Hasta La Gadget!

Over the years, Mophie has become synonymous with extending the iPhone’s battery life. The outfit’s range of battery-filled iPhone cases has garnered rave reviews across the industry, and even I religiously used one on an iPhone 3G. In more recent days, the company has cautiously expanded into a few new areas — namely, building battery cases for non-Apple phones, and creating the contraption shown above. The Mophie Outride is an action-cam case that’s designed to be strapped onto helmets, automobile hoods and any other place where your average X Games wannabe would look to capture extreme sports footage.

But, unlike the myriad rivals on the market today, the Outride doesn’t actually include a camera. Instead, you’re supposed to strap your iPhone 4 or 4S into it (an iPhone 5 model has yet to be announced), allowing the smartphone you already own to handle the bulk of the work. At first blush, it sounded like an ideal solution to me. After all, I’m generally in favor of convergence and consolidation, and as an avid traveler, having one less thing to carry (in this case, a dedicated camera) is a godsend. In practice, however, the Outride did little outside of convincing me that GoPro exists for a reason.

Filed under: Peripherals, Mobile

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Source: Mophie

There’s no getting around the iPhone 5’s abysmal battery life. It’s by far the least desirable feature. Mophie hopes to change all that later this month when it starts shipping the helium juice pack, the first “Certified Battery Case Solution” for the iPhone 5. Awesome, right? More »

It may pain you to add girth to the iPhone 5’s slender frame, but when a little more junk in your iPhone’s trunk means double the battery life, it’s hard to say no. The new Mophie Juice Pack Helium case promises to do just that and be about 13% lighter than the iPhone 4’s Air version. More »

Mophie is one of the most trusted names in iPhone and mobile backup batteries, and the company has finally debuted its battery case for iPhone 5. The Mophie Juice Pack Helium is around 13 percent thinner than the Air version released for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 (get it? Helium is lighter than air), and retails for $79.95 right now direct from the Mophie store. The cases should ship in time for Valentine’s Day, the company says.

The new Mophie boasts a 1500 mAh battery, which keen readers will notice is technically enough to double the 1,440 mAh power station inside the iPhone 5. That’s enough to boost your device’s talk time life by up to 6 hours on 3G, or provide another 6 hours of cellular browsing, 7 hours of WiFi browsing, 30 hours of audio playback or 7 hours of movie watching, according to Mophie.

The new slim down design is offered in both dark metallic and metallic silver colors, with the dark scheme shipping first, and it has the same LED power indicator and forward-facing speaker ports that have made the Mophie line a winner for the past few years. Of course the things can also stand to shed some weight and girth, so this new thinner design is very welcome, but the fact is that when you need juice and you’re without any kind of outlet, having one of these on hand can really save the day, and they take up less space than something like an external charger.

One final advantage of the Juice Pack Helium is that it has a micro USB port to take the place of the Lightning connector, which handles pass-through charging and data syncing just fine. That’s good news if you’ve already got a ton of micro USB cables (one is also included) lying around from other devices and don’t want to invest heavily in replacing all those 3o-pin Apple chargers from your past iOS devices. This may be one of those cases where a blogger’s needs may not reflect the larger community’s, but I’m definitely a believer given Mophie’s track record, and for sure picking one of these up.

It’s usually a no-brainer — Mophie exits quickly out of the gate with a battery-equipped case soon after a new iDevice gets announced. This year, however, it appears iBattz is poised to hit it out of the park faster with two of its own iPhone 5 cases. Notably, each case comes packed with two swappable i9300 Li-ion battery packs (the same kind for Samsung’s rival Galaxy S III, seriously). The cells are rated at 2,200mAh each, which is notably larger in capacity than the iPhone’s roughly 1,400mAh batts. The streamlined Mojo Fuel (pictured) will set you back $90 come February, while argonauts can sang the ruggedized Mojo Armor for $100 in March. The cases charge via microUSB, and an external battery charger will also be included with each. The company has also detailed its waterproof AquaSeal Hi5, featuring a detachable 2,500mAh aluminium battery back — no further details just yet. We’ll be sure to report back if catch ’em on the show floor here at CES. Find the full press release after the break.

Continue reading iBattz beats Mophie to iPhone 5 charging case, ups the ante using interchangable i9300 batteries

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Peripherals, Mobile

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