With the release of the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus last fall, Apple users finally got to take advantage of the Qi wireless charging standard. Mofin has a successful Kickstarter campaign underway to start production of its wireless car phone charger, which will retail for $49 starting in April. Take advantage of an early bird perk, and you can get the Mofin Qi Wireless Car Phone Charger for $24. Read along as we review a pre-production model of this wireless phone charger!
Design
Like most car chargers, the Mofin uses a vent mount to easily connect to your car dashboard. It also comes with a handy stand that can be used on a desk for wireless charging away from the car.
Unlike car chargers that require two hands to mount a phone, the Mofin Wireless Car Phone Charger makes it simple to use one hand to place the phone into the charger and hold it securely in place. It does this using gravity! When the bottom of your phone is placed into the bottom bracket lined with non-slip silicone, its weight causes two side “arms” to close and cradle your iPhone.
A USB to micro-USB cable is used to provide power to the charger. Note that you will need to have either a USB port on your dash to plug into or a converter to go from the car DC port to USB.
The charger delivers 10W of power to your iPhone (5V at 2A), meaning that it charges quite quickly. The competing $60 charger from Belkin does not offer 10W of power, while the Mophie charger (also $60) does.
Function
In the car, the Mofin Wireless Car Phone Charger worked perfectly. The vent mount is solid, and a ball and socket joint makes it easy to adjust the phone to any angle you’d like. I placed my case-protected iPhone X into the mount and then drove around for a while just to see if I could get the phone to fall out — the gravity clip worked perfectly at holding the phone securely and made it easy to place the iPhone into the mount with one hand and remove it as well.
There are two tiny LEDs on the back of the Mofin — a red one glows to indicate that power is flowing to the charger, and when a phone is placed into the charger a blue LED turns on to show that the phone is being charged.
My only complaint was with the desk stand — I think it may have been missing an adhesive pad on the bottom to stick it to a desk surface, because it’s too lightweight to hold an iPhone in place for charging by itself. The product video on Kickstarter shows the desk stand staying in place when an iPhone X is place into it; in reality, without a way to secure the desk stand to a desk, the phone and stand topple over.
Conclusion
For the car, the Mofin Qi Wireless Car Phone Charger is an iPhone X/8/8 Plus owner’s dream — a phone can be placed into the mount for charging with one hand, and the charger supplies enough power to charge an iPhone quickly. Without a way to secure the desk stand to a desk, however, it just falls over.
Apple World Today Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★
