If you’re looking to get a Qi-charger for your iPhone or Android device, you’ve come to the right place! Weʼve been using a plethora of different Qi-charging pucks for months now in order to come up with our recommendation for the best Qi-charger for your smartphone!
In the past few months, we have used 8 iPhone Qi-Chargers. During those months of testing, thereʼs only one that weʼd actually recommend people on getting.
Our pick is the Anker Powerwave. We like it not because of the fast charge capability but because of the physical design. If you are curious as to why, listed down below is our reasons for choosing the Anker Powerwave.
But Anker Powerwave is not actually the fastest Qi-charger despite our liking to it. Pictek Fast Wireless Charger is actually the fastest among the bunch, click here to find out by how much.
Aside from that we also done some little testing to find out if the Micro-USB cables have something to do with the Qi-chargers charging faster.
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The Best Qi-chargers we reviewed so far (from best to worst)
Anker PowerWave 7.5 stand w/ Quick Charge 3.0
PROS:
- PowerWave has a nice design. Angle is suited for a desk setup which is way
- More useful than the normal puck setup.
- Coils are either large enough or thereʼs two to enable both portrait and landscape charging
- Comes with a charger and cable for when you get sick of Qi-charging and just need a spare charger
CONS:
- Price
- Doesnʼt charge the iPhone any quicker than a regular iPhone charger
Uolo Volt
PROS:
- Slightly raised charging surface
- Spare USB port allows for multi-device charging
- LED charging indicator is easily seen
CONS:
- Doesnʼt come with a charger
- Doesnʼt support fast charge
Pictek Fast Wireless Charger
PROS:
- Cheap
- Thin
- Large LED to indicate connection
- One of the faster chargers on this list
CONS:
- Requires itʼs own charger
- Not useful in office areas/easy to lose track of
Satechi Fast Wireless Charger
PROS:
- Fancier (has metal)
- Thinner than Belkin offering
- One of the faster chargers on the list (not as fast as Pictek)
CONS:
- Requires itʼs own charger
- Device may slide around on the charging surface
- Flat design is not useful in work areas/easy to lose track of
- Small LED charging notification area
Mophie Wireless Charging Base
PROS:
- Feels solid
- Comes with itʼs own charger
CONS:
- Expensive
- Flat design is not useful in work areas/easy to lost track of
- Slightly slower than every charger on this list
- No notification that device is charging
Belkin Boost Up Wireless Charging Pad
PROS:
Has itʼs own charger
CONS:
- Expensive
- Larger than the average Qi-charging puck
- Slightly slower than every charger on this list
- Large surface with a small charging area
- Poor LED notification that device is charging
How to pick the right qi-charger for you
Now weʼve only used 8 different types but if you go to Amazon, youʼll notice that there are dozens more. We think the first question you have to ask yourself is: Where am I going to use this Qi-charger?
If you havenʼt noticed, we prefer to have the Qi-Charger in our workspaces. So we tend to like the chargers that prop the iPhone out like the Anker and Spigen oneʼs.
In the office workspace, being able to see the notifications while sitting
normally in the desk is handy. We canʼt do this with the puck style Qi-charger. Even the ones with a slight angle to them like the Uolo and Belkin ones.
Similar to the office workspace, being able to see the device while moving around in the kitchen is handy. itʼs nice to not have to stare down at the screen for a recipe or to see what our son is doing on the Nest Cam.
The only place where we might use a flat style of charger would be on the night stand. Since we generally have no need to check the device while we sleep. But other than that, we donʼt find flat-style chargers to be terribly useful. If we’re going to place the device on a table, weʼd be better off going with a normal wired charger with better charging rates.
What is the fastest Qi-charger?
NOTE Spigen F300W only looks the fastest because all the other Qi-chargers used the iPhone’s 5W charger The Spigen F300W didn’t work with the 5W charger. In fact, Spigen F300W used a 10W charger which is why Spigen F300W is looks faster.
If charge rates matter to you, you’re better off going with a wired charger rather than a Qi-charger. On an iPhone X, a 29W MacBook charger can charge the device in 1/3 of the time when compared to a Spigen 5W F300W Qi-charger.
SEE ALSO: iPhone 8 Fast Charging – Everything you need to know
But if you really need the fastest Qi-charger, your best bet is going to be with the Pictek Fast Wireless Charger. Pictek Fast Wireless Charger is the fastest in all our charge tests by several minutes. In the grand scheme of things, we’re not sure how saving is three minutes every 3-4 hour charge cycle is going to make a difference. But at least you can say your purchase was well spent on it since there is actually an approx. ~20 minute difference between the fastest and slowest Qi-charger.
It should also be noted that the Anker products seemed a little slower than the average Qi-charger yet they are the most expensive chargers in the graph.
Does the micro-usb affect charge rates?
For this experiment, we took four cables out of our giant stash and ran multiple charge tests against them. We had a ZY branded cable for our gimbal, a Samsung branded cable, the Anker cable that came with the charging puck and a random cable from our box.
Surprisingly, the fastest cable was the random no-name cable in both test charge cycles with the fastest chargers in this list. The Samsung branded cable was next with the slowest being the fancy looking ZY branded cable. Between the slowest and fastest cables, there was a 10 min difference when charging our devices from 30-90%.
In the grand scheme of things, 10 mins per charge cycle might not be a big deal when it takes almost three hours to charge an iPhone 8 from dead. If you’re charging the iPhone overnight, this isn’t going to be a big deal but if you’re a stickler for time, 10 minutes over the span of two years would equate to ~122 hours of wasted time if you’re on your device ALL the time.
We wish we could give you guidelines on how to pick the right cable but we can’t. We literally have a box of random micro-usb cables from all the different gadgets we’ve collected over the years and they generally all look the same. This is the exact opposite of Apple’s standards for Lightning cables.
Have any questions about what we think are the BEST Qi-chargers for the iPhone 8/X and Android devices? Leave them below! Definitely SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel to stay on top of all the new things we are review!
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God of Biscuits
April 25, 2018 at 3:08 am
I don’t think the idea of wireless charging is the biggest take-home here. I mean, technically it’s not even wireless. What it does is remove most of the “modal” aspect of charging a device, in the sense that When I set my phone down in its usual place, it just *happens* to be charging while sitting there. When I put it in my pocket, there’s not a “stop charging/on-the-go” mode switch. It’s just pick my fully charged phone up in the morning and head out to work.
F
April 25, 2018 at 6:28 am
Chargers (unless they are battery-packs) do not have their “own chargers.” They have power supplies (which might also be useable as ‘chargers’ for devices with batteries).
Scott G. Lewis
April 26, 2018 at 3:55 am
I am not convinced this was a comprehensive review. ‘Coils are either large enough or thereʼs two’ — you couldn’t Google ‘Anker Powerwave coils’ and note that there are two coils? You didn’t even have to click on a result, it’s right there in Google’s summary.
Aaron Ho
April 27, 2018 at 12:59 am
Some have two. The Spigen had three to achieve the same thing. At the end of the day it didn’t matter to me because all I cared about was being able to charge my device in landscape and portrait.