Gadgetory

what's one place that wireless charging is more practical and arguably useful than any other place in your car of course but is it as good in practice as it is in theory I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is a review of the Zins qi wireless car charger wireless charging the technology many would have loved to see take off is still in a questionable infancy state five years after first coming to smartphones only a small fraction of modern devices shipped with wireless charging embedded and even fewer come with aftermarket options such as wireless enabled cases or batteries and the market is split over a few competing technologies fighting to become the standard that however doesn't stop some manufacturers from continuing to develop neat and useful ways to use wireless charging earlier this week our own michael fisher published his review of the Zins qi wireless portable speaker and NFC enabled bluetooth speaker that charges your phone and lasts through an impressive eight hours of playback and phone charging I also reviewed a Qi enabled case for the iPhone 5 from since last year but the company isn't stopping there it's tackling an area where Qi has thus far been mostly absent an area where the hassle of wires can be particularly distracting and dangerous where wireless charging is arguably the most useful and practical the car there are some existing aftermarket Qi car chargers as well as a limited number of cars that roll of the lot with the Qi standard embedded there are also some DIY methods which may include tearing your head unit out and stuffing a wireless charging plate somewhere in some unused space in your - but Zins method is quite simply the most foolproof and practical way to bring Qi into your daily commute it utilizes the one thing practically every modern car in this world has cupholders aptly named the Qi wireless car charger the device itself looks more like someone chopped the top half off a travel mug and stuff some circuitry inside it's a glossy black cylinder not much bigger around than your standard biggie size soda and it's approximately four inches tall the sides are bare in the bottom has a rubber pad for traction but the top is where all the action happens there are two labeled led status lights one for power and one for charger there's also a port for power in 12 volts at 3 amps and a 2.1 amp USB for charging phones and tablets and the large cutout in the middle is where you drop your Qi enabled phones a charge of course its directional so orientation matters you'll want the phone to face the status LEDs not the power in and at least for the Nexus 5 charging happens immediately upon dropping the phone into the slot there is no hassle with positioning and that's both a good and bad thing with the device that fits in the slot and lines up with the coil inside the charger it's as hassle free as it gets vital for in car charging however if the coil doesn't line up the charger is practically useless for your phone and there's no easy way to reposition the phone it either works or it doesn't zen says the charger will comfortably hold phones with five inch screens or smaller but in an age where 5-inch phones are the average and 6.3 inch phones are actually a thing the slot size could be an issue for some then again this design is limited to the size of the standard cup holder so don't get mad at Zins get mad at car manufacturers for not making cup holders large enough to hold your big gulp or your oversized smartphone that aside how well does it work how quickly does it charge it's exactly what you'd expect from any other wireless charger the average charge rate we measure with the Nexus 5 was approximately 0.5% every minute meaning a full charge from a fully depleted battery would theoretically take 3.5 hours that's approximately half the charge rate of your standard 1 amp wired charger which charged our Nexus 5 at approximately 1% every minute or 0% to full in just over an hour and a half that's the price to pay for the convenience of no wire hassle while driving and we see it's a pretty fair trade-off sacrificing one of our two poorly placed cupholders on the other hand is still up for debate and that's the other thing this entire concept from Zen's brakes depending on where your cupholders are in your car if a cup holder isn't near the 12 volt socket you're out of luck or in our case the cup holder actually rests somewhat behind the driver seat in the center console making it a bit difficult to comfortably reach also if you happen to stream music from your phone while in the car you'll have to constantly take the phone off charge and you can't really interact with the device while it's charging that or it will encourage you to keep your eyes on the road and stop fooling with your phone which we suppose is a good thing it's just unfortunate so few smart phones support the Qi standard what happens if your next phone doesn't what if there are no cases or accessories built for your current phone you're just out of luck and with so many what-ifs on the table it will certainly be difficult for most to stomach the ninety one dollars and 69 cent price tag not only are so many other Cheops ins much cheaper the size shape and design of this particular charger severely limits its flexibility but if you're behind the chief movement and want wireless charging in your car is this certainly one of the coolest in-car gadgets around right now and so long as your device fits and your cup holders are in a convenient location it works fantastically well whether $92 is offset and justified by the convenience of simply dropping your phone in a cup holder to charge is up to you to decide we feel it's a little steep but we won't deny the small amount of satisfaction we get every time we hear that subtle chirp folks thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video be sure to click the thumbs up button below and of course subscribe to the channel to see more videos in the future also be sure to check out our other coverage of Zins new wireless charging products and as always follow us in all the usual places twitter facebook and google+ at pocket now I'm Taylor Martin you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i will see you next time