My folding phone has magnets, but they’re not used for charging. I assume they’re used to detect if the phone is folded or not.
I was so confused by the name “Nothing”. Really not a great idea to use a pronoun for a company name.
Also blame the author for putting “Nothing” as the first word which is confusing with the capitalization. Even better they could throw “manufacturer” or “phone maker” in there first so you know exactly what they mean.
It’s better than nothing.
Same here, seems like nobody learned nothing from the odyssey.
I swear the Nexus 5 had magnets long before apple even had wireless charging.
Palm Pre did it first. Apple copied.
Yes, they did. I still have that somewhere. Best phone ever made.
surely a licensing fee would be a lot less
A license fee for using a magnet to hold something? Really?
How is this any different than using refrigerator magnets?You’re using fridge magnets without paying royalties?!?
I’m sure there’s a patent troll that will be sending you a sternly worded letter soon.
Apple’s Magsafe. You don’t have to support apple’s magsafe. Qi2 is a standard. Supporting that should be good. Accessories which target Qi2, and creating those would be much better.
Yeah, this is such a ‘nothing’ article. The new Pixels have the Qi2 magnets and they work with MagSafe products just fine.
I genuinely don’t understand how this is a feature that anyone even needs. I can see the convenience of wireless charging even though I don’t personallt need that either but the magnetic part of it doesn’t add any apparent value to me.
You don’t need this feature. But, it’s a nice convenience. Especially, if you pay flagship prices for a phone. Having a backup magnetic powerbank in an emergency is one use case, magnetic wallets are another.
My wife and I both use them for wireless charging, car mounting, and to hold phone grips. Not everyone needs magnets on their phone, but we use them all the time.
Makes for a good way to mount in a car.
As opposed to what we’ve been using for 30 years?
This works better I would argue. No moving parts, so it’s durable. The magnetic mount aligns the wireless charging coils so you can deliver more power and you don’t need a cable that wears out. Along with that it’s quick to snap in place. Just set it against the mount and grab it off when you’re done.
The magnetic thing aligns the charging coils perfectly for increased efficiency.
The hilarious thing are the wireless charging battery banks. Like, yes, let’s add giant battery banks that do nothing but make the phone super hot and overheat and only actually transmit like 50% of their energy anyway.
Yes, I saw this in a comparison test where the iphone lost in a battery test while using a wireless magsafe powerbank against Xiaomi 17 with its single internal battery.
iPhone Air, presumably? iPhones are generally extremely efficient devices with incredible battery life.
No, it was the regular iphone 17.
I found the video you’re referring to. It’s directly from Xiaomi, so I would take that comparison with a truckload of salt.
It allows for a lot of cool accessories such as battery packs. No user swappable batteries so that’s the next best thing
Case would seem to do that just fine too. Especially in the case of battery packs considering how inefficient wireless charging is.
If you don’t have an Apple or Samsung device, the options are pretty limited or non-existent for accessories. In my experience, it’s been much easier to find a case that adds magnets than any other sort of accessory for my last 2 phones.
To me, the benefit of the magnetic back is that they are usable by any device with magnets. If I upgrade to a new phone next year, I don’t have to buy all new accessories.
Also, I have a magnet-attach charging bank for my phone, but it has a cable built in. That way I get decent charging speed without the efficiency and heat problems, and I can take it off the device when I don’t need it.
Alignment of Wireless charging coil is probably the best use of it, Although wireless charging is still not very efficient getting it aligned perfectly will help.
You lack imagination.
Says the AI.
I think it’s fantastic and I would love to have this feature. Powerbank attaching to the back of the phone is probably the best application IMO. But all the different kinds of stands and car mounts are awesome too. And cardholders / wallets.
