The Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger pumps power more quickly into an iPhone than almost any other charger I’ve tested that’s designed for use on the go. And it can juice up an Apple Watch and AirPods case at the same time. There’s a trade-off, though.
I put the accessory through a full round of testing with my Apple devices. Here’s what I found.
Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger review
A dedicated multidevice travel charger can save a lot of hassle by keeping all of your charging cables packed and ready to go. Instead of unplugging the cables from your desk or nightstand every time you travel — and then having to reconnect everything when you get home — you can simply grab your travel charger and head out the door.
The Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger can absolutely fill this role. It lets you keep your iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods going with a gizmo that you can keep in your suitcase so you won’t forget it.
Just leave a fairly large space for it in your luggage.
Stay powerful wherever you land with the Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger. This latest innovation from Mophie features our new StealthCharge Technology that eliminates the annoying fan noise so you can sleep peacefully, even with the charger on your nightstand.
The Roam 3-in-1 folds into its own handy travel case and unfolds in seconds so you can charge your iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch simultaneously at the fastest wireless charging speeds.
- 25W charging
- Supports iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods
- Bulky
- Slower than many desktop chargers
Table of contents: Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger review
- A bulky travel charger
- The size/performance trade-off
- Performance: Good but doesn’t live up to StealthCharge’s promise
- Performance: Apple Watch and AirPods chargers, too
- Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger review: Final thoughts
- Pricing
A bulky travel charger
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
When it comes to travel accessories, size matters. I want to tote around a minimal amount of gear to get the job done, and I’m confident the same is true for you.
But these days there’s a trade-off to be aware of. There’s a new generation of travel chargers that can power up an iPhone much more quickly than before, but these are noticeably bulkier than earlier products. That includes this new one from Mophie.
The Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger folds to be 3.0 inches wide, 2.8 inches deep and 1.3 inches thick. It weighs half a pound.
It’s a bit chunky, but there’s quite a bit of functionality there. The device unfolds, and then the iPhone charger flips up, making room underneath for a charger for an AirPods case. On the opposite side of the hinge sits a flip-up Apple Watch charger.
Don’t overlook that the device is a stand for the iPhone and the Apple Watch. It can happily sit on your desk on a business trip.
The accessory comes in black or a color Mophie describes as “Sail Cream.” I don’t recommend the latter — my test unit already looked dirty after only short usage.
The size/performance trade-off
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Remember the size/performance trade-off I mentioned? Mophie’s Roam is roughly as hefty as the Anker Prime Wireless Charging Station I reviewed this spring. These both deliver a significant boost in charging speeds compared to earlier models.
Now consider the Twelve South ButterFly. This wireless travel charger is much more portable than Mophie’s or Anker’s products. It’s small enough that one lives in my gear bag so it’s always available.
But the ButterFly charges my iPhone at about a third of the speed of Mophie’s or Anker’s travel chargers.
There’s your trade-off: you can get much faster charging for the most recent models, but only in much bulkier accessories.
Performance: Good but doesn’t live up to StealthCharge’s promise
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger is part of a new line of products with StealthCharge, a system Mophie designed to let the wireless charger transfer more power to an iPhone by keeping the handset cool. It builds on the Qi2.2 wireless charging standard. This can deliver up to 25W of power, but that causes the iPhone to heat up, so charging slows to get the device a chance to cool down. StealthCharge lets the process go faster because the devices stay cooler.
In the Mophie 4-in-1 Wireless Charge Stand for the desktop that I reviewed recently, StealthCharge works very well. That is not true for the travel version.
To be clear, it works to the extent that the Roam charges my iPhone 17 more quickly than the 15W Twelve South ButterFly. But not nearly as quickly as the desktop version.
In my testing, the Roam pushed up the battery level on my iPhone 17 by (on average) 43% in half an hour. That’s not fast enough to meet Apple’s definition of “fast charging.” And for comparison, Mophie’s desktop model with StealthCharge raised the battery level by 58% in the same amount of time.
That’s because the Roam was not keeping my iPhone cool. During frequent checks with my digital thermometer, the handset was always over 100 degrees. (The desktop version stayed around 90 degrees.) So there was clearly plenty of thermal throttling.
It’s actually not surprising. StealthCharge in Mophie’s Wireless Charge Stand reduces temperatures by dumping heat into its metal casing, and by putting some of the charging components into the accessory’s base, well away from the handset. The Roam is plastic, and there’s no real distance between the base and the iPhone.
Again, let me note that the Roam works much faster than 15W travel chargers. It’s just far slower than Mophie’s desktop model in the same product family.
Apple Watch and AirPods chargers, too
Of course I tested the Apple Watch charger built into this product, too. It puts out a maximum of 5W, and works well with my Apple Watch SE 3. In my testing, the wearable’s battery went up 45% in 30 minutes.
The same is true for the AirPods charger. It goes up to 5W. When I tested it with my AirPods 4, the battery in the wireless charging case increased by 42% in half an hour.
Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger review: Final thoughts
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Mophie’s new travel charger will power your iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods faster than the older generation of multidevice wireless phone chargers that topped out at 15W. Just make sure that’s important enough to you that you’re willing to tote around some extra bulk.
And stay away from “Sail Cream” unless grubby looking is your thing.
★★★★☆
Pricing
The Mophie Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger costs $149.95.
Stay powerful wherever you land with the Roam 3-in-1 Travel Charger. This latest innovation from Mophie features our new StealthCharge Technology that eliminates the annoying fan noise so you can sleep peacefully, even with the charger on your nightstand.
The Roam 3-in-1 folds into its own handy travel case and unfolds in seconds so you can charge your iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch simultaneously at the fastest wireless charging speeds.
- 25W charging
- Supports iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods
- Bulky
- Slower than many desktop chargers
Mophie provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out more in-depth reviews of Apple-related items.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 26 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.
That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)
Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
