4 weeks ago
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I love a clever gadget almost as much as I love saving space in my carry on. Native Union’s new Voyage charger handily ticks both boxes. It’s an unassuming puck-shaped product that’s easily stashed in a pocket or bag when folded shut.
Image Credits:Brian Heater
Open it up, and you get a pair of Qi2 chargers. One side is designed for MagSafe iPhones, and the other features a familiar Apple Watch charging connector. The Voyage will lay flat in this configuration, so you can snap a phone and either an Apple Watch or wireless charging compatible AirPods case on the other.
Depending on whether or not your Watch band can be opened flat or is a loop, this positioning can be a little awkward. Thankfully, the watch connector flips up, allowing you to charge the smartwatch on its side like such:
Image Credits:Brian Heater
If you need an additional option, the charger’s exterior side also magnetically snap together, allowing you to charge both the phone and watch on their sides. This may well be the best configuration of the bunch, as it pulls up the iPhone’s Standby mode, thus replacing the need for a bedside alarm:
Image Credits:Brian Heater
The Voyage is pricey for a charger, as one might expect from a product with the world “Paris” etched onto the front. Plenty of folks will understandably balk at paying $100 for an iPhone travel charger, even one that ships with a woven USB-C cable and a travel bag.
If it were entirely up to me, I’d cram a third charger into the thing, so I could replace the funky little MagGo Wireless Charging Station outright. Of course, Anker’s product is an additional $10 and considerably thicker.
Image Credits:Brian Heater
For the sake of paring down my carry-on luggage as much as possible, I’m OK with the Voyage’s tradeoff. And hey, Native Union has to save some tricks for the Voyage 2.
Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Juniper.
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