Review: ZAGGsparq

While on most days I’m content to use a battery case or cradle and the resulting doubling or tripling of my iPhone’s battery life, on my recent cross country road trip I found that keeping my iPhone charged at my bedside overnight, or even keeping it charged at a hotel desk all day without tying up my laptop’s USB ports, was a frequent challenge. So I often fell back on an external battery brick, which was handy, but even it had to be recharged via USB, which meant plugging it into my laptop at some point (or traveling with a third party wall charging brick). But the ZAGGsparq, with its built in wall charging capability would have changed that equation: charge it by day via a wall plug, then leave my iPhone plugged into it on the nightstand at night. Everyone has their own iPhone and iPod usage patterns, so I’m sure some you can think of ways in which you’d put it to use.

But while the concept is nice, it’s the brute-force amount of battery life that makes the ZAGGsparq worth toting around despite its large size: while the company claims it’ll quadruple your iPhone’s battery life, my two full cycles with the product suggest that ZAGG’s estimate is conservative, as it basically quintupled things for me. Now that’s some real power. I do wish there were a way to recharge the ZAGGsparq via a computer for those times when doing so is desirable, but beyond that there’s little to quibble with here: if you want a long-lasting battery brick that easily recharges from a wall socket and can recharge two devices at once, here’s your winner. I can’t wait to use this one on my next cross-country flight. Please lose the big yellow logo, though. And our rating would have been higher if the price weren’t so exceedingly high.