My iPhone 4S has begun to do a strange little dance with me. When it gets below 30%, it can sometimes shut off and require a charger to bring it back to life (despite the battery indicator still showing 10-30% of battery life left). I know I can pay $79 to replace my iPhone battery out of warranty, but I consider that a last-ditch effort. In the meantime, I’ve been reading about ways to re-calibrate my iPhone battery indicator – most of which boil down to full battery discharges and then uninterrupted recharges – and I’ve also been checking out a few portable batteries and battery cases.
Mophie, as usual, seems to be one of the most attractive solutions. Their Juice Packs are gorgeous cases, and the USB pass-through means that a single micro USB cable would do the job for charging and syncing. The only problem here is that I’m currently using my BookBook case for holding my transit Metropass and credit card, and I don’t want to give that convenience up right now. Mophie’s portable chargers are also quite attractive, but I’ve discounted the Mophie Boost because of its now-outdated 30-pin design. If I’m going to invest over $50 in a battery, I’d very much like it to work for my iPad mini and next iPhone, as well. This means that my only other solution from Mophie is their set of Powerstation batteries, which are little bricks of power that can charge iPhones one or two times over. They’re attractive little packages – especially the 2500 mAh Powerstation mini – but I don’t like how I have to charge the battery with a micro USB cable and then charge my iPhone with a separate 30-pin cable. It seems silly to have to carry an extra cable just to charge my portable battery.
The ZAGGSparq 3100 looks like a great buy, but I can’t seem to find it at any of my local electronics stores in Toronto, and I don’t to be brutalized by the shipping costs from the USA. That’s a pity, because this battery pack looks really awesome. It charges straight from an AC outlet, acts as a portable USB charger, and then holds enough charge to power an iPhone 4S two times over. If I had one of these, I’d dump the little Apple USB adapter I keep in my bag and simply use a ZAGGSparq.
I think I’m aiming to buy some portable power solution from ZAGG, but I’ll likely wait a while to see when it comes on sale somewhere here in Toronto. For now, I’ll try and recalibrate my iPhone 4S battery with a few complete discharge and recharge cycles.
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