Mophie Juice Pack Battery Case For Samsung Galaxy S III Review

The Mophie Juice Pack

Smartphone makers have been improving battery life each product cycle, but many still find that their battery doesn’t last a full day with heavy use. For those that use their phone morning, noon, and night, you already know that a once-a-day charge doesn’t make the cut. Most of the time we can sneak a charge in during a car ride or from our PC at work, but there are likely times you can’t top off your phone and your juice runs out. A company called mophie came up with a product called the juice pack that is basically a portable battery case for many of today’s most popular smartphones. The good news for over 30 million Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone owners is that Mophie now makes the Juice Pack for the GS3!

When you place your Samsung Galaxy S III into the mophie juice pack you can enjoy up to 32 extra hours of music, 8 extra hours of video playback, or 9 extra hours of 4G LTE web browsing thanks to the devices built-in 2300 mAh lithium battery!

Additional Battery Hours With The Mophie Juice Pack:

• Talk Time: Up to 9 hours on 3G | Up to 7 hours on 4G
• Internet Use: Up to 9 hours on 4G | Up to 11 hours on Wi-Fi
• Audio Playback: Up to 32 hours
• Video Playback: Up to 8 hours

This means that the mophie juice pack nearly doubles the battery life of the Galaxy S III, but that extra battery life comes at a price. The mophie rechargeable external battery case for the Samsung Galaxy S III will set you back $99.95 shipped. As you can see the mophie juice pack isn’t really an impulse buy item, so it better function perfectly!

The mophie juice pack for the Galaxy S3 is available in white or black. Inside the retail packaging you’ll find the mophie juice pack, micro-USB cable, and the user’s manual.

On the back of the juice pack you’ll there is a four-light LED indicator and a button that when pressed will show you how much battery power is left in the juice pack. The LEDs also keep you updated on your juice pack charging status when it’s plugged in. To the right of the LED lights there is a toggle switch that lets know how the charge is coming along. The lithium battery inside the juice pack is rechargeable for over 500 full cycles. A full cycle is when the case is charged from 0% to 100%. Partial cycles, like charging from 25% to 100%, will not count as a full cycle until all of the partials equal 100%. After 500 cycles, the battery in the juice pack will be less than 75% of the original capacity. This is normal for any product with a lithium battery.To charge the juice pack there is a micro-USB port at the bottom just like the smartphone.

The mophie juice pack pulls apart at the top and all you need to do is slide your Galaxy S III into the case and the additional battery pack is fully installed. The juice pack weighs just 3.5 ounces, so it is very light. It is a hard shell case, so it should perform like any basic hard case would.

Here is a quick look at the connector at the base plugs into the micro USB port at the bottom of your Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone. You can also see the hole for the microphone and one of the rubber pads that keeps the Galaxy S III firmly secured in the mophie juice pack.

With the Galaxy S III slid into the mophie juice pack you can see how it nearly doubles the thickness of the phone. The dimensions of the mophie juice pack are 5.9″ x 2.97″ x 0.67″, which means it adds some girth to the Galaxy S III’s original 5.38″ x 2.78″ x 0.34″ dimensions. Going from 9mm to 17mm in thickness basically doubles the thickness of the smartphone.

Let’s take a look at what the phone looks like with the case fully installed and wrap up this review!