Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation Review

Our family has 3 iPads, an iPad Mini, an iPhone, 2 iPod Nanos and a Macbook Pro. Forget the Adams family, we’re the Apple family! Our son has been able to operate an iPad since he was 18 months old and it has become an invaluable learning tool. It’s also a life saver in our on-the-go travel life style. Whistler is neither a stranger to air travel or road trips. The iPad is a great way to keep him occupied and happy during long trips. While the iPad does have a great battery, watching videos, opening a million apps (as he tends to do) and playing games does tend to drain the battery.

But it isn’t just the iPads – I live, breathe and work on my iPhone. Whether I’m decompressing from a long day with a mindless game of Candy Crush, or actually working from my iPhone, it’s a race between Whistler and I to see who will run down their battery first.  When we arrive at our destination, we usually hit the ground running and I simply don’t have time to re-charge everything up.

This is precisely why portable charging devices have become my best friends. There are numerous portable stations to charge up an iPhone but one capable of giving back hours of entertainment on the iPad? Those are fewer and farther in between. But, the Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation is capable of charging up both! In fact, it can charge my iPhone TWICE!

The powerful 4000 mAh external battery can take on the charging duties of any iDevice (iPhone, iPod, iPad) as well as a variety of USB enabled devices. The powerstation has an output of 2.1 amps and comes equipped with a special high-output battery that supposedly provides ultra-fast charging – up to 4 times faster than traditional USB batteries. I’ll be honest though, in my experience it takes 8+ hours to fully charge when depleted.

My favorite aspect is easily it’s size. The Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation isn’t much larger than my iPhone 5 and features a black soft-touch finish exterior, outer metal band and a four-light “invisible” LED status indicator that lets you know how much juice you have left. Another really great feature is that it can be charged from any high-current USB Port. So when outlets are few and far between (like on press trips) I can charge the Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation right from my Macbook Pro.

On my wishlist of improvements, I would like to see the product provide a complete charge to the iPad. It also does not have pass-through capability, meaning it can not charge my iPhone while it’s charging, and that would be a huge plus.