Last week we asked you how important magnetic wireless charging is to you. For now, the majority doesn’t particularly care – at best it’s a “nice to have” feature for them but nothing vital.
The argument is simple, especially now that the whole world has converged on USB-C for charging – just use a cable. It’s faster and more efficient than any form of wireless charging.
There is a caveat – many of the people who reported that they use wired charging only also said that they don’t need top-ups during the day. These days, phone batteries have gotten quite huge, so finding a phone that can last a full day of even heavy use isn’t that hard.
And that’s another thing – the universal wired charging standard (USB-PD) is a lot faster than the universal wireless charging standard (Qi2 tops out at 25W). Those bigger batteries need the faster charging. Yes, proprietary wireless charging solutions do go over 25W, but they can be a headache if you decide to switch brands.
About a third of voters do want magnets, but they are split into several camps. First is the built-in magnets vs. magnets in the case debate. For users who want to go caseless, built-in magnets are a must. For those who were going to use a case anyway, it’s less important. Some are worried that case-only magnets are weaker than a stack of phone+case magnets.
The other split is this – as we noted in the poll article last week, the magnets have additional uses beyond charging. 1 in 10 voters is only interested in the use-cases for magnetic mounts and accessories. They still prefer charging using a cable.
MagSafe-style chargers, mounts, etc. have a place going forward, even if they are not universally beloved. However, there has been very little adoption outside of Apple – Google was the first to go all-in on the Android side with Pixelsnap. Other Android makers are quite reluctant to follow.
