Best gifts: Top tech, gadgets for under $100
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My iPhone 5s doesn't last me a full day and I have to actively manage the photos and video I store due to limited capacity. The new Mophie Space Pack helps with both of these issues.
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Mophie Space Pack reviewer's package
I debated a long time before purchasing the Apple iPhone 5s , mainly because I couldn't decide what capacity to buy with local stores only selling 16GB models. In the end I found a white 32GB model at one local T-Mobile store. With the new Mophie Space Pack I could have purchased a 16GB black model and been just fine.
The iPhone 5s battery life is decent, but doesn't last me a full day so I bought a Mophie Juice Pack Air when they were on sale during Christmas. The new Mophie Space Pack provides the same great 1700 mAh capacity (100 percent of the iPhone 5s) as the Juice Pack Air along with 16GB or 32GB of available storage capacity and solid protection for your iPhone.
Mophie states that the 32GB capacity allows you to store 16,000 + photos, 14+ hours of video, or 9,000+ songs. The battery can provide up to 8 hours of talk time, 10 hours of video playback, and 40 hours of music playback.
To use the storage capacity in the Space Pack, you will need to download and install the Space app since Apple doesn't provide access to the file system. With the Space app, you can store and access photos, videos, music, documents, and other files. These files are not accessible without the Space app and do not appear in the photo viewer or music player on your iPhone.
Thankfully, you can easily pull in photos and files from your iPhone to the Space Pack. If you are going to use the Space Pack then I recommend that you setup a system for storing all files of a certain type on the Space Pack. Maybe use the Space Pack for work documents or something.
In regards to the physical case, it looks to be just about the same as the Juice Pack Air with a soft touch back, fairly minimal form factor, button with indicator lights for charging status, and solid side and corner protection. The bottom 1/4 pops off to allow you to slide your iPhone 5s up and into the case.
Mophie includes a short headset jack cable since most earbud plugs won't extend far enough through the case to be used.
There is no accessible microSD card or anything to change out the storage so if you are going to get one you might as well pay the extra $30 for the 32GB model. The 16GB model is available in black or white for $149.95 while the 32GB model is $30 more at $179.95. Apple charges $100 for doubling your memory so this looks like a fair price. For comparison, the Juice Pack Air is available for $99.95 so for $50 more you get an additional 16GB of storage capacity.
This is a great idea for iPhone customers and knowing that Mophie will likely continue to offer these for the next version of the iPhone, I may just pick up the lowest capacity model knowing that I can expand the memory and get additional battery capacity with a case like this.
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Caption by: Matthew Miller
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