Griffin has announced a slew of new Qi Wireless Chargers at CES 2019 today in Las Vegas. There are three here, while two are your traditional wireless chargers, the third is a wireless charging power bank, allowing you to charge your phone on the go without worrying about bringing your cables with you. These will work with any Qi-compatible smartphone, which includes the latest from Samsung and LG, as well as the Google Pixel 3/3 XL, Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S/3 and many others, not to mention many smartwatches seeing as a number of them now use wireless charging instead of a proprietary method for charging.
Griffin PowerBlock Wireless Chargers
In its PowerBlock lineup, Griffin has a couple of options here. There is the wireless charging stand/pad which is a convertible one. And there is also the fast wireless charging pad. The wireless charging stand/pad is a pretty unique looking wireless charger, it’s a slightly taller wireless charging stand than you might expect, so it will cover the majority of the backside of your phone. Though this is because it does have two coils built-in. This is going to allow you to either charge your phone in landscape or portrait mode. Your phone would still be usable while on the stand, which is why it matters that you can use it in both landscape and portrait. Now you can fold the stand down so that it works as a charging pad as well. It does have an integrated LED light to let you know the status of the phone that is being charged. There is fast charging available on this one, up to 10W for Apple and Samsung smartphones, and finally it does come with its own micro USB cable.
The PowerBlock Wireless Fast Charging Pad is a circular charging pad, so you can set it down at any angle and it will start charging your phone pretty easily. This does fast wireless charging, but the difference between this and the wireless charging stand/pad above, is the fact that this can charge even faster, with speeds up to 15W. Now currently, there is only one smartphone that can do 15W wireless charging, which is the Galaxy Note9, but it is expected that many more will add the capability in the coming months and years. It of course will also work with other Qi-compatible smartphones, even those that do not use fast wireless charging, as it is backwards compatible. Griffin also has a new wireless charger and Apple Watch dock for those that also use Apple products. It is a pretty good option for charging both devices, though it would be great to see this work with Android smartwatches like the new Samsung Galaxy Watch, since it also does wireless charging.
Reserve Wireless Charging Power Bank
Perhaps the most interesting product being announced by Griffin today is the Reserve Wireless Charging Power Bank. Now this is not the first power bank to be announced with wireless charging built-in. But it is one of the smaller and more affordable ones on the market. The size here is pretty small, it’s about the same length and width as the Google Pixel 3, so it’s not too large, but not too small either. It would be great for charging your phone on a table while you are working and such. It has about 5,000mAh capacity inside, which isn’t going to last too long, especially doing wireless charging, but it will give you some extra juice when you need it. If you do need more power, faster, you can get fast charging through the USB-A port here, which will go up to 10W. Much faster than wireless charging, for when you need to power up in a few minutes. Unfortunately, this does still use micro USB for charging, and hasn’t transitioned over to USB-C just yet. Finally, it does have four LED lights on the side, so you can see how much battery capacity is left inside the power bank.
Pricing & Availability
The PowerBlock Wireless Charging Stand/Pad will be available in the second quarter of 2019, with a retail price of $39.99. Now the faster PowerBlock Wireless Fast Charging Pad will be available a bit sooner, in the first quarter of the year, with a retail price of $59.99. Finally, the Reverse Wireless Charging Power Bank will be available in the first quarter as well for just $34.99. These will be available at all of the major retailers that already sell Griffin products, that includes many carrier stores, as well as Best Buy and Amazon.