Mophie Juice Pack Helium for iPhone 5 Review
by Brian Klugon May 1, 2013 7:48 PM EST
- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Battery
- iPhone 5
- Mophie
- Juice Pack
11 Comments
|
11 Comments
Lately I have found myself doing a case review here and there, and battery cases are particularly interesting since they’re easy enough for us to test and integrate into our workflow in a unique matter. Plus, there’s never such thing as too much battery life for a device. Battery life is a big part of our smartphone reviews, and for a while now I’ve been carrying around the newly-released Mophie Juice Pack Helium case for the iPhone 5. Back in the iPhone 4S days, I had a previous generation Mophie for that form factor, and even though I ran the battery life tests, I never got around to actually writing a review of the case for whatever reason. When I saw the Helium come out for the new form factor of the iPhone 5, I decided to go for it and run it through our tests.
The Helium is built like and feels unsurprisingly similar to the previous generation of Mophie juice packs. The material in contact with the hand is a soft touch, semi rubbery material which feels like a lot of other smartphones. The iPhone slides into the case from the bottom and not the top like the previous juice packs. Interestingly enough this necessitates the presence of some electrodes which connect from the bottom of the case to the body of the case which contains the battery.
On the back, Mophie continues to include a battery charge status indicator which consists of four white LEDs, a status button, and power switch. When plugged in, the Helium no longer constantly flashes the charging status LEDs, instead only flashing it for a short time to let you know you plugged it in correctly, before stopping after 30 seconds.
Checking on charging status by tapping the button does illuminate them, but again only for a short time, so the new Mophie doesn’t keep users who put their phones face down on a nightstand for charging up all night.
On the inside of the case, Mophie has placed five rubber raised inserts around the case to put a small gap between the aluminum back and the material of the case itself, so the two aren’t completely coplanar. This is done to mitigate any potential chance of putting hairline scratches or sleeks into the back of the case from dust or dirt that finds its way in-between. I wish more cases did this instead of putting the rear of the device right against material. I should note that the Helium I took a look at was the version being shipped online, not a snap-in design which is supposedly being sold on Apple Store shelves, since Apple doesn’t want to have any chance of slide-on slide-off cases or accessories leaving deep scratches on the backside of its devices.
Gallery: Mophie Juice Pack Helium — Hardware Gallery
Since the lower end of the Helium contains the lightning connector into the iPhone and microUSB connector for charging, the bottom snap on part is correspondingly thicker at its edge. Due to that thickness, getting to the headphone jack requires a large rubber extension which has a boot and male connector at one end, female connector at the other end. If you want to use headphone output and the Helium, this is something you’ll want to keep handy.
The Helium contains a 1500 mAh battery at 3.7 V nominal, for 5.55 watt-hours of capacity. For comparison the iPhone 5 has a 1440 mAh battery with 3.8 V nominal chemistry, for 5.45 watt hours of capacity. The battery in the Mophie is in the top, longer portion of the battery back.
Subjectively the Helium does add to the size and thickness of the iPhone 5 considerably, although it isn’t any more so than previous generations.
Thickness is up, although the most noticeable dimension of change is aspect ratio. The already quite tall 16:9 iPhone 5 feels even taller thanks to the speaker chamber and charge controller lip at the bottom, but it isn’t overwhelmingly large.
I put together a table of dimensions with the Helium installed and what other information there is which is relevant.
|
Mophie Juice Pack Helium |
||||
|
|
Juice Pack Helium |
|||
|
Battery |
1500 mAh, 3.7 V, 5.55 Whr |
|||
|
Dimensions |
139.3 x 63.3 x 15.5 mm (L x W x H) |
|||
|
iPhone 5 Battery Rundown |
2.  5 Hours |
|||
|
iPhone 5 W/Mophie Rundown |
4.0 Hours |
|||
|
Mophie Charge Time |
2.3 Hours |
|||
Obviously this wouldn’t be of much value without doing a battery life test. For the Helium I decided to try something different and use the Anritsu base station emulator where I have full uplink power control. I’m still trying to nail down the most realistic uplink power number, and think I set things a bit too aggressive for this test, but what we’re after is how much scaling you’ll get out of the Helium. The workload itself remains the same as our other battery life tests — it’s the same page loading suite as we use in the big reviews — I’m just attaching it to the base station emulator and controlling uplink power manually.
Mophie recommends turning on the Helium at around 20 percent battery on the iPhone 5 and then off at around 80 percent.
This is ideal advice, as it closely matches the iPhone 5’s charge curve. Because the Helium has to work through the PMIC on the iPhone and charge it like an external charger, there are inherent losses, and those losses are at their minimum in that region. I mimicked this for our battery life test by letting the Helium charge the iPhone 5 and then resuming the test.
We see a 60 percent scaling in this pretty brutal test which managed to kill the iPhone 5 in under 3 hours. Following Mophie’s guidance and turning the Helium on only when you want to charge up the iPhone 5 will definitely help improve efficiency. There’s overhead given the way the Helium has to charge the iPhone instead of act like a battery, but that’s something all battery cases will endure for the iPhone. With that size battery you’ll at least get an additional boost.
I’ve been timing charge times of devices as well lately, and the Helium takes 2.3 hours from completely empty to charge up.
This is pretty fast given the size, and I have no problems with charging it on any BC 1.2 USB charger with microUSB.
There will inevitably be people who complain about the size of the Helium, but there have been multiple times that the Helium has made the difference between a phone with enough charge to get me through the rest of the day, and no phone at all. Given the current state of battery life across the smartphone spectrum, I’ll gladly take increased size in favor of more battery life, and the Helium will get that done and offer additional protection.
Tweet
PRINT THIS ARTICLE
mophie juice pack helium for iPhone 5 review
The mophie juice pack helium is an all new, all lighter and thinner battery charging case for the lighter and thinner iPhone 5. It features a 1500mAh, barely more than the iPhone 5’s built-in 1440mAh battery, and when translated into external battery pack terms, that packs roughly an 80% refill charge.
The design of the mophie juice pack helium is similar to previous generation juice packs, though longer and even more svelte. Like Apple, mophie has made a conscious choice to emphasize extreme thinness and lightness over everything else. (mophie does, however, make a juice pack air that provides more battery.)
As you’d expect, cut-outs leave all buttons accessible, though ports are a different story. Since Apple relocated the 3.5mm headphone jack to the bottom, and that’s where mophie packs much of its battery extension, they’ve had to figure out a work around. That comes in the form of a small extender that feels through a long hole in the juice pack and plugs into the 3.5mm port on the iPhone 5. You then plug your headphones into the extender.
Likewise, the Lightning port is covered, as 30-pin Dock connector was in prior mophie juice packs, and you have no access to it. Instead, also as before, you have a micro-USB port that charges the mophie and the iPhone 5 both.
personally, I’d still prefer a Lightning port pass through. It’s far more flexible than USB, and any iPhone owner will already have cables for it.
As it stands the USB port can’t be used for more more than charging. None of the Lightning adapters work with it, obviously, so you have to take the mophie off to use, for example, the HDMI adapter. Also, you can’t sync over USB to iTunes with the mophie on. You have to use Wi-Fi sync to connect to iTunes.
I don’t sync with iTunes, wired or wireless, anymore (I have iCloud, I’m fine), and Wi-Fi sync works great, but for those who like to move large files around old school style, that’ll be an annoyance.
The exterior of the mophie juice pack helium is covered in a soft-touch finish that feels even softer to the touch than previous models. Velvety even. It comes in two colors, the dark gray, which is available now, and the light gray, which ships next month.
The bottom section comes off like a cap, like with later versions of the juice packs for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and the top slides off.
There’s the usual button on the back that will illuminate one of four lights to show you the current remaining charge level. In my nearly constant use over the last week and half, the indicator was accurate and the recharge consistently brought my iPhone back from the brink roughly 80%.
The good
- Light, slim design
- Recharges iPhone 5 80%
The bad
- USB rather than Lightning prevents anything but charging
The mophie juice pack air is an interesting compromise, much like the iPhone 5 itself. While lighter and thinner than any juice pack before it, because the iPhone 5 is so much lighter than any iPhone, the net different is still appreciable — an iPhone 5 in a juice pack helium feels solid.
If traveling light but staying charged is your number one priority, the mophie juice pack helium is just about perfect. If you’re willing to sacrifice weight for more charging power, check out the juice pack air instead.
Mophie Juice Pack Helium for iPhone 5: Price Comparison
2 Amazon customer reviews
☆☆☆☆☆
No price information
Check Amazon
powered by
Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He’s authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.
Mophie Juice Pack Helium. Case and battery for your iPhone 5
When we talk about external batteries for our devices, there is one brand that stands out from the rest: Mophie. Her experience in this area is already extensive, and the products offered are of high quality. I’ve already been able to try a few of them and so far none have disappointed me. And the Mophie Juice Pack Helium for iPhone 5, which I’m going to analyze in this article, is no exception. nine0005 This is a new model case + battery for iPhone 5, with a slimmer design than previous cases. , up to 13% and offers 80% more battery, just 1500mAh so your device will never make you lie down. Consider the accessory in more detail.
Housing is available in two colors: silver gray and dark gray, which is shown in the photos. The body is divided into two parts: the lower one, in which we find the Lightning connector that connects to our iPhone 5, and the upper one, where the extra battery is located.
It is very easy to separate both parts, and our iPhone slides in without creaking or effort .
In addition to the case, the box contains a USB cable for charging the case with a microUSB connector and a extension cable for connecting headphones with a plug thicker than the usual . We will see this in more detail later. The instruction manual completes the set.
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
You can always see the available charge thanks to the LEDs. which you will find on the back of the case. When you press the button on the left, they turn on and off after a few seconds. On the right we have a switch that connects or disconnects the case so that our iPhone is charging or not. nine0003
The iPhone is perfectly adapted to the body. There is no movement of the device inside it. The thickness, of course, increases, but in general does not exceed 15 mm. The case is also quite light compared to others of its kind.
, 69.2 grams. The edge of the case protrudes slightly from the profile of the iPhone, so when placed face down, the screen of the device does not touch the surface, which is important.
Of course, all buttons and connectors are free, access to all of them is quite convenient, and only the Lightning connector is hidden, but instead we can use microUSB cases. If you connect the case (with iPhone included) to a USB or charger Both devices will be charged at the same time . Although if you want to sync your device with the case, you won’t be able to do it via cable, but you’ll have to choose to sync over Wi-Fi.
The headphone jack, as I said above, can cause problems with some thick plugs. Even though the EarPods included with the iPhone 5 fit the perfectly. If you use others, don’t worry, an adapter is included so you can continue using your favorite headphones. nine0003
Another important fact is that the flash will not cause you any problems when wearing the case.
This type of thick cover usually creates some problems as the flash is reflected in the body itself and the photos come out wrong, but after trying to take many photos in different situations with the flash always on, none of the came out defective for this reason .
Well, the design and finish are more than proven, but how does the battery work? Well, I tested it by leaving my iPhone at 20% battery, with the case at 100%, and about 75 minutes later my iPhone was 90% charged again and during that time I used it for a call, some messages and a couple of tweet requests. The manufacturer recommends turning off the case when the iPhone reaches 80%, since the last 20% require more load intensity, so we have energy in the battery so that we can take advantage of this when the iPhone battery is in a critical situation again.
Finally, what is the price of the case? It appears in the online store Apple Store at a price of 79.
95 euros. , very similar to the price I found in most online stores where I found it. No doubt there are cheaper ones. And many of them also offer excellent returns, but if you want to play it safe, this is a great option.
More information — External battery case for iPhone 5
The content of the article complies with our principles of editorial ethics. To report a bug, click here.
You may be interested
nine0000 iPhone was allergic to helium / Sudo Null IT News
You don’t hear such a story every day. Eric Wooldridge is a complex systems specialist at Morris Hospital near Chicago. When he was installing a new GE Healthcare MRI machine, he started getting complaints about phones not working. Then people began to fail Apple Watches.
«I immediately thought that the MRI emits some kind of electromagnetic radiation, which could cause us a lot of problems.» But an EM pulse would also disable the medical equipment of the hospital — and at the same time everything worked perfectly! He began to study this issue, and found out that absolutely all the devices affected by this incident were made by Apple — while the Android phone of the technician himself worked perfectly.
In addition, this incident spread quite widely, affecting the operation of 40 different devices. What the hell is this? nine0064
I’ve seen a lot of weird glitches in my lifetime, but I’ve never heard of anything like it. As is Eric. “The devices behaved rather strangely. Most of them are completely out of order. I’ve plugged them into a wall socket and haven’t seen any sign that they’re charging. Other devices turned on but had problems with cellular signal. WiFi worked quickly and clearly, but cellular connection was intermittent.”
Then he wrote a post on Reddit about his problem, and other sysadmins began to speculate that liquid helium used to cool the MRI could cause this problem. He investigated and discovered a helium leak, which then spread throughout the building. nine0003
“I discovered that a helium leak occurred while the new magnet was being prepared for cooling. About 120 liters of liquid helium escaped in 5 hours. The car had a faucet that worked but was probably leaking.
The MRI room does not belong to an insulated heating and ventilation system, so the air from it is mixed with the air from most of the building. We don’t know how much of the helium leaked out and how much got in. When going from liquid to gas, helium expands 750 times, so we ended up with a lot of helium (90,000 liters)». I bet the nurses’ voices were higher that day!
After the initial incident, the devices began to slowly recover, but were unable to do so completely. “We had several abnormally behaving devices. One phone had major repair issues and some smartwatches continued to work except for touchscreen issues (even a few days after that).”
He sorted the devices by type. “iPhones version 6 and above, as well as Apple Watches version 0 and above, were affected. We are aware of the presence of one iPhone 5 in the building that day, and it was not affected in any way. The question was: what happened that caused only Apple devices to break? nine0003
This piqued my interest and I contacted friends working in the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) industry.
These are some of the smallest mechanical devices in the world. Every phone has gyroscopes and accelerometers with elements of dimensions on the order of a micrometer thick. At first I had a theory (coinciding with the opinion of one of the Reddit users) that helium molecules, being small enough, penetrated into these chips and began to interfere with the work of mechanical parts.
But this idea has two problems: firstly, not only Apple uses MEMS gyroscopes — they are in every phone [not in every, but in many / approx. transl.]. Why were Android phones not affected? Perhaps there is a bug in iOS that causes the system to crash when receiving incorrect data from the gyroscope? But the situation also affected the Apple Watche, and they have their own system, WatchOS. In addition, iPhone versions less than 6 were not affected. It is unlikely that this was a new software bug that affected iOS and WatchOS at the same time. nine0003
Inside the iPhone 4 MEMS gyroscope
What else could be the cause? At the heart of every electronic device is a watch.
Usually these are quartz oscillators (oscillators), crystals that vibrate at a certain predictable frequency — usually 32 kHz. When they were first invented, it allowed the creation of the first quartz clock. Now these frequency generators are at the heart of any electronic device.
Without a clock, the system freezes. The CPU is not working. The clock is the heartbeat of the modern device. nine0003
But crystal oscillators have certain problems. They do not keep time very well at high (and low) temperatures, and they are relatively large — about 1×3 mm. And in search of ever smaller device implementations, Apple recently began using SiTime’s MEMS oscillators to replace quartz components.
MEMS accelerometer under electron microscope
Specifically, they use the SiT512, «the world’s smallest 32 kHz oscillator in terms of size and power consumption.» And if any MEMS device is exposed to helium, it could be our culprit! nine0003
The failed oscillator is similar to the symptoms described by Eric, reproduced by him in the experiment.
“I put the iPhone 8 Plus in an airtight bag and filled it with helium. This was not very realistic, since those iPhones were exposed to lower concentrations, but the experiment still supports the idea that helium can disable the device. I left the display on and started the timer. After 8 minutes and 20 seconds the phone froze. Nothing crazy happens — the clock just stops, that’s all. The screen stays on.» nine0003
I was able to repeat the experiment in our laboratory. My iPhone 8 lasted about 4 minutes in a helium atmosphere before shutting down completely.
Apple’s phone and watch instructions report a similar issue:
Do not expose your iPhone to environments containing high concentrations of industrial chemicals or expose it to evaporating liquefied gases such as helium, as this could damage or impair phone performance. If your device has been affected and shows these symptoms, or won’t turn on, it can usually be repaired. Leave it unconnected to the charging cable and let it air out for a week.
The helium must completely leave the device, and the battery must be completely discharged. After a week, plug the device directly into the charger and let it charge for an hour. The phone can then be turned on again. nine0003
Hydrogen and helium are extremely difficult to contain due to the small size of their molecules. Apparently, SiTime has been working on this problem for quite some time. In their FAQ, I found the following: «How effective is the hermetic case of MEMS oscillators?»
Previous generations of EpiSeal resonators could be affected by high concentrations of gases with small molecules. More modern EpiSeals are impermeable to all small molecular gases. Contact SiTime if you plan to use our device near high concentrations of small molecular gases so that we can recommend a suitable spare part for you. nine0003
I was wondering if the gas would affect other types of MEMS devices, and I contacted InvenSense Motion, which makes the image stabilization chip for the Pixel 3.
David Almoslino, senior director of corporate marketing, confirmed the problem. He told me that their products “may be exposed to helium to some extent. Helium can seep through melt-bonded substrates and increase the pressure in the cavities. Helium can temporarily degrade the absolute accuracy of our pressure sensors. In gyroscopes, helium can lead to an imbalance, which can temporarily stop the oscillations. In accelerometers, helium can do little harm. But all of our products need to be restored to working order once they are removed from the helium-rich environment.” nine0003
Of course, you’ve never heard of this before because such situations are rare. However, silicon chip manufacturers are well aware of this problem and are doing their best to minimize it. David told me that «helium leak is a pretty standard MEMS test that most companies do to evaluate leaks.»
That’s the whole point! Helium molecules, like incredibly small grains of sand, can penetrate the device, stop the clock, and temporarily turn your phone into a paperweight.