Editors' Choice 2010: Mophie Juice Pack Air
Make your iPhone trail-ready.
Until last fall, our affection for the iPhone 3GS knew only two limitations. One, it wasn’t waterproof. Two, the camera, video, and GPS drained the battery wicked fast. We could get a weekend’s worth of photos, tunes, and reading with the GPS off, but running a nav app like MotionX cooked the phone in about four hours.
Enter the Mophie, a hardshell case and rechargeable battery pack. Slide it over your iPhone (or iPod Touch), and you’ll almost double your battery life. In the field, one editor shot more than 200 photos and 30 video clips during a four-day hike in the Wind Rivers—and listened to NPR podcasts each night.
That kind of juice lets the iPhone go places it couldn’t before. (Tip: Turn on power-saving options and limit playback to achieve times like ours. And carry a Ziploc for rain; this doesn’t solve problem #1.) $80 (available through iTunes and authorized Apple vendors); 2.7 oz.; mophie.com