Our friends at TwelveSouth have recently provided us with a review unit of their HiRise Wireless inductive charging phone stand, which we’ve carefully reviewed! If you’re in the market for an inductive charging solution and are considering this offering from TwelveSouth, read on.
First things first, a few comments on design and build quality. The build quality is solid, with the base and stand made of a sturdy metal that has a nice weight to it and doesn’t move when you place a device on it. The design of the charger is really nifty because the surface that actually charged the phone detaches from the stand for situations where you want to lay a device flat instead of propping it up. This also makes it much more portable, but instances where you might want a portable inductive charger seem few and far between: on their website, they show someone using the charging pad disconnected from the stand and plugged into a MacBook, but while the charging pad is more portable than the whole stand, this isn’t actually a great use case for it because it still has to have a wired connection to your laptop for power, and it’s less convenient than just charging your phone with a cable when considering overall bulk and the inability to move the phone from the pad (as opposed to the relative freedom of movement afforded by a cable).
The charger itself is not the fastest, though. It’s alright as far as inductive chargers go, but it doesn’t seem to be leading the pack and it’s certainly quite a bit slower than most wired chargers these days. Still, if you’re using it to charge your phone overnight, this could be a good bedside option since it also props your device up for a better view of alarms, notifications, etc. That said, if you’re often finding yourself in a pinch and just needing to quickly charge up a bit, this is not the best option for that.
Overall, this is a nice product, but it’s just not quite practical enough to justify the price of $79.99 (or even the current sale price of $59.99) for most people. Unless you’re looking for an overnight charger and you have a very specific bedside aesthetic that requires that charger to match a very modern, leather and metal style with a black and gunmetal color palette, you can probably find something a bit cheaper.