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Mophie’s Palm battery pack may be the most niche charging accessory ever made

Mophie’s Palm battery pack may be the most niche charging accessory ever made

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It costs $59.95 and your dignity

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Mophie Juice Pack battery case for Palm
Mophie Juice Pack battery case for Palm
Photo: Mophie

The Palm phone is not a good phone. It is not a good replacement of a phone. But it is now a phone to join an incredible rare club: it now has a $59.95 Mophie Juice Pack battery case, making it the only device to get a custom case from the accessory company other than an Apple or Samsung phone.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why Mophie would take the time and effort to make such a device

Now I get why someone who actually bought a Palm phone would want a Mophie case for a Palm phone — the device itself has just an 800mAh battery, delivering battery life that my colleague Dieter Bohn best described as “downright atrocious.” At 900mAh, the Mophie Juice Pack for the Palm phone is actually larger than the one in the phone, so it should help with that, and it adds wireless charging support, which the regular phone doesn’t have.

But I cannot, for the life of me, understand why Mophie would take all the time, effort, and money to design, engineer, manufacture, market, and sell such a device. Could there possibly be so many owners of the Verizon-exclusive Palm out there that this was worth making over, say, a case for an LG or OnePlus phone?

Adding insult to injury is the price: at $60 for an 900mAh battery, you’re paying an outrageous premium for the design convenience, even for Mophie’s already pricey packs. (For comparison, RavPower offers a 22,000mAh USB-C battery pack with 27.5 times what the Mophie pack offers for $40.)

Mophie Powerstation Keychain
Mophie Powerstation Keychain
Photo: Mophie

Alongside what may be the most niche battery pack in existence, Mophie also announced a new Powerstation Keychain, which offers a 1,200mAh battery with an integrated USB-C cord in a convenient keychain form factor. It’s also pretty pricey for the amount of charge you get, but the small form factor, integrated cable, and carabiner might be enough to swing the balance in its favor. If nothing else, at $39.95 (for more battery), it’s at least a better deal than the Palm phone case.