There comes a time in everybody’s life at which you get fed up of the amounts of cables you have lying around your house; cables to charge your phones, cables to charge your camera, cables to connect your camera to your computer, etc. etc. etc. I do a big house clean every so often, and one the most hated chores is cable-tidying….which normally turns out to be shoving all cables that are in plain view to the backside of the desktop or drawers where they inevitably gather dust.
Qi wireless charging has been around for a good few years now, utilised by many Android smartphones, so when FunkyKit was offered to test the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand, we thought it would be just like any other of the wireless chargers we have.
Whilst most Qi wireless chargers lie flat on your tabletop much like an oversized (and overweight) cup mat, the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand has its charging pad on a steep angle, with 2 plastic struts at the bottom letting your phone’s display face you in a near vertical angle (60 degrees). We actually like this angle a lot; when calls or notifications popped up on the phone whilst it was charging, we did not have to lean over to see the notifications, just a quick glance at the phone on the stand. Having the charging pad at a prominent angle also aids one of it’s key features which we will go into later.
ABOX has kept the contents of the packaging simple; the charging pad, the stand, and a USB to micro-USB cable. Assembling the stand and charging pad was very straight forward, but we did find inserting the micro-USB connector into the back of the charging pad took a little bit of effort to insert properly. Whilst we initial thought this might have been a design fault, we later concluded that it was actually a great feature as the cable would not come loose very easily.
Both the charging pad and the stand is made from hard composite plastic that makes it feel quite sturdy, and when a smartphone is placed onto it, there’s no feeling of it being unbalanced and toppling over.
Notice the air vents at the top of the backside of the charging pad. The ABOX Qi wireless charging stand has a fan incorporated inside which quietly blows air onto the rear of your smartphone whilst it is charging, keeping your phone at under 30C. The fan does run very quiet, we had to place our hands near it to feel the slight air movement to ensure that the fan was working. Having the charging pad at such a steep angle also allows better airflow, something that would be more difficult to achieve if the charging pad was placed flat on a surface.
There is a very discrete led at the bottom of the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand that flashes blue to indicate the charger is ready to be used, and stays green when it is charging your smartphone.
We were slightly let down at first when we tested how quick the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand would charge an iPhone 8 Plus; from a depleted battery to full charge took several hours, nearly 4 hours in fact. We later realised that the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand does not support quick charging for iPhones, hence to slow charging times, so we quickly got our hands on a Samsung S9 to see just how fast the battery could charge. Pairing the S9 together with the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand is very ideal as both only support Quick Charge 2.0, and true to ABOX’s words a completely drained S9 battery took just over 2.5 hours to charge to full capacity. I do expect smartphones with a larger capacity battery to take around 3 hours to completely charge up.
Maybe it’s licensing, or maybe it is by design the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand only support Quick Charge 2.0 and not the faster 3.0 or 4.0, but then having the faster charging protocols would mean having a much more noisier fan to help dissipate the additional heat.
I must say we really liked the design of the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand, both aesthetically and functionally. Having a phone charging whilst it’s display is facing directly at you is just so convenient, add to this the wireless quick charge capability with the added peace of mind that your phone will not be overheating while it is charging, makes the ABOX Qi wireless charging stand very appealing. Priced at just US$24.99 on Amazon, we think that this is a must-buy if you have a wireless charging capable smartphone!
You can purchase the ABOX Qi wireless
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