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The Best Qi Wireless Charger for iPhone and Android Phones

By Nick Guy
Updated
An iPhon shown charging vertically on the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Qi charging stand.
Photo: Rozette Rago

Wireless chargers are a convenient way to juice up your phone without having to plug it in, even if they’re slower than wired chargers. And stand-style chargers are the best because, unlike horizontal pads, they allow you to use your phone while it’s charging. After more than 900 hours of testing since 2017, we’ve determined that the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W is the best Qi (the industry-wide wireless-charging standard) charger for smartphones because it charges iPhones and Android phones faster than the competition. It also comes with a cable and a wall charger, accessories that many cheaper rivals leave out. If you have an iPhone 12 or later, consider our upgrade pick below.

Everything we recommend

Our pick

This charging stand provides a fast charge to both iPhone and Android smartphones and comes with a wall plug and a long USB cable.

Upgrade pick

This charger offers the fastest wireless charging we’ve ever measured and easy magnetic alignment, but it’s best suited for iPhone 12 or later models.

Budget pick

This pad doesn’t include a USB wall charger—you need to provide your own—but it’s an inexpensive option for a nightstand or any situation when slower charging isn’t a problem.

Buying Options

This stand charges a phone more slowly than others, but it’s still a great choice for overnight charging. It’s inexpensive and reliable, but it doesn’t include a USB wall charger, so you need to provide your own.

Buying Options

Our pick

This charging stand provides a fast charge to both iPhone and Android smartphones and comes with a wall plug and a long USB cable.

The Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W can charge common smartphones from empty to about 40% or 50% in an hour, whereas much of the competition brings a battery closer to 30% or 40%. Unlike some Qi chargers (including our budget picks), this charging stand comes with a cable and a wall plug, so you don’t need anything else to charge your phone at the highest available speeds—and the detachable cable is of the readily available Micro-USB variety, so you can easily replace it if necessary. Available in black or white, the stand has a simple design that will blend into most environments. The Wireless Power Consortium has certified it as safe, and if anything goes wrong, Belkin’s warranty covers the charger for two years.

Charging speed: 7.5 W for iPhones, 10 W for Android phones
Input port: Micro-USB
Included in the box: charging stand, 4-foot Micro-USB cable, 24 W Quick Charge 3.0 wall charger

Upgrade pick

This charger offers the fastest wireless charging we’ve ever measured and easy magnetic alignment, but it’s best suited for iPhone 12 or later models.

A stand-style charger, such as our top pick, is the most convenient way to wirelessly charge the widest variety of phones. But if you have an iPhone with MagSafe (any model in the iPhone 12 lineup or later) and want to take advantage of the magnetic charging feature, which lets you use your phone while it’s being wirelessly charged, we recommend Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad with MagSafe Special Edition. It’s Apple-certified and offers full 15-watt MagSafe charging speeds. In fact, it was even faster than Apple’s own MagSafe Charger in our tests. It magnetically attaches in the same way as Apple’s, and a built-in kickstand lets you prop your phone up in portrait orientation while charging. Despite its high price, the Belkin charger doesn’t come with the 20 W USB-C wall adapter you need to power it. So you’ll have to pick one up if you don’t already have an extra. This model can also charge Qi-capable Android devices, but we think Android users should consider other chargers whose designs aren’t as iPhone-centric.

Charging speed: 15 W for iPhone
Input port: n/a
Included in the box: magnetic wireless charger with permanently attached 79-inch braided USB-C cable

Budget pick

This pad doesn’t include a USB wall charger—you need to provide your own—but it’s an inexpensive option for a nightstand or any situation when slower charging isn’t a problem.

Buying Options

This stand charges a phone more slowly than others, but it’s still a great choice for overnight charging. It’s inexpensive and reliable, but it doesn’t include a USB wall charger, so you need to provide your own.

Buying Options

If you want to spend a little less on a charger and already have USB power bricks lying around, the Anker PowerWave Base Pad and Anker PowerWave Stand are great options. Both come with a Micro-USB cable, but neither package includes a USB power brick. In our tests, the Anker chargers delivered about 12% less charge in an hour than our top pick, but the Anker models are also much cheaper. Light-sensitive sleepers will appreciate that though there is a small blue charging-indicator light, it isn’t too bright and is easily covered if it’s still too much. Anker claims that the Base Pad—when paired with a Quick Charge 3.0 wall charger—can charge the latest iPhones at 7.5 W, and both units should provide 10 W charging for recent Samsung Galaxy phones. However, in our testing both maxed out at 5 W with the iPhone 12 and LG V30.

Charging speed: 5 W
Input port: Micro-USB
Included in the box: charging pad or stand, 3-foot Micro-USB cable

I’ve been covering power accessories since 2011 and reviewing them for Wirecutter since 2015. Over the years I’ve checked out more than 1,000 products, including early wireless-charging devices. I researched and wrote Wirecutter’s first guide to Qi chargers in 2017 and have been consistently testing new models and updating the guide since. I also wrote our guide to Qi power banks, battery packs that use the same wireless technology, and I’m the author of Wirecutter’s guides to multiport USB wall chargers and car chargers. In short, I’ve seen and tested pretty much every available charging variation.

A wireless charger is for anyone who owns a smartphone that supports the Qi wireless-charging standard and would like to charge it without having to plug a cord into the phone itself. With a Qi charger, you just rest your device on the charging pad to power it up. It’s a matter of convenience: You don’t have to fuss with physically plugging in and unplugging a cable, and you reduce wear and tear on the charging port. If your phone doesn’t have a headphone jack, a wireless charger also frees up the Lightning connector or USB-C port so you can use wired headphones while charging.

“Wireless” is a bit of a misnomer, though, because you still have to plug the charging pad into a USB port or wall outlet. “Magnetic charging” may be a better term because Qi uses magnetic coils to transfer energy and power your device, but we’ll stick with “wireless” here because it’s so commonly accepted.

Qi (pronounced “chee”) is the wireless-charging standard from the Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group with more than 220 members including device manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung, accessory makers such as Belkin and Mophie, and others. For a charger to be certified by the WPC, the manufacturer has to submit it to an authorized test lab. Phones compatible with the Qi standard include all iPhones currently being sold, Samsung Galaxy phones, and Google’s high-end Pixel models.

If you want the fastest possible charge, you need to use a cable. Wireless charging is slower than wired charging, and the wattage listed on the charger doesn’t necessarily indicate how quickly it will charge. Affordable, wired 12 W USB chargers can charge an iPhone at least 30% faster than a Qi charger can, while an 18 or 20 W USB PD charger paired with Apple’s USB-C to Lightning Cable can approach 50% faster. Qualcomm Quick Charge adapters can do the same thing for many Android phones.

The other downside to wireless charging is that you can’t pick up your phone and use it while it’s charging, unlike with a cable connection. This makes wireless charging a better option for recharging overnight or for when you want to see the phone’s display on your desk or in the kitchen, rather than for charging while you’re watching Netflix, say, or scrolling through Twitter.

In 2020, however, Apple introduced its MagSafe charging and magnetic mounting system as part of the iPhone 12 lineup. Hidden magnets inside the phone allow you to connect supported accessories and (provided the charger is MagSafe-certified) charge it at up to 15 watts, in contrast to 7.5 watts with Qi chargers. This magnetic-charging design means you can use the phone while it’s charging, and because the magnets ensure proper alignment, you don’t have to worry about your phone being out of place and not charging properly. In addition to MagSafe-certified chargers, you can find non-certified chargers that utilize the magnetic-alignment system but don’t take advantage of the faster charging speeds that MagSafe allows.

A good wireless charger should meet all of the following basic criteria, which we used as guidelines for our research:

  • WPC certification: We considered only those chargers that have been certified by the WPC. This means that a charger has been tested and found to be both safe and in compliance with the Qi standard. If a wireless charger isn’t certified, that doesn’t necessarily mean the charger is unsafe or noncompliant, but it’s still prudent to choose something that has been verified. As of late January 2021, no MagSafe or MagSafe-style magnetic chargers have been certified by the WPC, so we gave brands in that category with an exemplary track record (including Apple and RAVPower) the benefit of the doubt.
  • Charging speed: For our top picks, we focused on chargers that provided fast charging to most phones. The Qi 1.2 standard supports charging speeds of up to 15 watts (9 volts, 1.67 amps), but 7.5 W and 10 W chargers are more common right now. iPhones can charge at speeds of up to 7.5 W via regular Qi charging or 15 W with an Apple-certified MagSafe Charger. Many Android phones can do up to 10 W, and some even support 15 W charging. Since 5 W chargers are slower, we considered them only as a low-cost option.
  • Design: This criterion includes not only how the charging pad looks, but also how grippy its surface is for holding a phone in place. We prefer stands to pads because they allow you to see and interact with your phone’s screen while it’s charging, but we included both styles in our research to address all needs. This element also includes extras such as charging-indicator lights.
  • Noise: Some chargers we tested put out a faint (and sometimes not so faint) whine or clicking noise, which quickly became annoying. We listened for this sound in our tests and noted any issues.
  • Power source: For single-device wireless chargers, we tested only those models that use a standard connection (Micro-USB is the most common, but we’re seeing USB-C more often) and come bundled with an AC adapter. Cords with proprietary connections are more difficult and expensive to replace. We made an exception for units that charge both a phone and an Apple Watch, since they exclusively use small, round “barrel jacks” that could come in a variety of sizes. (Also, as with wired charging, the wall adapter matters: Lower-power adapters produce slower charging speeds or, in some cases, don’t power the charger at all.)
  • Maker reputation: We considered models only from companies that we knew had a good reputation for warranty coverage and customer support. Even if a charger is WPC-certified, you have no guarantee that it will never have a problem, and you should be able to get help if you need it.
  • Price: The most expensive single-device charger we researched was $70, but many sell for $35 or less and provide similar performance. Because the more expensive models don’t offer extra features or promise faster rates, we skipped them, opting to focus on the lower end of the price range.

We tested the performance of each Qi charger by separately putting each fully drained phone (we used an iPhone 13 and an LG V30) into airplane mode and then placing it on the charging pad. If a charger came with its own wall adapter, we used it. If a charger came with only a USB cable, we plugged it into an 18 W USB-A or 20 W USB-C wall adapter.

A bar chart showing how charged a iPhone 12 is after 1 hour of charge using the Qi chargers tested in this review, with the Apple MagSafe charger being the fastest.

We measured the phone’s battery level after 30 minutes and then again after an hour had elapsed. Any reputable Qi charger will fully charge any phone in a few hours, and certainly overnight, so we were instead looking for differences in short-term charging. I first tested everything at my desk, but if I heard a sound that could potentially be disruptive, I also tested the charger in my bedroom at night, sleeping with it about 2 feet from my head to see if the noise would interfere with my sleep.

The Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand, our pick for best Qi wireless charger.
Photo: Rozette Rago

Our pick

This charging stand provides a fast charge to both iPhone and Android smartphones and comes with a wall plug and a long USB cable.

Stand-style Qi chargers are more convenient than flat pads and easier to properly align, and the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W is the best one we’ve found for people who are looking to charge wirelessly without having to buy an AC adapter or any other extra pieces. No other stand-style charger we tested for this guide charges iPhone or Android devices faster, and the WPC has certified that this model meets industry safety standards. Its design is basic and won’t look out of place in most settings, whether it’s stationed on your desk or next to your bed. And because it doesn’t make any noise while charging and its status light is hidden behind your phone, it won’t disrupt your sleep.

The Wireless Charging Stand 10W beat out most other chargers we tested in pure performance, charging our fully depleted iPhone 13 to about 20% after 30 minutes and roughly 37% to 50% after an hour. A few competitors—such as the RAVPower Magnetic Wireless Charger (RP-WC012) and Anker PowerWave II Stand—were similarly fast, and only Apple’s far more expensive MagSafe Charger and Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad were faster. The upshot is that this Belkin stand charger will easily charge your phone overnight or keep it topped off as you come and go from your desk. The fastest wired chargers are almost twice as speedy, but the Wireless Charging Stand 10W’s performance was impressive when we compared it with that of other wireless chargers.

Belkin’s plastic stand has a footprint of almost 4 by 4 inches, with rubber strips on the underside that provide grip. It stands about 5 inches tall and leans back 20 degrees, allowing you to easily view the phone’s screen (and even unlock it with facial recognition, if your phone has that feature). Whether you get the stand in black or white, it’s pretty plain looking, and that’s a good thing because in most settings it won’t stand out as an obvious tech gadget.

Unlike a pad, which requires you to align your phone correctly to begin charging, stands like the Wireless Charging Stand 10W ensure that your phone is always lined up with the charging coils. And on this Belkin model, you can even charge your phone in landscape orientation, which is useful if you’re watching video.

An iPhon shown charging horizontally on the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Qi charging stand.
The Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W can charge your phone in either landscape or portrait orientation. Photo: Rozette Rago

The Wireless Charging Stand 10W makes for a good bedside accessory. This model is silent while charging, unlike the Anker PowerWave Pad with its audible fan and other chargers that whir, hum, or click. And the status light is rather small, just an LED pinprick that glows rather than casts light, so it won’t illuminate your whole room.

This model uses a standard Micro-USB cable for power and ships with a 4-foot cable and a 24 W Quick Charge 3.0 power adapter. Those two additions make it a great value (some Qi chargers come with only the cable, not the adapter), as well as a more convenient choice than chargers that use proprietary AC adapters, such as the Anker PowerWave II Stand. If you lose or break the cable or adapter, you can easily and inexpensively replace either part.

Belkin offers a standard two-year warranty on this charger. That’s more than the 12 or 18 months of coverage that most companies offer, and it’s particularly great given the Wireless Charging Stand 10W’s low price. Unlike with some of Belkin’s more premium products, however, connected devices (in this case, the phone you’re charging on the stand) are not covered under the warranty.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W works only when connected to a Quick Charge 3.0 USB charger with at least 18 W of power, such as the one that comes in the box. In our tests, the stand wouldn’t work at all when connected to standard USB chargers that provided 5 W to 12 W of power (at 5 V). This limitation could be annoying if you lose or break the included charger, since you can’t simply replace it with another USB brick you may have lying around. But we think the wall charger is unlikely to break since it’s a well-built device meant to be kept in one place, unlike a power bank or even a wired charger that you may travel with. And even if something does happen to it, the whole package is protected by Belkin’s warranty.

As with all charging stands, this pad’s coil is too high on the stand to charge anything that isn’t roughly phone-shaped. So if you have a smaller accessory, such as AirPods in their wireless charging case, we recommend getting a horizontal wireless charging pad instead.

Belkin indicates on its website that the Wireless Charging Stand 10W is not compatible with the iPhone 12 mini. In our tests the stand charged this phone without issue, but it’s possible you may not get the fastest speeds with that diminutive handset.

Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad with MagSafe Special Edition on the back of an iPhone.
Photo: Sarah Kobos

Upgrade pick

This charger offers the fastest wireless charging we’ve ever measured and easy magnetic alignment, but it’s best suited for iPhone 12 or later models.

If you have an iPhone 12 or later and want a wireless charger that lets you use your phone while it’s charging—or you simply want the fastest wireless charging you can get—we recommend Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad with MagSafe Special Edition. The magnetic puck is faster than any other wireless charger we’ve tested, including Apple’s MagSafe Charger, and it automatically aligns itself when you’re using a bare iPhone or a case with MagSafe-style magnets. An embedded kickstand on the back folds out, if you want to position your phone in landscape orientation while it’s charging. The Belkin charger is more expensive than the Apple MagSafe Charger, though, and you have to provide your own wall adapter.

MagSafe-certified chargers (as opposed to generic magnetic wireless chargers) offer two major benefits: perfect alignment and fast, 15-watt charging. But they’re still few and far between. This Belkin charger is one of the few third-party options available.

In our speed tests using an iPhone 13, the Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad was faster than any wireless charger we’ve ever tested, including our top pick and even Apple’s own MagSafe charger. It charged a fully depleted battery to 34% after 30 minutes and 67% in an hour, compared with Apple’s MagSafe charger’s 57% in an hour.

The Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad is a 2.3-inch-diameter, 0.6-inch-thick plastic puck with a 79-inch-long braided USB-C cord, and it magnetically snaps to the back of a bare MagSafe-equipped iPhone or one in a case that has the right magnets built in. This means you don’t need to worry about getting the alignment right, which is a real concern with pad-style chargers. Phones that don’t have MagSafe built in, including older iPhones and Android phones, can still charge on the Belkin. But you have to be precise in how you place them on the puck or use a MagSafe ring adapter.

The Boost Charge Pro stands on its own with the flip-out kickstand. Photo: Sarah Kobos

Belkin’s inclusion of a kickstand on the back is a nice touch because it lets you prop up your phone in landscape orientation, which is convenient if you want to watch a movie or stream YouTube while your phone charges. Since it folds flat, it doesn’t get in the way when not in use. The fabric-covered cable also helps justify the price because it should hold up to wear and tear better than a standard rubber-coated cable. And since the cable is so long, the silicone cable strap Belkin has attached to the cable is especially handy for keeping any extra length tamed.

Just like Apple, Belkin does not include the 20 W USB-C wall charger you need to power the Boost Charge Pro—it’s $20 if you buy Apple’s version, or about half that if you choose one of our equally fast and much smaller picks. That means the whole package will cost about $70 to $75 if you don’t already have a wall charger.

Belkin covers the Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad with a 24-month warranty, and although the Belkin charger isn’t WPC-certified, neither is any other magnetic charging puck (including Apple’s own MagSafe Charger) at this writing. Belkin has a proven history when it comes to Qi chargers, though, so we’re comfortable recommending this charger even without the certification.

Our budget picks, the Anker PowerWave Base Pad and PowerWave Stand. A phone rests on the PowerWave Stand, charging.
Photo: Rozette Rago

Budget pick

This pad doesn’t include a USB wall charger—you need to provide your own—but it’s an inexpensive option for a nightstand or any situation when slower charging isn’t a problem.

Buying Options

This stand charges a phone more slowly than others, but it’s still a great choice for overnight charging. It’s inexpensive and reliable, but it doesn’t include a USB wall charger, so you need to provide your own.

Buying Options

The Anker PowerWave Base Pad and Anker PowerWave Stand are the most affordable WPC-certified chargers we’ve tried from a reputable company. Compared with our top picks or a wired charger, they are slow to charge a phone, but they’re ideal for overnight charging or other scenarios that aren’t time-sensitive. Neither model comes with an AC adapter, but you can use a USB charger like the ones you normally use to charge a phone or tablet, or buy one separately. All of the other chargers we tested that don’t include wall plugs are more expensive, at which point you might as well buy one of our picks that come with a wall plug.

In our tests (which we conducted using a Quick Charge 3.0 AC adapter), both the PowerWave Base Pad and the PowerWave Stand charged a fully drained iPhone 13 battery to a little under 15% after 30 minutes and 30% after an hour. (Anker claims the Base Pad can charge the latest iPhones at 7.5-watt speeds with a QC 3.0 adapter, but our testing showed that not to be the case; we found the results to be consistent with those from a 5-watt charger.) This is a slow charging rate, especially compared with those of our other picks, which brought the iPhone 13 to 20% in 30 minutes and about 40% in an hour. But these Anker chargers are about value, and they work with the AC adapters or USB chargers you may already have; you can even plug them into a USB port on your computer. If you need speed or don’t have a spare USB wall plug, go with the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W.

The Anker PowerWave Stand is mostly plastic, with rubber on the bottom to prevent it from moving. Like other stand-style chargers, it holds your phone at an angle, which lets you easily use Face ID on iPhones that support the feature. A small blue indicator-light ring on the supportive lower ledge lets you know when it’s charging.

The smartphone-shaped Anker PowerWave Base Pad has a rubber ring above its charging coil to prevent your device from slipping off its surface. Photo: Rozette Rago

The PowerWave Base Pad is a rounded rectangle measuring 6 inches long, 3 inches wide, and about half an inch thick. It’s grippy enough on top to hold a bare phone in place, but it’s not tacky, and the same rubber material on the bottom holds the charger itself in place. A tiny blue LED glows to indicate when the charger is engaged. Neither charger makes any noise during use.

Anker offers an 18-month warranty but doesn’t provide an option to extend that coverage period, as RAVPower does on its warranty. Though we’ve never had an issue in our years of using Anker charging pads, when our staff has had to take advantage of Anker’s protection on other devices, they’ve found the service to be quick and painless. We’ve heard the same from readers. Anker’s Qi accessories do have some negative owner reviews on Amazon (as do most chargers). But buying from a reputable brand with a good warranty means that if something does go wrong, you’ll be taken care of.

If you use a phone case that provides storage on the back for credit cards and cash, a wireless charger may not be for you. Some wallet cases are too thick to activate wireless charging on some chargers, and metal credit cards, which are becoming more popular, can also block charging.

If you want to use wireless charging but need a case with wallet features, we recommend a folio-style wallet case or a removable, magnetic wallet like Apple’s iPhone Leather Wallet instead.

If our top pick goes out of stock or jumps in price: Anker’s PowerWave II Stand is a great alternative to the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W. It charges just as quickly, and the price is about the same. We decided not to make it our pick because it uses a proprietary barrel-style charging plug rather than Micro-USB; as a result, the cable and attached wall charger are more difficult to replace if necessary.

If you want a more affordable magnetic charger: We recommend RAVPower’s Magnetic Wireless Charger (RP-WC012). Although it charges at about half the speed of the Belkin we recommend, it costs half as much, and that price includes a wall adapter.

We’re planning a new round of testing for the spring of 2023, which will pit our current picks against the following models:

We’re also excited about a new wireless charging standard called Qi2 that the World Power Consortium (WPC) introduced in January 2023. Apple allowed its proprietary MagSafe technology to be used as the basis for Qi2’s key feature, called the Magnetic Power Profile. Like MagSafe, the WPC says this feature uses magnets to “ensure that phones or other rechargeable battery-powered mobile products are perfectly aligned with charging devices, thus providing improved energy efficiency and faster charging.” We look forward to testing some Qi2-compliant devices from a variety of companies as they start to roll out later this year.

Apple’s MagSafe Charger charges at a slower rate than the Belkin magnetic wireless charger we recommend, and it is more expensive than the RAVPower RP-WC012. You’re better off choosing one of the other models we recommend by determining if speed or price is the most important factor to you.

The Nimble Apollo Wireless Pad charged an iPhone 12 just a little slower than the RAVPower RP-WC012 in our tests. It looks more like a traditional pad-style charger but there are magnets inside, so it’s easy to align MagSafe-equipped iPhones and keep them in place. The charger is also made of recycled materials, which we appreciate. We have two qualms, however: the high price tag (although a 20W wall charger is included, so it’s a complete package) and the lack of WPC-certification.

Belkin’s Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 15W charged the iPhone 12 at the same speeds as the fastest non-MagSafe chargers, but it charged the V30 at a slower rate. We confirmed in testing that this model doesn’t charge the iPhone 12 mini.

Although Satechi’s USB-C Magnetic Wireless Charging Cable and Spigen’s PowerArc ArcField are just as fast as the RAVPower RP-WC012 and priced about the same, they don’t come with wall adapters.

Choetech’s Magnetic Wireless Charger and Belkin’s Boost Charge Magnetic Portable Wireless Charger Pad 7.5W cost about the same as the RAVPower RP-WC012 and also come with power adapters, but were about 20% slower in our tests.

The Sonix Magnetic Link Wireless Charger charged at only a little more than half the speed of our RAVPower magnetic pick, and it doesn’t come with a power adapter.

ESR’s HaloLock Magnetic Wireless Charger is a pad-style charger with built-in magnets, so if you’re using a MagSafe-capable phone, you don’t have to worry about misalignment. It was far slower than other chargers in our testing, though, hitting just a 30% charge after an hour. It also lacks a power adapter.

If you prefer your phone to lie flat while it’s charging, the RAVPower Fast Wireless Charger (RP-PC058) is a great option. It has the same 10-watt charging coil as the upright Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W, so it can charge your phone just as quickly, and it comes with the same cable and AC adapter. You might prefer a pad-style charger because they’re generally less expensive than equally fast stand-style chargers, or if you’d rather not be tempted to look at your screen once you’ve set your phone down, but a stand charger is likely to be more useful for most people.

Spigen’s SteadiBoost Flex Wireless Charger is a transforming charger, meaning it can work as a stand or fold flat to act as a pad. In our testing it matched the fastest non-MagSafe charging speeds we’ve recorded for both iPhones and Android devices. It doesn’t come with a power brick, though, and it typically costs about as much as the Belkin Boost Charge Wireless Charging Stand 10W, which does have a power brick. If you need both a stand and a pad, this charger is worth the money, but most people will be served well enough by one or the other.

Anker’s PowerWave Sense Pad Alloy charged rapidly in our tests, and it comes with a cable and a Quick Charge 3.0 charger. Its metal body and fabric-lined surface look quite nice, too, but this Anker charger is expensive for a pad-style charger, so we suggest that you get it only if the price drops or if you’re willing to pay for the aesthetics.

Like the Anker PowerWave II Stand, the Anker PowerWave II Pad charges more slowly than competitors, and instead of a USB charger, it uses a proprietary AC charger that you can’t replace as easily if necessary. We also found the pad to be too slick. The PowerWave 10 Stand with 2 USB-A Ports version runs at the same speeds and has the same kind of power source, but it offers the added benefit of two USB ports with a combined 12-watt output.

Anker’s PowerWave Pad is our former budget pick, but it’s a little slower than the PowerWave Base Pad, which is available for the same price.

The Samsung EP-NG930 was our previous favorite stand, but it’s slower than better models and doesn’t look as nice.

The iOttie iON Wireless Plus Fast Charging Pad is one of the better-looking Qi chargers we’ve tested. But it was slower than other models in our tests, and when it wasn’t charging, the unit emitted a quiet, intermittent beep that may annoy people who have acute hearing. iOttie’s stand version of the charger is equally handsome, and we didn’t hear any noises coming from that model. But it charged both an iPhone XR and an LG V30 more slowly than other chargers did.

Prior models

The Logitech Powered for iPhone charging stand usually costs several times more than the chargers we recommend, yet it lacks the ability to charge that much faster. The permanently attached cable gives you less flexibility in swapping it out if something goes wrong.

The Belkin Boost Up Bold Wireless Charging Pad 10W was slower than much less expensive chargers in our tests, and the pad emitted a high-pitched coil whine. Belkin told us that our test results did not reflect the data from its own testing and that “[Belkin’s] charging pads are performing slightly better vs. the latest competition.” But even if the performance were better, we don’t think the charger would be worth its relatively high price.

The Mophie Charge Stream Pad Mini is the smallest Qi charger we’ve tested, and it performed pretty well, but it was still slower than competitors.

The Twelve South PowerPic is the most cleverly designed Qi charger we’ve come across. The charging surface is hidden inside an attractive picture frame, allowing you to display a 5-by-7-inch photo when you’re not charging. Thanks to this design, the PowerPic can blend into your home better than accessories with the standard techy look. It’s expensive, though, especially considering it doesn’t come with a wall adapter. And it’s not particularly fast: Our tests showed results in line with those of a 5-watt charger, despite the 10-watt listing.

With the Case-Mate Wireless Power Pad and its included plastic stand, you can charge your phone in a flat or angled position. Its charging speeds were pretty much in line with our expectations. But the price, usually about double what our favorite Qi chargers cost, is just too much for what this model offers.

The Satechi Wireless Charging Pad looks nice but isn’t as grippy on top as better chargers. It also doesn’t come with a wall adapter, so you need to provide your own. It took longer to charge an iPhone than the fastest chargers we tested.

Meet your guide

Nick Guy

Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It’s impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.

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    We’ve tested the best car chargers, and we have recommendations for affordable, reliable options that can fast-charge any device while you’re on the road.

  • A collection of fast charging power sources and adapters, along with the devices they charge, laid out in an orderly fashion on top of a cream color surface.

    The Best Fast Chargers for Every Device

    by Nick Guy

    We’ve researched and tested the fastest chargers available and collected our recommendations of the best ones, no matter what device you need to charge.

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