I recently purchased a portable backup battery made by Powermat. I’ve been very happy with the Powermat charging system so I figured I’d purchase a Powermat-compatible battery that my wife might use with her new iPhone.

Overall, the device is OK. It’s capable of charging two devices at once though one of the devices must use the 30-pin Apple dock connector. The other must use micro-USB or a micro-USB adapter.

The reason I’m not overly impressed with this device has more to do with my positive experience with using a Monoprice 5000mAh battery. Though it’s not Powermat compatible it has a greater capacity, and more importantly, it has standard USB charging ports so most devices can be charged using their regular cables instead of requiring an adapter somewhere in-between.

As I mentioned, it’s OK. I haven’t used it much. We do have micro-USB to Lightning adapters so my wife can use this with her iPhone 5 but I think I prefer a battery with standard USB ports. I’m not fond of dongles and while they don’t seem frail it’s possible they may get damaged and render the Powermat battery useless down the road.

It’s not a terrible device nor do I think it’s a waste of money but it doesn’t have as much flexibility as my Monoprice battery.