Review Date February 22, 2011

Kensington PowerLift Back-Up Battery and Dock

  • Pros

    Small and portable. Charges and syncs iPhone. Stand works in vertical or horizontal orientation.

  • Cons USB cable is very short. Dock connector feels a bit flimsy.
  • Bottom Line

    The Kensington PowerLift Back-Up Battery and Dock is a versatile, convenient, and portable backup battery and stand for your iPhone or iPod touch.

By David Pierce

So, your iPhone is great. You love it and use it all the time, but every afternoon you get that dreaded "Low Battery" message. If that sounds familiar (and it will for most smartphone owners) you need an extra battery. Back-up batteries usually come in cases that snap on and provide an extra charge to your iPhone, but Kensington offers a different option, with a clever twist: the PowerLift Back-Up Battery and Dock ($49.99 direct). It's a spare battery, but it's also a dock, and a vertical or horizontal stand that fits neatly in your pocket. It keeps your iPhone clean and slim, lets you connect it to any computer, and gives you extra juice and a convenient place and angle to keep your phone. It's a little cumbersome if all you need is a spare battery, but considering its other uses, it's just the right size.

The PowerLift works with any iPhone or iPod touch model. It's a small, black, palm-sized square with silver accents measuring just 2.5 by 2.3 by 0.7 inches (HWD), and weighing in at a feathery 1.8 ounces. There are a number of movable parts: an attached four-inch USB cable and a slot for storing it, a silver hinge that pops up to hold the iPhone, and the swiveling dock connector. The latter two parts feel a little flimsy, but I beat them up pretty badly during testing and they continued to work fine. The dock also has a battery indicator with a button and four lights indicating the battery's charge (more on that in a second).

Kensington PowerLift Back-up Battery and Dock

The parts flip around and swivel so the PowerLift can be used in a few different ways. First is as a traditional dock, holding the iPhone upright at an angle; this is perfect for using FaceTime at a desk or a table. Tip the PowerLift over, and it sits comfortably on its side, holding the iPhone straight up in landscape mode. This is the ideal setting for watching a movie or using the iPhone as an alarm clock. Finally, you can connect the iPhone to the PowerLift and hold it up to your ear, letting the PowerLift becoming just a chunky extension to the bottom of your phone.

Why would you hold the dock up to your ear? Because the PowerLift doubles as an extra battery, charging the device up whenever you connect it. Kensington says the battery will add an extra 3.5 hours of talk, 5 hours of video, or 1.5 hours of FaceTime to the life of your phone —that means you'll get about 50 percent more battery life (those estimates are all for the iPhone 4). In my tests, the PowerLift's internal battery charged quickly via the USB port (which also syncs the iPhone when it's docked), and charged the iPhone's battery almost as fast as the dedicated wall charger.

I like the PowerLift because instead of a cumbersome case that makes the iPhone larger and heavier even when it's not in use as a battery, the PowerLift can slip into a briefcase or bag and be used only when necessary. It's not as simple as the always-on cases, like the Mophie Juice Pack Air ($79.99, 4 stars) or the Kensington PowerGuard ($59.99, 3.5 stars), but it works as well and offers dock and stand functions as well.


David Pierce
By David Pierce Junior Analyst, Consumer Electronics


Follow David Pierce Twitter: @piercedavid
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