THE BEST WIRELESS CHARGERS OF 2019

The Nimble Wireless Stand takes the simplicity of the Nimble Wireless Pad and adds a new angle… literally! Just pop out the stand and the latch that holds the phone in place and it sits up, holding the phone in either landscape or portrait mode. You can also use it as a pad lying flat on your bedside table, where the gray fabric should look suitably inconspicuous.

As with the Nimble Wireless Pad, you get an additional USB-A output for connecting another charger, although the cables coming out of the side are a bit more conspicuous. Support for standard Qi, Apple 7.5 Watt and Samsung 10 Watt modes is also included, and we found that this stand was quick to charge both iPhone and Android devices, taking three hours and 34 minutes and two hours and 34 minutes, respectively.

The Tylt Twisty is an attractive charging stand, built on a carved wooden base. Attached to this is the plastic top, which is where the twist comes in. Literally: spin this around and it rotates from the phone sitting horizontally to sitting at a 30-degree angle. That puts the phone at just enough of a tilt that you can roll over and see what time it is without raising your head too much. A soft, plastic ring on the top stops the phone from sliding off, and a small white LED lets you know when charging starts.

Charging was pretty speedy: my iPhone XS took two hours and 53 minutes to charge, while the Samsung Note 8 took two hours and 56 minutes.

The Twisty’s aesthetic is unique, but this device doesn’t come cheap.

The RAVPower Wireless Charging Stand is a simple, attractive stand that does an effective job of charging phones. It has two coils, so you can put the phone in either upright in portrait mode, or sideways in landscape mode. Either way, there is a charging coil right underneath the phone that can deliver 5, 7.5 or 10 Watts, which provides for quick charging.

The RAVPower Wireless Charging Stand is one of the more expensive models that we tested, but it is also one of the best. The small base means that it won’t take up much space on your bedside table and it is flexible enough to hold the phone in both portrait and landscape modes. There are cheaper options that offer the same features, though.

What do you get if you cross a beer mat and a wireless charger? Something like the Tylt Puck, a pricey wireless charger that combines cork and plastic into one smart-looking package. On the bottom of the 0.9-inch thick puck is a cork base, which should stop both your bedside table from being scratched and soak up any spills. On the top of the puck is the white plastic cover that the wireless charger sits under. Plonk your phone on the top and a small, inconspicuous white LED lights up to let you know that charging has begun. We did find, however, that the top of this charger was somewhat slick: even a slight tap on the phone sent it sliding off the charger or moved it so that the charging process stopped.

All of the usual wireless charging modes are here, so it can pump out 7.5 Watts for iPhones and 10 Watts for Android devices, or 5 Watts for standard QI. We found that charging times were pretty average, taking 2 hours and 34 minutes to charge the iPhone XS and just under three hours to juice up the Samsung Note 8.

It certainly looks cool, but at $45, you seem to be paying a lot more for looks then performance. Not that there’s anything wrong with things looking nice, but is double the price of other chargers that do just as good a job worth it? Probably not.

At just under three square inches in size, the Aukey Graphite Life is one of the smallest chargers that we evaluated. It should sit on your bedside table without standing out, and the single LED on the front that shows the charging status won’t keep you awake. The soft plastic top won’t scratch your phone if you like to keep it without a case.

The Graphite Lite performed well in our tests, charging the Samsung Note 8 in just over two hours and 33 minutes, and the iPhone XS in just under three hours. It does run a little warm, though: When charging the Note 8, the side of the charging pad was uncomfortably warm to the touch. Aukey says that this is normal, but it was definitely warmer than the other chargers we tested.

The Anker PowerWave is a low-cost charger that doesn’t take up much space and works effectively for phones that support 10-watt fast charging. It took an impressive 2 hours 34 minutes to charge the Note 8 in our tests. It has a simple, clean design with a small discrete blue LED at the front to show when it is charging. This LED is dim enough that it won’t distract at night but light enough to be seen in daylight.

However, it has a few things missing: there is no support for the 7.5 Watt mode on iPhones and no power adapter. That means that iPhone users will have to settle for slower charging: it took 3 hours 31 minutes to charge an iPhone Xs in our tests.

You’ll need to add a QuickCharge 3.0 power adapter to your purchase if you want to use this charger on the road.

Want a no-frills wireless charging pad with a little blinky LED charm? The F500 has it. When you plonk your phone onto this small, svelte charging pad, a ring of green LEDs around the edge light up. After about 30 seconds the lights dim, so you’ll know that the phone is charging but you won’t be blinded by them. It took three hours to charge the iPhone XS and just over three and a quarter hours to charge the Samsung note 8: decent, but not overly fast time.

What you don’t get with this wireless charger is a USB power adapter, so factor the extra cost of an appropriate one into your sums. It was also a little slower to charge than some others, taking just under three hours to charge both the Note and the iPhone XS in our tests.

Simplicity is the name of the game with the Nimble Wireless Pad. Stick it on your bedside table and this 4.4-inch long device could easily be mistaken for a mid-century box of playing cards. The only indication that it’s a bit of technology is on the back of the charger, where the USB-C input and USB-A output are hidden, and a single white LED to show when the charger is active. The additional USB output means that you could connect a charger of an Apple Watch or other devices to run off the same power adapter: a big plus for those with limited wall sockets. A 1 meter (3.3 feet) USB-C cable and USB power adapter is also included.

The Nimble Wireless Pad’s simple exterior belies the smart technology inside it: it supports Qi, Apple 7.5W and Samsung 10W Fast Charge modes. We found that it was a little slow to charge both the iPhone and Android phone in our tests, taking about 3 and a half hours and just under three hours respectively. Although the Nimble pad is a little more expensive than most of the other devices we tested for this guide, it ships with a USB power adapter, and it doesn’t look like a piece of technology.

In a world that already has too many blinking lights, that’s a big plus.

The Aukey 10W Wireless Fast Charging Stand has a design that includes a snap-on leg that makes the stand about 7 inches long. As such, it takes up a lot more space than other models we tested. Additionally, when it’s used as a charging stand, any cable plugged into its USB port is left dangling in a less than attractive manner.

It performs well, though, supporting all three wireless charging modes and taking just under two and a half hours to charge the Note 8 and 3 hours, 17 minutes to charge the iPhone XS. That is assuming that you buy a separate USB power adapter, though: none are included with the charger itself.

The Belkin Wireless Charging stand looks more like a piece of geometric sculpture than a charger. Aesthetics aside, this black plastic stand is large, but it does the job: We found that it charged both our test Samsung Note 8 and iPhone XS in decent times: just over two and a half hours and three hours 18 minutes, respectively. The unusual design of the Bold stand also allows you to sit the phone in landscape orientation: a plus if you like to lie in bed and watch movies while you doze off.

One interesting thing to note is that this charger doesn’t use a USB cable: Instead, it uses an old-school barrel plug and a dedicated wall wart power adapter. While that means it can handle the higher power 7.5W and 10W modes without issues, it also means that it is useless if you take the charger with you on a trip but forget the power adapter: You can’t plug it into a USB port on your computer.

The Belkin Bold Wireless Charging Pad goes for an Apple-like aesthetic but doesn’t quite pull it off. For one thing, at 0.64 inches thick and 3.7 inches wide, it feels too big and clumsy to be an Apple product. There are some nice touches though: a ring of soft rubber on the top that stops the phone from getting scratched and the soft rubber base that keeps it steady and doesn’t scratch the surface it is on.

Its performance was lackluster: it took over three hours to charge the Note 8. Most of the other chargers we tested completed the task in about 30 minutes less time. Performance with the iPhone XS was better, however: it took three hours and 18 minutes to fully charge it.

The Anker PowerPort pad is a blocky stand with a single LED on the bottom. It looks cheap and, to be fair, it is cheap; it was one of the least expensive chargers we tested.

The PowerPort includes a USB cable, but no charger. This means that you’ll have to buy a QuickCharge USB power adapter if you are using it away from your computer, which will add to the charging pad’s total purchase price.

There is no support for the Apple 7.5W charging mode, but in tests, we found that it didn’t make that much difference, taking three hours and 18 minutes to charge an iPhone XS. The Samsung Note 8 was another matter: It took just two hours and 20 minutes to charge the large battery of this Android phone, the quickest charge time out of any of our tests.