The Dog & Bone Backbone is the perfect case for the slightly clumsy who hates cables. We’re in “woof” with this Qi Wireless charging case!
[toggle title=”Watch the FULL Dog & Bone Backbone Review on YouTube”][/toggle] The Dog & Bone Backbone wireless charging case using the Qi charging standard to provide power to your iPhone 5 or 5S. The Backbone features a modular design so if you’re looking for spare power, you can swap out the wireless charging accessory with a Dog & Bone spare battery pack.
The Backbone simplifies the process of charging as you don’t have to deal with cables and on top of it all, the case will protect your iPhone from drops up to 4 ft which means that you won’t have to worry about your iPhone if it tumbles off your desk or having it fall out of your pocket.
However, we realized that during our Dog & Bone Backbone review period that all this flexibility and Qi wireless charging for the iPhone may not warrant the high price that Dog & Bone is asking for this iPhone case. At the time of writing, when we received the Backbone was $140 dollars (Dog & Bones website was showing $110) so this iPhone case is pretty expensive so having multiple Backbone charging stations might not be feasible for the person on a budget. If you’re looking to utilize the spare battery that Dog & Bone offers, the entire setup will cost almost $200 dollars. The high price of this case may be a big deterrent for those looking to buy this case.
Now given the high price of the Backbone wireless charging iPhone case, you would expect the case to work with an iPhone charger but we didn’t have such luck. The Qi charger would only charge the iPhone for a few minutes before turning off. Now we did contact Dog & Bone and they’ve assured us that they’ve tested the Backbone using the 1.2 Amp chargers of the iPhones. We have no other way of verifying this so we’re giving Dog & Bone the benefit of the doubt.
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Design – We’re big fans of the Dog & Bone Backbone’s modularity
The Backbone Qi Charging case for the iPhone 5 and 5s is well designed. The swappable Qi charging component with a spare battery pack is very functional which allows the Backbone to stay fairly slim when compared to other cases with similar functionality.
Installing the case is fairly simple and removing the accessories of the case is simple as well. The only thing that we will mention is the rigid plastic of the removable wireless charging accessory did snap on one of our drop tests. Now, we do put our cases through more than your average reviewer so we believe that this would be an isolated incident.[divider][/divider]
Protection – It will protect your iPhone from life’s bumps and little drops
For our Dog & Bone Backbone Review, we had to drop the case since it’s rated to protect your iPhone from 4ft and we can attest to that. The materials that the case is made out of absorbs the impact fairly well and scuffing on the case was kept to a minimum.On one of our drops, the Qi Wireless charging accessory did pop off but that only occurred on 1 drop out of 8 drops.
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Functionality – The Backbone is going to put your iPhone in a happy, wireless place
Getting to your iPhone isn’t a problem with the Backbone. The buttons are easily accessed through the case and accessing the hardware ports is simple. Stock Apple EarPods can be used with the case without a headphone jack extension. Screen view-ability and usability don’t suffer with the case, even with the optionally installable impact resistant screen protector.
The Qi wireless charging portion of the case is fairly simple. All you have to do is line up the protective iPhone case with the charging station. There is a ridge that guides you to the right spot on the charging station.
Now, according to the instructions, the case requires a 2 amp power supply (or an iPad/iPad Air charger) so your iPhone charger won’t cut it. Dog & Bone claims that the Backbone is tested with 1.2 amp iPhone chargers so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for our Dog & Bone Backbone Review.
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Have questions about Dog & Bone Backbone Full Review? Please ask them on our Google+ page or on our Facebook page.
Genya
November 17, 2014 at 1:02 pm
This case reminds me of another case I have seen on the internet! Can you do a case review for the New Trent Trentium 6S/L and the New Trent Alixo 6S/L Cases and a possible drop/water resistance test? Thanks!
Aaron Ho
November 17, 2014 at 5:32 pm
I will see what I can do.
Vicki Franco
July 21, 2015 at 12:04 am
Dog Bone wireless charging pad keeps giving me error message that device is not compatible. Then it stops charging my phone. Have you seen this happen before. I have had my charging pad for awhile now more than 6 months and this started happening about 2 months ago. I have since started charging direct to my phone and bypassing the charging pad totally. I like the idea of the pad it makes it easy and quick to charge. But not reliable. Read in your review that Dog Bone says to use a 2 amp power supply in their instructions but confirms that the iphone 1.2 amp power supply should work also. I have been using the 1.2 amp iphone power supply with the charging pad. I do have access to the ipad 2 amp power supply so I will get that from my family when they come home and try that. Have you come up with any resolutions to this problem yet? Please let me know your thoughts on this situation. Thanks.
Aaron Ho
July 21, 2015 at 3:49 am
I didn’t have any issues like you mentioned with the accessories. Have you tried cleaning out the lightning port?
Vicki
July 21, 2015 at 10:33 pm
No I will try that. I know that I tried it with the 2.0 am power supply and it seemed to work okay. Maybe it is true about the amp needed to be higher. Thanks for getting back to me.
Mahalo,
Vicki