Ugreen MagFlow Air review: compact MagSafe power bank is almost brilliant
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Ugreen’s latest MagFlow Air power bank is small, robust and easy to recommend, but one design choice stops it being quite as tidy as it first appears.
Let's not kid ourselves about this, smartphone batteries aren't as good as we need them to be. We often see "all-day battery" advertised, but the reality is they sometimes cough their last before our day is done.
That's why portable power banks are big business, and why there's been some serious investment into this type of tech in recent years.
Ugreen is a big player in this space, and its latest launch is the Ugreen MagFlow Air, one of a new breed of ultra-compact power banks that slims everything down, and clamps to the back of a compatible phone with a magnet.
The first thing you notice about it is its size, and you'd hope so, because it's the big selling point here.
Then you notice the build quality, and it's lovely. There's a soft rubberised pad on the side that mounts to the phone, and the rest of the casing feels robust and every bit as good as you'd expect a Ugreen product to feel.
Then you notice the fabric USB cord that's attached to the bottom of the device. It loops round to a USB-C plug that neatly tucks into a slot in the corner of the power bank.
At first, you'll consider this quite a handy thing to have. It's securely held in place, so it could be used to carry the power bank around, or even attach it to a bag.
But it doesn't take long using it clamped to your phone to realise that it's a bit annoying and it gets in the way.
It's there to give you a second connection option, for devices that don't have wireless charging, but given there's a USB-C socket, just having a spare lead to hand would have worked around this quite easily.
It's a shame there isn't a way to retract the cable somehow, or even remove it when it's not in use.
That's my only complaint about the MagFlow Air, though. I like its little indicator lights, I like the fact it has 15W wireless charging and 30W cable charging, and I love the fact they've managed to squeeze 10,000mAh (around the maximum allowed by airlines) into such a small, neat, and well-made device.
I even like the price. At £64.99 RRP it's well pitched for such a high-quality, compact power bank, but you'll usually find it on offer at £45.99, which is quite a compelling deal.
Learn to live with the cable and it's one of the best MagSafe power banks out there.