The iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini have smaller batteries than their counterparts. Most of the time, this isn’t an issue. However, sometimes, you may want more battery life than even Apple’s largest iPhone could offer. When that happens, it’s time to reach for a battery pack. You have many to choose from. Battery packs for our mobile devices have been around for years. I even have a large, rugged solar-powered battery pack. However, with MagSafe, we got a new option: just slapping a battery pack on the back of your iPhone. Sure, wireless charging is slower and less efficient than wired charging, but the convenience is enough to make these options more attractive.
I already tried out Hyper’s HyperJuice MagSafe battery pack. It’s huge, but stores a lot of juice. I also found that it can cause your iPhone to overheat, so it’ll reduce the brightness of the screen and other functions while charging. For something smaller, with tight Apple integration and no heat issues, you could instead choose Apple’s MagSafe battery pack. That’s what I did. I’ve been taking it with me, occasionally using it while I’m out, but, the truth is, I need it far less often than I thought I would. That’s part of the reason I’ve been holding off on this review for months now, I just haven’t been using it enough.
What does the Apple MagSafe battery pack offer than third party choices can’t? And is it worth it, despite the reduced battery storage and price that’s about double that of other battery packs? For some people, yes.
In This Article:
Specs
- Height: 95.80mm (2mm shorter than HyperJuice)
- Width: 64.18mm
- Depth: 11.70mm (roughly 5mm thinner than Hyperjuice)
- Weight: 114g (24g less than HyperJuice)
- Battery Storage 11Wh (7Wh less than HyperJuice)
Charging and Battery Life
While the HyperJuice charges faster, it really only reaches 80%, only about 10% more than the Apple MagSafe Charger.
Apple’s MagSafe battery pack can easily give you multi-day battery life if you’re smart about it. To absolutely maximize battery life, you can use low power mode, and only use the battery pack between about 20% and 70% of your battery. Charging past 80% is more difficult, and requires more power to fill up your batteries. You don’t need to top off your batteries, they won’t be damaged from a partial charge. In fact, constantly topping off your battery can damage it over time. Instead, only use the battery pack when your phone can quickly take on a charge, when the power is already low.
While the HyperJuice has an 18Wh battery, vs the 11Wh battery in Apple’s battery pack, it doesn’t translate to much more battery life. The HyperJuice can’t push through to charge the iPhone much higher than 80%, even with low power mode on and the phone idle. As a result, it only offers about 10% more of a charge than the Apple MagSafe battery pack, from zero.
By not being wasteful with the electricity stored in the battery pack, you can easily make Apple’s MagSafe battery pack keep your iPhone 12 or 13 mini going for two days or more. While other battery packs may offer more battery life, you just don’t need it. Whether its keeping you entertained through a flight or just helping you go off the grid on a weekend camping getaway, Apple’s MagSafe battery pack will last you long enough. Certainly long enough for a day away from the charger, which is the most likely scenario.
Design
As always, I wish Apple made these in different colors. I hate Apple’s obsession with white. Still, it’s at least a simplistic design. A gray Apple logo on the back and a single LED on the bottom next to a Lightning port are all that’s featured here.
On the back, there’s a bit of a rubberized surface along with MagSafe. The battery attaches well enough to your phone that it’ll hold your phone’s weight. In fact, it’s a better connection than Apple’s MagSafe wallet. The connection actually improves your hold on your iPhone, especially for the iPhone 12/13 mini.
Apple made this battery pack specifically for their lineup, with the iPhone 12 mini in mind. While some battery packs, like those from Mophie, forget that iPhone mini buyers may have more battery concerns, Apple knew this would be popular with iPhone 12/13 mini users. It matches up perfectly along the sides and bottom edge. This makes your phone thicker, but, as we’ve been telling Apple for years, the iPhone could stand to be a bit thicker.
The battery pack on your iPhone fits in the hand well enough to simply use your iPhone with it attached. If not for the fact that it’s better to remove it when you’re not in need of extra juice, you may even want to keep it on the back. The design is simple, but, once again, Apple did a good job matching up products within their ecosystem.
Apple-Only Features
Apple often makes features unique to their own ecosystem. Like how you can’t find the same Bluetooth capabilities on third party earbuds that you can on the AirPods. For Apple’s MagSafe charger, that’s battery life and wireless bi-directional charging.
Within the battery section of iOS, you can view how much battery life your battery pack has left. Unfortunately, this is the only way to tell how much battery life is stored in your MagSafe battery pack. The LED on the outside only displays orange or green when you plug it in to a Lightning cable or charge it via your iPhone. It’s only an indicator of whether or not the battery pack is charged or charging.
And that brings me to the second point. The iPhone can wirelessly charge your battery pack. So, if you’re out, you can use a Lightning cable to charge your iPhone, then put the battery pack on the back. Your iPhone will send excess power over to the MagSafe battery pack. Despite adding MagSafe to the AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro, the only accessory you can charge using your iPhone is this battery pack.
There are actually problems with these Apple-only features though. For example, that’s a Lightning port on the bottom of Apple’s MagSafe battery pack. Power from it is unidirectional. Apple doesn’t make any Lightning to Lightning cables, and even those made by unsupported third party vendors wouldn’t work. Lightning charging is one way. While I can use my HyperJuice battery pack to charge up my iPad, headphones, or anything else via USB-C, the MagSafe battery pack is only for an iPhone.
Too Slow from Zero?
I ran into a strange problem with this, and it’s surprising that Apple didn’t test their product in this scenario before sending it out. If you let your iPhone die completely and try to charge up from zero, you may watch your iPhone restart multiple times. This is because, as it boots up, it uses more electricity than the battery pack can give it. It assumes the battery life is too low and has to shut down. I had this happen as many as three times before it was able to finish booting up. Once it did, I had about 4% of my battery already charged.
It’s a strange problem. Apple could have identified that the device was charging and then not require a reboot. Or, it could simply wait for more of a charge before trying to start up. Either way, it was an issue I didn’t see on the HyperJuice battery pack. This is because the HyperJuice delivers more power more quickly, at the expense of heat and battery longevity. Apple’s solution definitely is the better between the two, but sometimes it leads to strange issues.
The Competition
Anker’s MagGo
There are many MagSafe battery packs here. I’ve mentioned the one I tested frequently, the Hyper HyperJuice magnetic battery pack. This one is a decent option, that costs half the price of Apple’s battery pack at $50. There’s a bit more battery power in it as well, although it’s significantly thicker.
Mophie has a thin battery pack, for $50, but it’s much too large for the iPhone 12/13 mini. In fact, their inappropriately named “snap+ juice pack mini” almost touches the cameras on the iPhone 12 Pro. You’ll see this often. Companies trying to hit that “magical” 5,000mAh mark end up making battery packs that are useless for most of the people who want them.
Belkin also makes their own charger. It has less storage than Hyper’s, but is also $40. It’s also only a little thicker than Apple’s. However, for $40, it has the least amount of power from Apple’s competitors. It might have more than Apple’s charger, with 2,500mAh vs Apple’s 1,460mAh, but without knowing the wattage, it’s hard to say if it would translate to more power going into your device. Belkin’s is compatible with the iPhone 12/13 mini, though it comes close, and may require a case to fit right on the edges.
Then there’s Anker’s battery pack. This one is $60, but you can use it to stand up your iPhone while you charge with a kick stand. Anker also has a few color options, including blue, black, white, green, and purple. Here’s the bad news though. It won’t fit on an iPhone 12/13 mini. It’s tall enough to block the camera, like Mophie’s. It’s silly, mini users are the most likely to want a battery pack, but most will simply ignore this. Anker might wonder why it’s not selling well, all while making a product that doesn’t appeal to many of their potential customers.
None will have the features that allow Apple to make their battery pack provide the optimal balance between charging and heat. Still, they’re good options, and they cost significantly less than Apple’s offering. Each one has trade-offs that make them either incompatible with the iPhone mini, or simply so thick it’s awkward to use. Frankly, they all seem to have forgotten why these are necessary: just to add a little bit of juice. People really only need an extra hour or two out of their phone for an emergency. The rest of this? The obsession with exactly 5,000mAh? It’s all senseless and ruins the product. Belkin has the right idea with their 2,500mAh battery pack, but it’s still larger than Apple’s.
Overall
I don’t know how this happened. Every single one of the companies that could compete with Apple have the schematics for the iPhone. They could easily build something just like Apple’s but with USB-C and undercut Apple on price and no one would buy Apple’s charger. Instead, they all made their battery packs in strange shapes, trying to hit some specific storage capacity that’s completely arbitrary. Anker’s would be my pick if it simply came in a size that wasn’t awkward to use on an iPhone 13 mini. Instead, it’s too big to fit and blocks the camera.
Lightning is a pain, USB-C would be much better here so you could charge with anything. Apple wanted you to be able to charge with just one cable, but, since the battery pack can be charged from the iPhone, that’s already true. Because it’s Lightning, this only works for the iPhone, and yet…
If I were to buy one battery pack right now, it would be Apple’s.
Apple’s battery pack is the only one that:
- Fits the iPhone 12/13 mini well
- Controls the battery discharge as to not overheat and damage the lifespan of your iPhone’s battery (though others claim to have overheat protection, and might)
- Still can keep your iPhone going for days.
That’s it. It would have been so easy to beat Apple on this, but those first two items are deal breakers, especially the first. It has to fit on the device you want to use it on, that’s the whole point of something like this!
If you don’t want to spend $100 for a battery pack, I have one piece of advice: don’t get a MagSafe battery pack. Just get something that can charge your iPhone. Third party battery packs that use a cable can be any size, and don’t have to worry about fitting on your iPhone. They can store far more juice as a result. They come in a variety of sizes, with some even being able to charge wirelessly or charge your Apple Watch. Hyper even has two that are also compact mirrors.
If you want something that attaches to the back of your iPhone with MagSafe, Apple’s is the best one with the fewest compromises. Unfortunately, it also costs about twice as much as the competition, at $100. Still, if this is the only way you want to charge your device on the go, it’s the best way to do it. If I had to do it all over again, I’d only get Apple’s MagSafe battery pack.