ANKER PowerWave 7.5W Stand REVIEW Perfect for Charging iPhone X

4 min readMar 29, 2018

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Wireless charging has been around for some time now. And, Apple is just now catching up with the charging party and with the release of the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X, Apple now has mobile phones with wireless charging capabilities. I snatched up an iPhone X as quickly as possible last fall and immediately started looking for the ideal wireless charging solution for me. The charging pucks just weren’t for me and so I decided to look for a vertical stand for my phone. When it comes to charging devices, I like to look to companies I trust since it’s such a delicate process. ANKER is a brand I trust and they have been making great wireless chargers for the past few years. I’ve been fortunate enough to test out their beautiful wireless charger, the PowerWave, and am excited to tell you all about it.

DETAILS

The PowerWave is a vertical wireless charging stand for mobile phones. It is designed to provide a 7.5W of power for Apple devices and 10W for Samsung. This wireless charger features a state-of-the-art internal cooling fan that prevents the unit (or your phone) from overheating while it charges. The inclusion of this fan helps to maintain consistent electric current for charging the entire time you are charging. The face of the charging stand has an anti-slip surface and is considered “case-friendly” as the current will move through a case to the phone (cases up to 5mm thick). The face of the stand has a non-slip surface to protect your phone. The charger features twin charging coils so that you can charge your phone in either portrait or landscape mode. Metal embellishments and/or credit cards will interfere with charging abilities.

Specs

Input: 12V/1.5A
Output 5W/7.5W/10W
Quick Charge 3.0 wall charger with 12V/1.5A required for operation
82 x 68 x 118mm
Weight: 142g
Two color choices — White and Black

USER EXPERIENCE

Like all of ANKER products, I wasn’t surprised to find a well designed sturdy desktop stand when I opened the box. Opening the lid of the box you are greeted with a bright blue box top. It’s a box inside of a box if you will. I pulled the packaging out to find a nicely wrapped charging stand, Micro USB cable, power brick, and a few pamphlets that talk about how to use your new charging stand. As mentioned above, the stand is available in white and black. I chose the white option. The illustrated instruction show you how to plug the stand into the wall, how your phone can charge in either orientation and how the icon on the front will illuminate when the phone is properly charging. The guide also shows a few examples of accessories that might cause issues with charging.

The PowerWave 7.5 Charging Stand with Quick 3.0 Charging plug is so simple to use. It really is just plug-and-play. The Micro USB cable provided is a stout cable that looks like it would last a long time. The charging stand has a nice rubber pad on the bottom to prevent it from sliding around. You will notice when setting your phone on the stand no tipping or tilting at all.

With chargers, I will usually utilize our USB Digital Tester to analyze the power current that charges the device. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work in this case since the phone is charging wirelessly. So, the best I could do was to record charging times and then compare it to regular charging with a Lightning cable and the same wall plug that is used for the PowerWave. Here are the results.

Anker PowerWave Lightning Cable 1 5% 51% 2 34% (after 45 minutes) 58% (after 10 minutes) 3 52% (after 30 minutes) 68% (after 15 minutes) 4 92% (after 75 minutes) 79% (after 15 minutes) 5 100% (after 3 hours 15 minutes) 86% (after 10 minutes)

These test results show that the PowerWave is a successful charging option for the iPhone X. I was able to gain around 2% battery every minute. With the Lightning cable and the wall charger, the iPhone only gained 1.4% per minute. I also ran a test on the power brick using the Lightning cable and found that it the phone was drawing 5.2V/1.25A.

CONCLUSION

I truly love the Anker PowerWave. I think it’s one of the best wireless chargers on the market. It has a great design and makes it very easy to charge your phone. Before I acquired the PowerWave, I had a slew of flat wireless chargers and while they did the trick, I really didn’t like not being able to see my phone’s face easily. As a vertical charging stand, the PowerWave affords you this option. I really enjoy using it and am excited about using it for a long time.

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For more details, visit anker.com.
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Originally published at macsources.com on March 29, 2018.