But this time I started to see a pattern. First of all they all have the same serial number except a few digit, so I think they are all coming from the same “bad” batch.

Next I think the problem was not with the battery itself but more with the lights status in the back. They don’t show the real battery level, so you might think you still have full battery charge, while you only have 15 minutes left.

Specially after it dies, if you plug it in for 2 sec, you get 3-4 light right away, so you might think it was fully charged after all, but that is not the case, you just gave it a few minutes of battery life by pluging it into the wall charger.

Once you consider that, there might be a way to use that juice pack anyway if you use common sense and charge the unit FULLY when you think its about to die, and not taking into consideration the lights level at all to know when its time to unplug it from the wall charger.

its not ideal, but the other alternative is to keep sending them back until they get rid of that batch.

Now in August 2009, I got my brand new mophie juice pack for 3G and this one too was defective. Even when fully charged, the mophie will charge the phone for a very short time then stop by itself, the light in the back will not light up until I plug the mophie into the charger for a few seconds to reactivate it.

They should test their units fully before shipping, it would save everyone (including them) time and money

The charging issue is the same exact thing as described in this article as well. On the charger, by itself, it would report 4 LEDs, then I put it on the phone, and it actually starts charging the phone, for about 1 minute, then the LEDs go to 0, and the phone stops charging, or the LEDs are on 3 or 4, but the phone isn’t charging.

Moreover, syncing the phone through the Mophie USB is total crap, the phone completely resets when I plug it in to my MBP.

Also, having a charger (the Mophie) constantly connect to the iPhone seems to have completely wasted the iPhone battery life, and for some reason, the iPhone now doesn’t hold charge long at all, gets warm constantly, even when I’m not doing anything. Not sure if it’s the Mophie, but I’d feel better blaming native battery issues on it.

That’s one crappy product!! Or they had a defective batch… in which case… I freaking want a replacement unit!! it was $99 for god’s sake!

1) Worked well at first, then stopped charging phone.

2) After a month or so, the glued-in strips on the side of the juice pack came off, making a sticky mess . Not sure why they were on in the first place?

No more for me.

The guys response: “Go buy one at best buy”.

The big problem for me is the polymer battery seems to be rattling around inside the 1st unit and roughly once a month it lands in some kind of position that seems to cause a reverse discharge? The unit goes dead after a very short period of time – 1/2 hour and heats up considerably when this happens.
The other 29 days a month it’s my best friend and I have to say I’m happy with it.

The strips did peel off the side – crazy glue fixed that beautifully. You do what ya gotta do.

The soft touch finish will start peeling off after a week – sad but true. It’s the battery power I wanted anyway, not the looks so much.

I’m hoping the new one I just bought doesn’t have the discharge problem or any of the above problems I just read about on this site!

http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/review/powerstick-usb-powered-portable-charger/

2nd one however, had the same problem as one of the other readers reported, where the bumper strips melting off the sides due to what seems to be faulty glue.

At the very least, the QA at Mophie is inconsistent. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim fraud or anything of the sort – however when you offshore a design like this for cheap-ass production overseas, this is what you get.