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Delighted by your glorious new Galaxy S4, but disgusted by having to plug it into the mains to charge it? Plugophobes rejoice! There’s a new back cover for your Samsung smart phone that lets you plop it onto a pad and — bing bong — it’s slurping juice like a 4-year-old in a soft-play centre.
Phone flogger MobileFun is offering the wireless charging case for £25, with it going on sale in the next four to six weeks, the retailer tells me. It comes in black or white and you can register your interest here.
You’ll also need a charging pad, which MobileFun will sell you for £35, but it’ll work with any charger compatible with the Qi wireless standard. You can find them online elsewhere for around £25, although MobileFun’s version does have a little stand so you can see easily notifications as your phone charges.
Here’s a quick video from MobileFun’s well-spoken rep Alex demonstrating how it works. You can see the case looks very similar to the S4’s standard case, albeit with a tiny ‘m-cloud’ logo, and is hardly any thicker than the one the phone comes with.
Qi is built into phones such as the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nexus 4, but the standard is being challenged by the grandly titled Power Matters Alliance, or PMA, which includes Samsung, HTC and LG. Samsung is sitting on the fence, allowing the S4 to be charged by covers of either standard instead of choosing one and building it into the phone.
Hopefully a winner will quickly emerge and we can all stop worrying about which wireless charging standard to choose. I tell you, it keeps me up at night.
Are you a keen wireless charger? Do you think Samsung should have built it into the phone, or would you rather save the £50 and just plug it in? Induct your thoughts in the comments below, or on our osmotic Facebook page.
