alternatives to Mophie

[DavidS]

i bought a generic battery pack case of eBay for my new iPhone 5S. Fast, free shipping and the price was right. However, the product that arrived didn't charge when plugged in and just got extremely hot to the touch. When I did plug it in to my phone, I got the "this accessory is not compatible" message.

I emailed the seller and they told me that they just realized that 1 out of 3 devices are not working with iPhone 5S and iOS7. They have since changed the listing and refunded my purchase price.

Mophie cases seem to be the gold standard, but cost the most. Are there other, quality battery cases that are recommended? When I look online, I'm mostly finding the same, generic case that I ordered.

[anonymouse1]

google for refurbished mophie. They come up every so often.

[RAMd®d]

Be careful where you buy your Mophie from.

Amazon was selling a lot of counterfeit cases, probably through third-party sellers. Mophie was rejecting warranty work on those cases, which apparently were problematic.

[sekker]

I love the Mophie customer support, but the quality of legitimate cases is pretty modest.

I've owned 3 mophie 3GS cases, all have been replaced under warranty, and all but one are toast.

I've owned 3 mophie 4/4S cases (purchased at the same time directly from Mophie), and two failed under warranty, one failed a month out of warranty. Different family members with different use cases, the lighter use one is the one that did not break under warranty (but broke right after warranty ended).

I've learned my lesson, I will be buying all such purchases using an American Express Card to give me at least a chance for an extended warranty.

I do not consider myself a hard user. The failures are almost all around the USB plugins.

Alternatives (these are only iPhone 4S models):
The best one I've found is from ibattz. The first did not last a week, clearly a factory defect. Replacement came quickly (great customer service, by the way). The replacement lasted about 8 months, then the USB charging connector - only used to charge at night, did not use to sync, etc - just snapped. Could hear the rattling. I'm NOT recommending this ibattz.
But ibattz replaced this model with a different design, and it has worked great at least so far.

None of our 'generic' battery cases we've tried have been good at all.

I have considered a griffin for my iP5s, but the griffin cases do not look very good to me.

[space-time]

I have a charger in my car, one at home and one at work. I don't really need a battery case.

[sekker]

space-time wrote:
I have a charger in my car, one at home and one at work. I don't really need a battery case.

I love my battery case when I travel. Really gives me mobility when I don't have to worry about running out of power.