Tong Family

Well now that I’m spending so much time at home (who isn’t), there always seem to be some things that were optional but which seem like necessities. One of them is never having to plug your phone in. So with Qi chargers getting so cheap, it makes sense to have one on every desktop.

Here are some notes given the many that I already have:

1. There are two major styles, the stand and the flat hockey puck (literally, it is a single coil and is flat). Which one to get depends really on how much space you have. The single coil flat takes more space but is cheaper and more unobtrusive. The stand let’s you look at it and take look which isn’t super useful, but takes less space on a crowded desk which is. The other disadvantage of a stand is that you can’t charge your Apple Airpods as it isn’t tall enough to hit the coil usually.
2. Enough power, you want models that can deliver 7.5w to a iPhone and 10w to an Android phone. Power does matter for these things.
3. Enough Amazon reviews, I normally don’t buy products that have less than 100 reviews and ideally over 1,000. Most of the reviews are fake though, so you want to use a review checker to figure out if it is legit.
4. Make sure to buy from Amazon if you can because there are lots of counterfeit products out there. This is really true with things like memory cards. If you can’t do that, at least buy from the manufacturer. And if you must buy from a third party check that they have enough reviews (although these are easy to fake as well).
5. Use Fakespot because the quality is super variable. If you are going to buy one, make sure to checkout the Amazon reviews (which sadly are mainly fake) and other reviews (which are really not deep and don’t go to longevity. So you pretty much have to use FakeSpot (feed it an Amazon URL) to figure out whether the product is any good.
6. Use Honey in your browser to look at pricing history as many times, the price will be half during sales. I leave items like that in my Amazon.com cart and wait for the price reductions. (If you have the time).
7. Instead of reviews for items like this, I normally let Amazon.com do a simple search like Qi Charger and see what pops up using Fakespot to determine what to buy.
8. Finally, remember most of these do not come with a USB charger anymore. That’s actually good, it’s way easier to buy a multiport USB charge I think that have a dedicated one.

Given that, what are some models to look at:

1. Choetech 2-pack. Nice deal for $18. This one has decent review quality. It’s a flat square thing, so nice for kitchen counters where you have space and don’t want something sticking up in the way.
2. Anker Stand for $20 or get a Pair of Stands for $35 This is the sort of classic stand model. It sits at a 30 degree angle and is black. Also has 10W charging.
3. Aresh Three in One Charger. If you have the wireless charging AirPods, then this is the one for you. For $35, you get a charger for both phone and AirPod and then you can stick your Apple Watch cable in there too. Perfect for the bed room. This one does come with a single high power USB charger which makes some sense, you need 18W to make all this work (7.5W for phone, 5W for airpod case and 2W for watch).
4. Qi-EU Four in One Charger. for $30 The reviews are marginal, but it is a nice design for your bedstand. Includes a charger for your Apple Watch, for the older AirPods and your iPhone as well as your Apple Pencil (if you have the old style one, the new style just charges from the iPad Pro).