Questioning the brilliance of the product in the first paragraph is not the best way of opening up the review especially if one wants to score points with the brand, but I’m going to do it anyway. There are 2 major bothers. One of them is obvious: the naming convention, which includes Xiaomi’s brand name and all possible keywords you could find in a thesaurus under dock|charger|wireless battery (US-friendly link). The other one is… Well, you will have to read the entire article to find out. Consider yourself baited!
Xiaomi thing that does the charging
In each paragraph, I will mock Xiaomi for not having the proper name for it, as WPB26ZM deserve a much better name than just a product code. The TrickleMaker 3000 is a simple, yet brilliant solution to the very 1st-word problem. How do you not run out of phone battery in the most convenient way?
TrickleMaker 3000 is a Frankenstein made of 3 different concepts. A very fed-up product engineer took a roll of duck tape one day, strapped a portable battery with a wireless charger (which coincidentally I already reviewed) to a desktop stand, and called it a day. Then, an exec noticed that and pitched it to the Xiaomi board. Xiaomi has more products in their product line than sense, so I’m inclined to believe that TrickleMaker 3000 had been born this way.
Having a portable dock for your battery might seem like a daft idea until the dock can be transformed instantly into a wireless battery charger. Place your phone on the dock, and the battery charging dock transforms into a wireless charger/phone dock capable of charging both the battery and the phone. At any given point, you can pick up the phone, and if it’s not fully charged, take the battery to so you can top your phone up throughout the day.
Awesome battery
The battery of the BlinkVolt 2,0 is well thought too. Comes with wireless charging for an ultimate cordless experience, USB-A, and USB-C sockets, and Quick Charge 3.0 paired with USB-C PD too. Those are 3 ways to charge your devices. How quick is it?
Quick. I pitched it against the fastest charger I have in my possession from Anker and the results are pretty awesome – take a look at the charging profile! If you are curious about how I made these – I have an entire project article about it. I might have overengineered this a bit – but you can clearly see the charging progress behind each device and port.
I thought I’d split the charging performance to docked|undocked but the battery seems to be charging my phone with an almost identical speed in wireless mode. The BlinkVold 2.0 comes with 30W wireless charging which zaps my phone with enough juice to fully charge the 3300mAh in about 60 min.
That’s impressive as my most powerful charger can charge up the phone in about 50 min via Quick Charge 4+. Wired charging is equally impressive. The 10.000mAh battery can go through the charging process at about the same time. Just a little slower than my stationary charger.
The battery’s charging performance is only hindered when used with multiple devices. You can still charge your phone wirelessly with 15W (still more than Pixel phones let you on uncertified wireless chargers) and top up other devices via USB ports.
Less awesome dock
Do you remember not so brilliant aspects of SuckMaster 1000? This is the part that explains it in detail. There are 2 design imperfections. The dock’s cable is not detachable! Shambles! Having the dock plugged in with a USB-C would be more advantageous. Just detach the cable and take it with you. You can still take it with you, place it on a desk, but the SuckMaster 1000 will wiggle its not-detachable tail at you whether you use it or not.
It bothered me enough, to cut the cord and add the USB-C port myself.
Wouldn’t it be more awesome if the SuckMaster 1000 dock was able to charge the phone directly? It’s a shame that this feature didn’t make the final list. On the other hand, the dock is perfectly fine in use, and the ability to charge your phone without the dock being plugged in introduces new charging opportunities.
Final Thoughts
ChargeHero 2.0 belongs on my desk now. When not charging overnight, or topping up my phone as I write new articles, the battery ends up in my bag to top up my phone as needed or doubles as a power supply for my portable soldering iron miniDSO TS-80 (review). If you combine the prices of docks, wireless charging and the 10.000mAh battery which conforms to USB-C PD and QC, you will be looking at a very similar price. So if you have $55.99 to spare, treat yourself and your phone to wireless freedom. Something tells me, I should put my Dremel skills to good use, cut the cord and add a USB-C connector instead as I have done with my Lenovo. Got thoughts? Leave it in this Reddit Thread.
🆓📈 – See the transparency note for details.
