mophie has created a battery pack that can charge virtually anything on earth, with the powerstation AC
mophie is pretty much synonymous with battery cases for smartphones. However, the company has been putting out some rather impressive battery packs as of late. After announcing the mophie powerstation USB-C XXL, it decided to go a bit bigger and announce the powerstation AC back in January ahead of CES. This newer battery pack doubles the capacity of the powerstation USB-C XXL, but adds in an AC port. Making it even more versatile for consumers to use it when traveling. The mophie powerstation AC is a pretty expensive battery pack, coming in at $199 MSRP. That’s definitely higher than most other battery packs, so is it worth the price? Let’s find out.
Hardware
If nothing else, the one thing that mophie has over its competitors is build quality. The mophie powerstation AC is a rather large battery pack, but is covered in a nice looking and feeling, fabric. Which makes this battery pack look really nice, and it does get scratched as easily as something from Anker or AUKEY which is just plastic. The size of the powerstation AC is pretty large, much larger than other battery packs of the same capacity (it has about 22,600mAh capacity), but there is a fairly good reason for that. Part of that is due to the full-sized AC port that is included here. While the actual port isn’t that large, the power needed to make it work like a traditional wall outlet, does take up quite a bit of room. Not to mention the cooling system to keep this battery pack nice and cool while it’s charging something like a laptop, or even powering something like a TV.
mophie has three ports available on the powerstation AC. There’s the USB-C port which is capable of both input and output. Which means it does USB-C Power Delivery as well. There’s a USB-A port for charging basically anything, and of course the full-sized AC port, which is under a flap on the end of the powerstation AC. There are two power buttons here, one on the side with the AC port for turning that port on, and then one above the two USB ports, which also has four LED lights to indicate how much battery capacity is left. And that’s about it for what the battery pack actually has. Otherwise, it’s just a pretty large brick, which would be better in a bag like a backpack rather than in your pocket.
Charging Experience
There’s really nothing surprising here when it comes to charging. You plug something into the AC outlet and then press the power button and it starts charging. But keep in mind, that depending on what you have plugged in, it may deplete the battery very, very quickly. Since this is only a 22,600mAh battery. It actually won’t be able to fully charge a Macbook Pro. So keep that in mind. But it is good for charging things like a camera which may not use a USB cable. The AC outlet does up to 110W, which is the speed of a Macbook Pro or other laptops.
On the USB-C side of things, it charges normally. Plug the battery pack to your smartphone or something else and it should start charging. However, you do need to double check and be sure it is charging and not being charged itself. Since the USB-C port does go both ways, there’s a chance that you plug in your smartphone to charge it, and it could end up charging the battery pack. To fix this, just press the power button above the port, and boom. Of course, the USB-A port works the same as a USB-A port on any other device. Plug in and it’ll start charging.
It’s important to note here, that there is no form of quick charging available, other than USB-C PD. And that’s something that not all smartphones have, but it will still charge your device fairly quickly. Around 2.4A, now mophie says it is “Quick Charge” but it’s not Qualcomm’s standard of Quick Charge, so if you have something like the Razer Phone that does Quick Charge 4 Plus, it won’t be able to charge that quickly on the mophie powerstation AC, but 2.4A is still pretty fast, and should do the job just fine. We did use the powerstation AC to charge the Razer Phone, and it charged it adequately fast. Not as fast as the charger that comes in the box with the phone, but still fairly fast. Of course, if you do want it to charge quicker – at Quick Charge 4 Plus speeds – you can always bring the wall charger that comes with the Razer Phone and plug it into the AC port on the powerstation AC and it’ll charge like it is plugged into the wall.
mophie powerstation AC vs powerstation USB-C XXL
These are mophie’s latest battery packs, and likely the ones that most people will be looking to compare. The mophie powerstation AC is a good one to pick up if you do a lot of traveling and need to charge things like a laptop, camera, etc. Otherwise, the powerstation USB-C XXL will be a better option. Both of these offer USB-C PD or USB-C Power Delivery, so if you have a laptop that charges over USB-C, then either will work fine. Of course the powerstation AC is a better option because of the higher capacity, but that does also come at a premium. The powerstation USB-C XXL is much smaller than the powerstation AC, not that it is surprising, since the powerstation AC is twice the capacity, but definitely worth noting.
Wrap Up
Coming in at $199, the powerstation AC is definitely an expensive battery pack from mophie, but it does have some very worthwhile features, and you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth that price or not. mophie does do a lot to make sure that its battery packs are safe, and not to put too much juice inside that could make them explode. That is definitely a good thing to think about here. And with the mophie powerstation AC, it’s a good investment, because it is future-proof. You’re looking at USB-C, USB-C PD, as well as a full-sized AC outlet and a regular USB-A port (which, even though many say that USB-C is the future, USB-A isn’t going away anytime soon). And of course, it is compatible with just about any device out there. You can pick up the powerstation AC at mophie’s online store, unfortunately it is only available there as of now.
Buy the mophie powerstation AC
