A $79.99 Battery Moulded for One Phone, When Mine Cost $40 and Fits Everything

BMX is selling a MagSafe battery shaped to sit in the curve of a folded iPhone Duo, with a base that props the phone upright. It is on Amazon at $79.99.

I own a portable battery that charges by contact. It cost me $40 and it does what I need. That is the whole comparison, and everything below is me explaining why that is not a cheap shot.

A battery moulded for one handset is a battery with the lifespan of that handset. Not the lifespan of the cells, which is years, but the lifespan of your decision to keep this exact phone. Change model and it is a lump of plastic with a port. I measure things against five to eight years of use, and an accessory that is only useful while you own one specific device fails that before I get to the price.

Then there is the price. Twice what a generic magnetic bank costs, for a curve. I understand what you are paying for: the Duo folds, most magnetic accessories sit badly on it, and someone went and solved that. Fine. The stand is a genuinely nice touch. It is still $40 of engineering for the fit and the mould, on a product category where $40 buys a working one.

So, do I buy it? No, and not because it is bad. Because the thing it adds, fitting one phone perfectly, is the thing that makes it worthless the moment that phone leaves your pocket for good. A generic one fits worse and keeps working forever.

If you have just spent $1,999 on a foldable and you want the accessory that was designed for it, nobody should talk you out of it. Just know what the $40 premium buys: a shape, not a battery.