REVIEWS

Panasonic QE-TM101 (qi certified charger)

There are really only 2 reasons to use wireless charging over wired charging . . . convenience and the "cool factor". And the Panasonic QE-TM101 has both (in spades). How do you review the coolest device of its kind?

Well, it's the only charger I have seen on which you can place the phone virtually anywhere and it will charge. A charger simply could not be less particular about where you place the device. Put your phone (or other qi compatible receiver) anywhere on the charging pad and the charger will move its coil to match the position of the receiver and begin charging. If you have 2 devices, place them both on the pad and they will be charged in sequence (if you want them charged in a specific order place the first on the pad and wait for the charging to begin before placing the second device on the pad). It can only charge 2 devices in this fashion. The only real caveat is that the receiver coils must be completely on the charging area "somewhere" but that's a LOT less precise than virtually any other charger.

So that's the convenience factor. How about the cool factor? The coil (as it moves) lights up so you can watch it move to your device and watch it move between devices as it completes charging each, or watch it park when you remove the device (or when no more charging is to be done). If thinking that's cool makes me a geek, then fine... I'm a geek, and that's just cool.

That leaves "How well does it work". Well, each night I place my phone on the charger and the coil moves to, and charges, the phone. When it does so, a little blue LED in the upper right corner lights up to indicate that charging is happening. Notably, I used to fumble in the dark trying to orient the MicroUSB plug correctly without turning on a light so as not to wake my wife. The charging process does not take the full 8 hours that I sleep to accomplish, so at some time during the night it reaches a full charge, the LED turns off, the coil stops charging, and docks in the corner. Typically when my alarm goes off in the morning the phone is at about 95% charged. This is generally good enough (since I also have the charger in the car) but if for some reason I want a full charge, I pick the phone up turn on the screen for a moment and place it back on the charger. It then proceeds to charge to full (usually by the time I finish my morning caffeine infusion).

As with all wireless charging there is some heat as a result of the process, although I do not find my phone to be overly warm after charging.

Okay, I'm biased, but, the only way this device could be better would be if it trickle charged to hold the charge at 100% (although it's easy to understand why a wireless charger would not be designed to do that).

Owl CarPad/G for the Nexus 4 (qi compatible charger)

This is my quick review of the Owl Carpad/G (the one for the Nexus 4). First, it arrived in just over a week (from Korea) so the shipping was superb. It came in a nice retail package containing the charger, an 8mm clear plastic spacer, the suction mount, self stick disc and a manual. The manual (in 2 languages - English and I assume Korean) very briefly explains the product and warranty with some nice pictures but says nothing about the 8mm spacer. One very nice feature is that the LED light is also an on/off switch in case you find yourself wanting to reset the unit or turn off the charging for whatever reason.

It should be noted that I am not a fan of windshield mounts and so have no definitive opinion about the included mount except that it appears to be a genuine Arkon mount and if it is, then the quality should be very good. In my car I prefer a vent mount. I ended up purchasing a vent mount at a local retailer (if you don't mind the wait, you can get one from China on eBay for about $2.00 - vent mount with 17 mm ball, usually used for Garmin Nuvi products).

The Owl Carpad is not a good product to use with an unmodified vent mount. The plastic side clips are not nearly as rigid as they appear to be (which is a good thing) and they hold the phone nicely. While they haven't yet left any marks on the bumper as a result of putting the phone in and out of it I do expect their to be some wear as I prefer to slide the phone in and out (I'm the type of person who leaves my brand new phone in the box until the screen protector arrives in the mail). That is precisely why the traditional vent mount doesn't work well. The clips do hold the phone well enough that if you attempt to slide it out of the mount it will move around (since vent mounts are typically not rigid). I solved this by anchoring the vent mount behind the vent, but this is no reflection on the charger itself and may work better with a different vent mount or in a different vehicle.

Once you have it mounted you will notice that the charger cord sticks out of the bottom. Oddly enough, every time I saw someone comment on this I thought how petty and unnecessary it was. The truth is, the charger sits far enough from the vehicle surfaces that it really would have been nice to have had the power cord come out of the side or the back or even with a 90 degree connector. That said, I'm sure I'll get used to it.

So you set it up, you put it on the mount, plug it in and you're good to go. As mentioned I expected the side clips to be much more rigid than they actually were, so the phone slides in and out relatively easily (if the mount is solid), and snapping it in and out works well too (although I might be a little weary of the bending that thin, hard plastic in very cold weather). A quick aside. I point out that the side rails are flimsier than expected not as an indication of their being cheap, but rather because in the video reviews on Youtube and in the pictures they actually appear to be very rigid thick plastic when in fact they are thin and easily movable. The phone sits in it nicely and the clips hold it both in the mount and against the back for charging). When you first turn it on (press the LED if it's not already on when you plug it in) the LED flashes alternately between red and green and then settles on red (if it's charging) or green (if it's not). If disconnected from power, the unit will always be ON when power is supplied (this is an electronic switch, not a physical toggle) so don't turn it off and expect it to still be off when you return (if the power is interrupted when you shut off the car for instance).

You place your phone in the Carpad and (if it's on) it begins to charge. The process creates a fair bit of heat (I hadn't noticed this much heat with the home charger, but I rarely if ever pick the phone from the home charger prior to its completing its task). In either case the heat is not unbearable and not unexpected. I generally don't use my phone as a GPS and therefore tend to use the charger to top up my phone midday. But I did take it for a 30 minute scoot with the GPS on. The charger fully charged the phone with the GPS running (which was very close to full when I started anyway). The noteworthy point being that it did not drop in charge level during the trip. The charger became warmer than I might have liked and I certainly won't be directing heat out of my vent when I'm charging the phone (although I will be happy that I can blow the AC on it directly when the weather is warm).

You'll note that I haven't mentioned that little 8mm spacer. That's because the first thing I did was to remove the spacer since I fundamentally disagree with the process it is designed to allow. The spacer is designed to lift the phone away from the center of the coils so that the charger can still charge the phone but the feedback which would normally cause it to shut off when it gets too hot is avoided. This allows your phone to get hotter than (I think) it should, so that you can use high drain processes for prolonged periods of time. I am of the opinion that heat is bad for the phone (the battery in particular) and that systems designed to be shut down at a certain temperature should be allowed to shut down at that temperature. But... Owl wants to sell their charger, and this is an option many people want. Most notably, the most likely place to hear about the Owl CarPad (other than on their website) is XDA-Developers and people who frequent that site are more likely to push the limits of their devices so it's not unthinkable that a company generating sales there might be willing to bend a bit to sell to this crowd (who generally understand their devices a little better than most people do).

So the Owl Carpad does what I expect from a wireless car charger. It delivers a charge without the hassle of me trying to line up the plug with the little microUSB port. It delivers enough of a charge that I can use my GPS while charging and still not lose charge. And although it does get a little warm in the process, so far not warm enough to be a concern (but summer's not here yet either). It's a black device and since most people will mount it to the windshield or on the dashboard deck (using the included suction mount), it will be a heat attracting device, in a heat concentrated area, producing heat itself.

It does what I ask of it, but apparently I'm not very demanding. I need it to charge my phone between destinations. I don't need it to charge my phone while I stream music and use the GPS (with the screen on full brightness) while typing on a bluetooth keyboard. If I really need to do all that stuff . . . then aside from wondering why I need to do all that in my car, the feet on the bottom of the carpad do not block the MicroUSB port and the led light on the carpad is an on/off switch. I can always connect my MicroUSB charger (stored in the glove box or one of the many other compartments) if I need it.

The Owl Wireless Charge Pad (qi compatible charger)

I ordered this as a package deal with the Owl CarPad/G reviewed above. The Owl Wireless Charge Pad is a straight forward slab like many of the available qi chargers. It is available in black or white (I have the black one). There's nothing special about its looks, it just a black slab with a circle on the surface to show where the coil center is (I assume). It has an LED that changes from Red (charging) to Green (fully charged) and a Korean power supply with an adapter to allow use in North America (given that this product was never actually intended for North America, I can forgive that). The Pad itself is just slightly larger than a Nexus 4 which makes positioning the Nexus 4 fairly simple. You put the Nexus on it in about the only place that makes sense and it charges (if you rotate the phone 180 degrees it doesn't charge). I should point out that the Nexus 4 without the bumper fits in this pad like they were made for each other (unfortunately I use the bumper).

I don't know if it's coil placement or something else, but this charger does not seem to charge as fast as either of the other chargers (which is odd since one of the other chargers is also an OWL product which I would assume has the same coil). This may come down to positioning the device on the charger, but to be honest, I have a big black slab and when I place my phone on the big black slab in the position I expect it to work in, it charges... So I'm not about to play with it to try to find the "sweet" spot. Note (added later) removing the bumper from the Nexus 4 significantly increases the charging compatibility with this device - This charger charges the Nexus 4 very well without the bumper (and presumably a case would cause the same depreciation in performance as the bumper does - but that is simply speculation).

One advantage to this pad is that it also charges OWL sleeves (available for a number of smartphones) as well as PowerMat products. So plug it in, put your phone on it, it works. Pretty underwhelming actually, but it works nicely on my desk when I just want to set my phone down. Honestly though if this were my only charger, I think I would be disappointed. But before you take that to mean "don't get this", that's not what it means. This charger has one very significant advantage over a number of the chargers that I saw on Youtube. IT WORKS.

Typically if I charge on it overnight, I wake to the phone charged around 95% (the same as the Panasonic). If I didn't use the bumper (or a case) I would likely be very happy with this charger. You just put the phone where you think it should go and it works (with or without the bumper). After watching far too many youtube videos of people trying to figure out the sweet spot on bargain priced chargers, don't underestimate the value of that singular property.

TESTS

I put each of the three devices above to 2 simple tests. Also, due to poor test results with the Google Bumper on my Nexus 4 with the Owl Wireless Charge Pad, I redid the tests with the bumper off (for that charger only) to see if it worked better. All other tests were performed with the Google supplied Bumper installed.

Test #1 - Under Load

Charge the Nexus 4 for 20 minutes with the GPS active (running Google Navigation), a 20 minute timer running and the screen on.