhone and my iPhones’ battery actually kicks in, but by then I’m probably already home and can plug in my phone anyhow.

In terms of protection, aside from charging my phone, the Mophie Juice Pack air provide excellent protection and cover nearly all the bezel on the iPhone providing the most surface cover. Nearly every iPhone case I have encoutered does not cover the bezel which leads to the edges being scuffed up. Furthermore since the case is so very small compared to other chargers it’s not super bulky fitting in and out of my pocket which is a huge plus for me.

If your in the market for a new case or better yet a case and battery extender then your search should start and end with the Mophie Juice Pack Air. I definitely recommend this for every iPhone owner. Mophie offers the Juice Pack Air case in a variety of colors, as well as a few other types of battery extenders for the iDevice. You can check out their lineup here, Mophie.

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