The Best Wireless Charger For iPhone And Android Phones
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After more than 100 hours of testing, we think Samsung’s Wireless Charging Pad EP-PG920I is the best Qi (pronounced “chee”) wireless charger for most people who have a phone that supports the Qi wireless-charging standard, including the latest iPhones and many Android phones. Although this Samsung model is not the absolute fastest wireless charger we tested, more-expensive chargers proved only slightly faster with both iPhones and Android devices, so we don’t think you need to spend more.
If you’re concerned about absolute speed—especially if you have an iPhone—Spigen’s Essential F301W Wireless Charger is another good choice.
Who this is for
A wireless charging pad is for anyone who owns a smartphone that supports the Qi wireless-charging standard—including the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X, and the past few generations of Samsung Galaxy phones—and who would like to charge without plugging a cord into the phone itself. With a Qi charger, you just rest your phone or tablet on the charging pad to power it up.
A wireless charger is just a matter of convenience: You don’t have to fuss with physically plugging in a cable. It also frees up the Lightning-connector port on an iPhone, so you can use wired headphones while charging. (If you’re looking to replace or buy an extra Lightning cable, Wirecutter has tested hundreds of them to find the best Lightning cablefor most people.)
Wireless charging is generally slower than wired charging, and the wattage number on the charger doesn’t necessarily indicate how quickly it will charge. For example, in our testing, the 5-watt wired charger included with the iPhone 8 charged that phone in 2 hours, 25 minutes, while 5 W wireless chargers generally took between 3 and 4 hours. Put simply, if you want the fastest possible charge, you need to use a cable.
The other downside to wireless charging is that you can’t pick up and use your phone while it’s charging, unlike with a cable connection. This makes wireless charging a better option for recharging overnight than for charging while you’re watching Netflix or scrolling through Twitter.
How we picked
Michael Hession- WPC certification: Being certified by the WPC means that a charger has been tested and found to be both safe and in compliance with the Qi standard.
- Charging speed: The Qi 1.2 standard supports charging speeds of up to 15 watts, but 5 W and 7.5 W chargers are more common right now. With this in mind, we selected a range of chargers that supported different speeds.
- Power source: We preferred wireless chargers that used a standard connection—Micro-USB is the most common—and came bundled with a USB wall adapter.
- Price: The most expensive charger we researched was $70, but many sell for $20 or less while offering the same performance.
- Design: This criterion includes not only how the charging pad looks, but also how grippy its surface is for holding phones in place, as well as any extras, such as charging-indicator lights.
- Maker reputation: We considered models only from those companies that we knew had a good reputation for warranty coverage and customer support.
For our hands-on testing, we selected five chargers that had generally positive owner reviews at the time of our research.
Our pick: Samsung Wireless Charging Pad EP-PG920I
Samsung’s Wireless Charging Pad EP-PG920I is the best option for anyone looking to take advantage of Qi charging. This pad is WPC certified, and its charging speed was comparable to that of every other charger we tested, with both iPhones and the Samsung Galaxy S8. In our tests, this Samsung pad took only about 15 minutes less, on average, to fully charge our phones than more-expensive, higher-wattage chargers. Its design is attractive and minimalist, it’s affordable, and Samsung is one of the most established companies in the wireless-charging game. A rubber base keeps the charging pad from moving around on your desk or table, a grippy ring on top prevents your phone from moving, and (on Samsung phones) a transparent ring lights up to let you know when your phone is done charging.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
When the EP-PG920I is charging an iPhone or a non-Samsung Android phone, the LED doesn’t switch from blue to green when the handset is fully charged like it does with the Galaxy S8, making it impossible to tell the current charge level at a glance—you’ll have to look at your phone’s battery display. You also can’t turn this LED off, and some people may find the light too bright in a dark room.
Runner-up: Spigen Essential F301W Wireless Charger (Ultra Slim)
If you’re an iPhone owner and you demand the fastest possible wireless-charging speeds (at least right now), go with the Spigen Essential F301W Wireless Charger (Ultra Slim). In our tests, the F301W was on a par with Samsung’s charger when we used this model with our Galaxy S8, but faster when we used it to charge our iPhone 8.
Spigen’s charger was able to bring our iPhone 8 from 0 percent to 100 percent in an average of 3 hours, 10 minutes—35 minutes faster than the Samsung EP-PG920I. Although some wired charging options are faster, this model produced the fastest wireless charging we’ve seen for the iPhone 8 so far.
Shop Now: Spigen Essential F301W Wireless Charger
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