Wofalodata 10,000mAh power bank and Qi charger review

The Wofalodata/Wofalo charger has taken a while to review because I was not getting the results I expected. That’s where we’re going to pick up after I list what it’s supposed to do.

As a quick note, the computer I do photo editing on is currently down, I’m using their stock photos. While we have an image resizer plugin I’m just not keen on uploading 100 megs of photos for editing in WordPress, and it’s midnight.

It claims it can charge up to three devices simultaneously, charging Qi devices at 1.5amps, and up to two USB devices at 2amps. It’s got a built in Micro USB cable, USB A port, and carries a Micro USB to Lightning adapter on board although you can probably swap that with a USB C adapter if you wanted.

If it weren’t for disappointment I wouldn’t have any appointments

Day one, I charged it up and attempted to get my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 to wirelessly charge and had some issues getting above about +500mA while the battery was unplugged. I can get a sustained +780 or so when it’s plugged in, and occasionally I can get the whole 1.5amp or thereabouts, but it doesn’t seem consistent. Like that 1.5amp was the exception.

I decided to leave my phone on the wireless portion overnight  and woke up and the 10,000mAh charger was dead and my phone with it’s 3300mAh battery was around 80%.

Day three I had charged the thing all the previous day. It’s time to take it on the road. We tested an iPhone, the Note 8, and yeah we’re not seeing 1.5amp wireless charging that’s written on the box, on the product, but not on the Amazon spec page.

I spent about another week playing with this off and on and not feeling that it was actually a 10,000mAh battery involved so I did what any sane person would do and drained an iPad 2 battery completely and let my 10,000mAh fully charged battery tackle the stock 6930mAh battery of the iPad 2 using an Apple USB A to 30-pin cable.

I plugged it in expecting that if the Wofalo charger was 10,000mAh and on an average 85% conversion (piss poor rate,) I should have roughly 1500-2000mAh left after it charged the iPad 2 battery from dead or as near dead as the iOS version it has will let it get. This should have meant, at a crappy battery conversion rate, it was good for a tablet charge and a reasonable phone charge.

I got home, the iPad 2 was at 99% when I looked at it and 10 minutes later it was at 100% and the charger had switched off. I plugged it into a 33% charged Amazon Fire Kids edition tablet and about four minutes later heard the disconnect chime and the battery was showing 35%. The Wofalodata 10,000mAh charger was out of juice. I pressed power, each time got another few seconds, and it was done.

My belief is that the device delivered somewhere around 6000-7000mAh of power, which either indicated low efficiency power conversion or craptastic batteries. I’ve been attempting to pull the thing apart to see if there are actually 10,000mAh worth of batteries stuffed in there but will be cracking it open at work tomorrow if I can.

I was able to plug a Qi charging pad into the USB A port and get significantly better results than the sub 1amp Qi charging I was getting off the thing. The wireless charging just seems entirely unimpressive.

Interesting concept, would love it if mine worked, judging by the 17% one star reviews on Amazon I’m not the only one having issues. Here’s the Fakespot C grade. I also worry that a lot of the 5-star reviews here haven’t even tested the capacity or charge rate.

So let’s talk about non-battery related issues as there’s always the chance I was sent one that has a bad battery or two in it. I’m pretty sure with testing on an Amazon Fire Kids Edition Tablet, an iPad 2, a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, an iPhone 8, an HTC 10, an iPad 4, and with a Qi charger plate, that it’s not my equipment at fault.

So other than that how was the play Mrs Lincoln?

OK, the wireless charging side, good in theory, big circle with most of the Wofalodata company name Wofalo, but the entire face is metal. Put a phone on it to charge, it will slide off given the opportunity. One little rubber strip would fix this. Like every other wireless charger in existence has.

The built in Micro USB cable is too short, usually requires you to twist it around, and does not feel particularly high quality. You have to deploy the Micro USB to open up access to the USB A. Once you’re charging via Micro USB the lightning adapter can fall out.

While you can charge three devices at the same time, I’m pretty sure the max total amperage across the thing is about two amps. I will stress here I did not test this via meter, I just plugged a couple in and was getting about 700mAh on the one I trust.

Overall

If I felt I was getting 8500 mAh out of this I might chalk this off to conversion, but as it stands I think I’m getting about 60% of what it claims, not seeing the wireless performance I’d expect (and got when I tested,) out of a $12 charging disk.

Having testing a lot of chargers, this one just doesn’t feel like it’s delivering what it’s promising.

That said, should you want one, they’re currently $29.99 on Amazon, or about what a good 6000mAh portable charger and a wireless charging disc would run you.

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