Date of original review: 9/20/19
I bought this back in January of 2019 and as described in the product information, I bought the Anker Powerport +1 with Quick Charge 3.0 at the same time. This was the wall adapter that Anker suggested to get along with this charging stand to ensure you get maximum performance.
To this date, this was my first and only time using a wireless charging setup, and I was quite excited to try it out because of the perceived convenience factor. But unfortunately I was let down, because immediately I noticed how incredibly slow this thing charges my s9+. It is ridiculously slow, and pretty much unusable. Unless of course you have the thing parked on the charging stand every second that you aren't using the phone, which then it might keep up with the phone in maximum power saving mode and barely using it at all for even basic low power consuming things like texting or making a call etc.
This may sound strange, but I did not think to check the reviews on here to see if others had the same problem. Normally I would recognize if a device I just bought had issues, and would be online searching for answers or a return of the item the same day I got it. But this time was different.
In my defense, I had a lot of things going on at once in my life at the time, and so for some reason I assumed this was the nature of wireless charging and that they haven't figured out the technology yet to make is a reliable, functional way to charge one's phone. Come to find out, as of today (9/19/19) I am discovering by near accident that wireless charging is not supposed to be that slow, and actually according to reviews on here it should be reasonably decent speed of charging. But only when you have the right adapter, the correct cable, and your charging stand is not faulty and you use it correctly. I did all of those things except for the one thing that was an unknown to me, which was having a charging stand that is working properly and not potentially faulty, and so hence this review in the hopes that others may see it and consider other similar items instead of this one.
The couple times I used this charging stand I noticed a few things that basically made this item unusable: 1) the phone heats up to where it is SUPER hot when on the stand, 2) the battery goes down FASTER than if it was not charging at all, and 3) the only way to remedy #2 is to have the phone off while charging on the charging stand! If the phone is off and I put it on the wireless charging stand with the Anker powerport adapter that has Quick Charge and using the micro usb cable that came with the charging stand, I can maybe get a couple percent charge per hour. I just tested it now actually and in 20 minutes my phone actually lost a percentage point in its battery level!! I guess it has gotten worse at charging since I last used it back in January when I got frustrated, felt duped, and was extremely irritated that I spent money on something that hardly works, and thus ended up shelving the stand completely in favor of using the wall adapter with a normal corded setup. I use a USB-C cable also from Anker, which is great btw, and that works fine and charges totally fast. It even seems a bit faster than the Samsung stock wall charger that came with my Galaxy s9+.
To ensure any readers of this are following my somewhat scattered review, when I purchased this item it was my first time using a wireless charger of any kind, and I honestly did not know that it was supposed to be faster than the dismal charging speeds I got from this stand. I just figured that is the speed at which these things charge devices like my s9+.
So in the end I put it aside and there it has sat for months and months until now when I decided to try it once more, this time with a different phone. Well, the other phone I tried didn't actually have the wireless charging capability so I decided to try my s9+ again just for kicks. It was just as slow and as stated above it even drained my battery instead of charging it, which was unsurprising because that is what it has done every other time unless I charge it with the phone turned off.
I happened to be on Amazon at the same time as this most recent re-test was taking place, so I looked up reviews and searched for reviews for this stand that had s9+ in them. Lo and behold, there were countless others that have had the same issue!
I had no idea that my charging stand might be faulty/defective like so many other reviewers have experienced with this product! But now my return period has lapsed and also my product support window has closed from Amazon, so I will probably try Anker customer service to see if they can help or if they offer a longer warranty with potentially faulty devices like the one I made the mistake of buying.
I will update this review with what goes down, if anything. In the meantime, I do recommend the above mentioned wall adapter and also the USB - C cord that Anker makes. Those are of high quality and work flawlessly.
BTW I forgot to mention that I tried charging my s9+ without a case on it, and actually now that I think of it this is the only way I have tried to charge using this item. I have a metal disc that is for my phone holder in my car, so I took the case off every time I tested this item out. So the case is not the reason for such dismal performance, rather it is the item itself that is the cause. I am pretty unhappy with Anker because I love their products and have always been impressed with the quality, and I am also kicking myself or not looking more in depth into this earlier. Maybe I could have got it resolved under warranty or the support window, and now I am stuck pleading my case to their customer service department. WIll update if anything develops or changes with my situation here.
**UPDATE as of 10/21/19**
Here's a quick synopsis of what went down since I wrote the review. FIrst off, as I had hoped would happen, Anker saw the original one-star review I left on here, and they actually took the first step in reaching out to me. It seemed like a bot or something automated that had typed that up and sent it to my email, but either way I was pretty impressed with how quickly they jumped into action. It basically said something to the effect of them having been aware of the review I left and also them confirming that I had been experiencing the issue with the device since the very beginning when I received the device, and that I should then reach out to Anker customer service. They said they wanted to have a chance to correct the issue because based on my description of the issue, they felt like the charging stand has some issues and may be malfunctioning.
I followed the instructions on how to contact customer service about the issue and basically did a cut and paste of everything I wrote in this review and sent it to Anker along with my Amazon order number. There were a few options they listed as methods to contact them: one was through Amazon messaging, another was by calling them directly, and the one I chose was to go to Anker's website and submit a service request.
At that point I had already received a notification from Amazon that stated how I was outside of the warranty and also that my service window had expired, so because Amazon said I was out of luck, I did not expect Anker to do anything to help because of that same reason. I knew it was a shot in the dark, but I had no use for the thing if its just gonna sit there and not work properly, so I thought that I might as well go through the steps and see what happens.
The Anker website did say something about a longer warranty period, or maybe I saw that somewhere else during my search for answers and when I was scouring the package inserts that came in the box along with the charging stand for anything that could be of use. Can't remember exactly where I saw this but I think Anker has an 18 month warranty for most items, but I could be wrong about that. I had a lot going on when I was doing all of this so I wasn't engaged 100% of the time, and had to handle other obligations that were more pressing and put this on the back burner for a few days here and there. I do remember seeing something about that warranty somewhere, and so that kept hope alive that I would get some assistance with this obviously faulty device that I was stuck with for the time being.
So I reached out to Anker on 10/4/19 and got the usual auto response saying they received the service request and here is your RMA number and so on. I waited patiently for a few days, but didn't give it much thought because of the aforementioned obligations and stuff I had to focus my attention on.
This went on for a few days until one fortuitous afternoon when I received a surprise package in the mail from Anker. I was kind of confused because I had not done any other step than submitting my initial service request, and usually these things take a bit of time and interacting with tech support and sometimes even sending in the item so that they can figure out the issue before anything is done to remedy things. So having had some experience with this sort of thing, I was expecting to get return shipping instructions or some other correspondences from Anker's support team. But they did not do any of that, and skipped right ahead to what was my desired end result!
Anker is on a whole different level of customer service than nearly every company out there, and here's why: they had taken the initiative and without hesitating had sent me a brand new device!! And it was even the updated version that had since come out since my initial order!! Let me reemphasize the fact that I had not done anything at all other than submitting my review on here and then sending in a service request on Anker's website. I did not have to speak to anyone, had no correspondences with anyone prior to receiving the new charging stand, and I definitely did not have to send in my device nor did I have to prove to them that my device was faulty by sending it in to them for servicing. I didn't have to do anything and they handled it, just like that.
They even followed up shortly after with an email saying that they decided my original device was faulty and that they were checking in to see how I like the new one (which I totally do like it and it works perfectly and charges like it should, seeing as how it's capable of "fast charging" ). I told them how grateful I was and that the device worked perfectly and they thanked me for being a customer and that was that. There was no word of any sending in the old item or anything at all that I had to do on my part to complete the process. Well, except updating my review so that others can see the superior level of customer service that Anker provided, which I am more than happy to do (as you can clearly see my enthusiasm by how lengthy this review is... LOL. The time it took to write this and give my endorsement is well deserved by Anker though, because they really knocked it out of the park with this whole experience).
So that is basically what went down with my first and only interaction with Anker customer support. Every other Anker product I have owned is flawless in design and overall build, and the prices they charge for their devices are actually totally and completely reasonable, and actually are kind of outstanding because that build and quality (and now their level of customer service they provide) are all things that you would normally see with much more expensive and high end products.
I cannot recommend Anker enough to those pondering if they should in fact buy something made by this company. I currently own two USB-C to regular USB charging cables, a Quickcharge 3.0 wall charger, this wireless charging stand, and also the Soundcore Liberty wireless earbuds and all are amazing devices with top of the line quality of construction. So if given a choice, go with ANKER! And if you have any problems with any of their devices, then do what I did and reach out to their customer service and you will be pleasantly surprised, just as I was, at how they handle their relationships with their customer base.
For the above mentioned reasons, my original one-star review is now a five-star rating, and if I could do six or more stars I probably would. Very happy customer here and they have gained some serious brand loyalty from me for life!
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