Review 121: 10.07.2021 at 08:00 pm
If you’re looking for a magsafe powerbank to charge your phone without having a cable dangling down, there are thankfully lots of options to choose from now, but unfortunately most are rebranded products from China with exaggerated misleading specs and fake reviews.
So I dedicated to buy 4 of the most popular or interesting ones and put them head to head in every test that matters, so we’ll be going over all of that including how fast they will charge and how much charge you’ll actually get from each one, and at the end I’ll tell you which one you should buy.
Unfortunately Anker keeps pushing their PowerCore magnetic power bank’s shipping date so I couldn’t include it but based on the info I gathered from reviews, compared to these, I wouldn’t buy the Anker anyway and I’ll explain why. and since all but the HyperPower can be purchased under a variety of names, I will be making my own names so you’ll easily know which is which in each test.
Let’s start out with Big Grey at $35:
This is the only one that advertises 10,000 mah of capacity even though it’s almost the same as the previous 5,000 I showed off, so we’ll see how much it actually has.
This thing feels solid in the hand and has a raised rubber pad and alignment magnet which provides a fairly strong connection that doesn’t easily twist. We have a power button to turn on  charging and a set of LED lights to show battery life and a usb-c port for two way charging just like each power bank I tested.
With that, Big grey is the only one that also has a USB-A port which can be handy if you only have an older usb cable to use and it can actually power 3 devices at once.
With that, you can also use it to replace a wireless charger since it can charge your phone and itself at the same time, and then just take it with you as you need it, which 3 of these 4 power banks can actually do.
The next one I name Kickstand:
Since its the only one with a kickstand so you can  prop up while it’s attached and charging your phone.
It’s $34 bucks and is thinner than big grey but also taller so it ends up having the biggest overall footprint, and since it sits flush with your phone it’s the only one that won’t properly work with a 12 mini.
Kickstand has a second trick that no other magnetic power bank has and that’s a lightning port port in addition to usb-c which can be used to charge the bank but not your phone.
Its rated at 5000 mah rating just like next one Hyper Power, and also the Anker.It also has by far the strongest magnet which is almost too strong, but unfortunately since the bottom uses a really slick plastic material it constantly twists on the body which is super annoying to me since it never sits straight, and with the iPhone 12 it rubs against the camera bump causing plastic to be shaved off.
The whole thing feels cheap and the kickstand is flimsy so it seems like it won’t last long and will end up breaking off.
The next one is the only one that doesn’t just get rebranded and sold, the HyperPower.
Its $40 and definitely seems like a brand name product based on the design and quality plastic used. Its on the smaller side but definitely thick, and the bottom is a softer plastic but not rubbery.
Hyperpower does have an alignment magnet but its not very strong, so its easy to twist the power bank, and in general this one has the weakest magnets overall , so sometimes if you drop your phone into your pocket it can detach which the others don’t.
And our last one is Blue Mini , which is by far the smallest one, being just as thin as kickstand but with a tiny footprint which works perfectly for the 12 mini. Not only that but its the cheapest one as well at only $27, and the only one with a full really grippy rubber back so its resistant to twisting.
Even though its by far the smallest out of the group its magnet is the second strongest out of the bunch. I was actually surprised that its battery rating is just slightly less than the previous two at 4200mah but we’ll see if that’s actually true, and its the only one that can’t pass through charging.
Surprisingly, Blue Mini actually accepts the most actual power at 16.7 watts and because the battery is the smallest it will charge fairly quickly. Big Grey and Kickstand both accept 16.4 watts so just slightly less, but of course Kickstand also has a lightning port which maxes out at 9.7watts so don’t use it if you want fast charging.
The slowest charging bank magsafe bank is the only name brand one, Hyper:
At 10 real world Watts through USB-C so it will take the longest to charge up, and with that, if you  want to charge an iPhone from that usb-c port its also the slowest at only 8watts for some reason.
The rest of the power banks output 10.4 watts to an iPhone and the only one with a usb-a port can output 4.8 watts through that one, atleast to an iPhone.
One thing that really gets to me is a ton of these brands advertise 15 watts of wireless charging when that’s simply not true when used with an iPhone which can accept at most 7.5 watts, so I decided to test what they actually get.
Let’s start with the most disappointing one, the Blue Mini:
Even though it accepts the most  through usb-c it only wirelessly charged at about 3.5 watts after efficiency loss,  which is most likely based 5 watts rated spec which is what Ankers is also Rated.
Big Grey showed 6 watts which is better, and Hyper and Kickstand showed 7 watts which is likely 7.5 rated wattage. Of course wattage can vary as you go on , so lets take a look at what our actual charging time are and how much each phone can charge.
For my testing I used an iPhone 12 which is by far the most popular new iPhone, but the 12 Pro should charge exactly the same since it has the same battery. I’ll comment on 12 mini and 12 Pro max in a little bit.
I made sure the iPhone 12 was completely drained and attached each battery to see how long they would take to turn your phone back on which is always a frustrating wait.
Big Grey took 4 min and 20 seconds to start the phone, Kickstand took a much longer 6 min, Hyper was the quickest at only 3min and 15 seconds and Blue Mini took 5min and 30 seconds. After 15 min Blue Mini only hit 6% charge which was disappointing after 15min of waiting. Big grey managed 9% which is right in line with my desktop qi charger, and surprisingly hyper and kickstand charged at double Blue Mini’s rate at 12% after 15min.
At the 30min mark, all chargers about doubled their charge rate with the Mini blue hitting 13% which the two others pretty much hit in the first 15.
Let’s skip over 45min and jump to the 1 hour mark. Hyper and Kickstand both reach the same 42%  which isn’t impressive but is still faster than my desktop chargers  which reach the same speed as Big Grey at 35% and Blue mini is slightly behind at 28%.
🤡 Influential! hhhh hhhh hhhh
Jumping to the 1 and a half hour mark, which is where wired fast charging would have fully charged the iPhone 12, our two faster chargers hit 60%. Big Grey now hit at 53% at Blue mini a sad 42%.
After 2 to 2.5 hours some chargers started to just slow down while others like mini blue hyper ran out of power.
Mini Blue ended up only charging our iPhone 12 to 68%, and where Hyper charged to 85% in the same time.
Kickstand slowed down but kept going for another half hour where it died after reaching 95%Big Grey kinda stalled between 2.5 to 3 hours staying around 80% even though  optimized charging was turned off, and then it sped up slightly and kept going until 4 hours where it fully charged our phone, being the only one to hit 100%.
🤡 Ooh, But not only that!
Yes, it was still showing charge, so I drained my iPhone 12  for the fifth time and started charging again, and believe it or not it ended up charging it another 50% where the others couldn’t even do 100% once.
Now does it actually have 10,000 Mah’s of capacity like the listing? I’m not so sure, especially since the listing also shows somewhere around 7000 as a note at the bottom.
Taking the percentage of charge each battery bank provided and doing the math based on the 12’s battery shows that big grey provides a real world charge of 4200 Mah’s once we account for loss due to heat and other factors.
Kickstand provided 2675mahs’s and Hyper 2400mah’s, and Blue mini only 1915 Mahs, meaning it wouldn’t even fully charge a 12 mini.
Based on the test results you would think big grey is probably the one to buy, since it can actually charge your phone all the way, and it has passthrough charging and multiple outputs as well with a decent magnetic connection, and you may be right since its my #2 choice.
It’s definitely the heaviest and chunkiest one and it’s also daily slow!
so if you’re planning to charge your phone while using it, its going the be very uncomfortable after a while, so I’m personally not a fan of it since its just so heavy to use this way.
And even though Blue Mini has the least features and is by far the slowest, its actually my favorite because of how small and lightweight it is. I can easily keep it on my phone while using it as it doesn’t add much bulk and doesn’t slip off, so I use it to keep my battery
from draining and slowly charge it.
I’m not a fan of the other two even though they charge fast because they come off easily, arent very comfortable, and also don’t give you a full charge, and the same thing goes for Ankers bank based on reviews.
But you guys let me know what you think in our Mail, otto.magazine@otto.ma, which charger would fit your personal needs better and why?
This has been OTTO, and I’ll see you in the next review.🤝