How Big Is It?
If you want measurements, the Power Bar is about 2.75 inches (7 cm) wide, 7.25 inches (18.5 cm) long, and a little over 1 inch (3 cm) thick. It’s good for a bag and can sit on or inside of a desk, but it’s way less portable than a lot of other charging solutions, especially when you factor in the cords and adapters you might also need to bring along. That size has some benefits, however. The Power Bar can charge up to four devices simultaneously, specifically because it has room for all of them. It has two Qi wireless charging spots, which are compatible with the iPhone 8 and later, as well as second-generation AirPods with that feature. It also has a power puck at one end for topping off your Apple Watch. The fourth “slot” isn’t obvious, but you can also run the included USB-C cable to a compatible device, even if that fourth gadget is your laptop. The heft also makes the Power Bar effective as a power bank when it’s not plugged in. A full charge gives it 10,000mAH of power to pass along to your gadgets. That capacity means it can completely charge two iPhone 11s and an Apple Watch and still have some juice left over. It won’t fare as well once you add in a larger battery like the one in a MacBook Air, but it still has a lot to go around.
What Can You Use It With?
In its look, branding, and functionality, the Power Bar focuses more on Apple products. But you can also use it with Android devices that have wireless charging or USB-C. When it comes to laptops, however, the manufacturer only specifies using 30W devices like the MacBook Air. I only have a MacBook Pro, which uses a 61W brick. When I connected the Power Bar, the Pro showed that it was running from a power adapter, but the battery was not charging. The Power Bar would likely work as a sort of “life support” if you’re really in danger of running out of battery and need a few seconds to save some work, but you shouldn’t count on it to run your laptop.
Does It Work?
For convenience and functionality, the Power Bar works fine. It even works great most of the time, but it has a few quirks that make an iffy first impression. Because of its sleek, minimal design (it is, in fact, a rectangle), the Power Bar doesn’t have many moving parts. The round Apple Watch charger pops out so you can rest the device on it, and it retracts for travel. The charger also has a bank of five LEDs; two green ones show the status of the wireless spots by blinking when they’re active and staying steady when they’re ready for you to plop down a phone, and three blue ones show how much juice the Power Bar has left. And then there’s the button. The button and I have a complicated relationship. It turns the Power Bar on, and the thing will keep charging as long as something is connected to it, or for a few minutes after you remove it. But once the amount of available charginess fell to a certain point (around one blue LED or so), I found myself pressing the button often because the Power Bar just didn’t feel like working anymore. While that happens to a lot of people, especially around 2:00pm on Fridays, I was still surprised to see this kind of behavior from a plastic block full of electrons. I also wasn’t super impressed with the placement of the button or the lights. They’re on the same panel as the USB-C port that you use to fill up the Power Bar, which means that for the sake of not having a cable running weirdly around your desk, that side will be in the back. It’s easy enough to feel for the button (although maybe putting it on top would have been a better choice to stop from nudging the thing around), but visual indicators like LEDs are only useful if you can see them. Obviously, you’ll know if your device is charging or not because it will have a little lightning bolt on the screen or something. But it’s better if the indicators on the Power Bar do their job, and they only do so in certain positions. Overall, the Power Bar is a handy, if plain, charging device that works with a lot of things. Some small quirks keep it from being completely amazing, but it does enough that you could probably live with them if you find your gadgets running low often.
