We will be the first to admit, we all hate that cord necessary for charging our smartphones. It’s usually too short, tangled, impossible to plug-in to your phone in the dark and usually means your phone is dead. However, it is necessary for keeping your device fully charged and ready for action. Is there a happy medium? Thanks to Patriot, iPhone users can now benefit from what is usually isolated to Android smartphones, magnetic wireless charging.
OVERVIEW
Inside the clear packaging you will find the charging stand, case, micro USB cable and the instructions.
The Patriot FUEL ion magnetic charging case and stand are truly a revolutionary pair. The case is sleek, minimalistic and comes in any colour you want, as long as it’s grey! The case fits securely around your iPhone 5 and allows access to your headphone port, volume buttons and mute switch and of course the lock button.
At the bottom of the case there are two vents that allow for the access to the microphone and speakers. Down there you will also find a micro USB port, which you can also use to charge your iPhone without having the charging stand near by.
On the back of the case there is a series of 4 gold circle which make up the charging connector that will attach to the charging stand.
To insert your iPhone 5 into the case you simply pull down a small grey piece that houses the lighting adapter. You then slide your iPhone into the top of the case first, then pop into the bottom. Finally, slide that grey piece into the lightning cable of your iPhone and you are set!
Next up, the white charging stand. As soon as you place your iPhone near the stand you can feel the power of the neodymium magnetic pull. The iPhone and case snap towards the charging stand like it is match made in heaven. The stand itself is extremely straight forward, found on the bottom of the back you will find the input of a micro USB cable for charging. On the front you will find five small pins that make contact with the gold circles found on the back of the charging case. What’s great about this connection is that you can literally have your iPhone in any position to charge. On top of that, the current pushed out of this stand is listed at 1 A.
When it comes to charging, the Patriot FUEL ion magnetic charging iPhone case is said to feature safe, ultra efficient power transfer. What does this mean? According to Patriot it protects your device from over voltage, over current, leakage and short-circuit protection. This is actually pretty great to know, if you spend a few hundred dollars on a phone, it’s nice to know that your sweet new case isn’t going to blow it up, or make you have to take advantage of your warranty.
On Patriot’s website, the stand is listed to sell for $99.99, but when we checked on Amazon.com … we could find it for as low as $79.99. This is a decent price for cutting the cord and the best part is that you get a sweet case to match! On top of the nice price tag, you will also get Patriot’s two-year limited warranty
OUR THOUGHTS
Overall, we were really impressed with the Patriot FUEL ion magnetic charging case for the iPhone 5. It charges efficiently, looks incredible and its taking a step into the future. What struck us as a little weird, was that lack of compatibility with the iPhone 5s, while we assume it is the model we received our iPhone 5s was not fond of the Patriot FUEL ion, however the iPhone 5 charged fine. We presume that the model we received is a step older than current models. The pricing we listed is for the models compatible with the iPhone 5s.
The other aspect we find interesting and should point out is the future of this technology. Will it be necessary in the future to require a case to charge your phone? As recently seen with Apple, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus are now equipped with NFC and the Apple Watch also features a new type of connectivity, very much similar to the technology we see here today. Our point being, while the Patriot FUEL ion is an incredible technology today, it may only be a short period of before we start to see the elimination of micro USB and lightning cables for good.
Turning our sights back towards the technology of today, the Patriot FUEL ion is an innovative piece of technology that can easily be used daily … actually its more like used and abused daily. When we were searching Amazon for similar products, it was actually hard to find one that firstly looked as good as the Patriot FUEL ion, and secondly had a price tag to match. Nothing we could see could rival Patriot! Patriot has truly revolutionized the iPhone accessory lineup and it’s FUEL ion is well deserving of our Innovation Award!
Check Out Patriot FUEL ion Pricing On Amazon!
Review Overview
Product Build
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Wireless Charging At It's Best!
The Patriot FUEL ion magnetic charging iPhone 5 case is truly a piece of modern technology, which just so happens to come with a sweet price tag! All we can do is speculate until when wireless charging is built-in to all our smartphones and tablets.
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My only complaint is the case will not accept a phone that has a non slip cover attached. I found it to work just fine with the cover removed.