Case Mate Fuel Lite iPhone Battery Pack Review
January 9, 2010 by Carlos Eduardo · 5 Comments
Rarely am I just flat out disappointed with a product. Well, that’s the case with the OrangeUK-exclusive Case Mate Fuel Lite iPhone battery pack. It just flat out hasn’t worked for me. Period.
In theory, what it’s supposed to do, is to provide a 1.5x battery life for the iPhone. This way, you get that nice little boost of juice in the afternoon when you’re phone is at 50% power and the obsessive compulsive side of you doesn’t like to see it drop below that level.
To do this, you merely press the button on the back, which activates the battery. However, this button is more sensitive than my bald head in a cold winter’s day. Just taking my phone out of my pocket at times triggered it. The problem with this is that if you want to reserve the juice until your phone drops below a certain level, well it won’t, you burned it by accident. I much prefer Mophie Juice Pack Air’s secure toggle switch.
Audio out and in of the battery pack seem unaffected by the case wrapping around the speaker and microphone, but frankly I didn’t test this enough since the main failure of this product prevented me from using it longer term.
The biggest issue I’ve had with this battery pack is that if flat out doesn’t work to discharge or charge. I constantly received the following error message when trying to use the iPhone with the battery pack engaged:
Furthermore, I also get another message when it is trying to charge (couldn’t get a screenshot fast enough) that was like a hazard sign that it wasn’t supposed to charge.
Frankly, I think this product may have been rushed out or isn’t certified for use with the iPhone.
I also didn’t have a particularly inspiring Customer Service experience. I called their offices and the lady said that because this was a product that they hadn’t launched yet (uhm.. yes they have.. walk into any Orange store…) they didn’t support it. I felt like I was arguing ‘to be or not to be’ with her. Anyway, she said they’d call me back… they never did.
So. I can’t recommend it. Short and simple.
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I also experienced issues (charged iPhone for only 3 minutes and then accidentally stops) and returned case to Orange shop (Oxford street, London) after 2 day since date of purchase. Another case we tested in the shop didn´t start to charge iPhone when connected to the original Apple AC/DC USB adaptor… so i decided not to buy another one and Orange refunded whole price.
Bought one of these a couple of days ago. It’s a great idea, unfortunately it just DOESN’T WORK! Nine times out of ten, activating the pack produces an error message saying that ‘This accessory is not designed to work with iPhone’. Once it does decide to charge the battery, it does so for a while, then produces the error message again. It’s supposed to charge the phone and battery when connected – it doesn’t. A great idea and a good design, but useless as a product. It goes back today.
I personally use the Primo by Phonesuit (its a smaller backup battery, not meant to be on the iPhone at all times). It works great as a backup when I’m running low on iPhone power. The price is low at $35. This is one of the smallest backups I’ve seen.Here is the link: iPhone Battery Pack.
I bought it directly from casemate, never had a problem with it.
My second device has just given up the ghost. This was a freebie replacement from the supplier when my first device (also a freebie) died two months ago. I’m just glad that I haven’t spent my own money on this [expletive deleted] rubbish.