Apple's Smart Battery Case Hands-On: Similar Design With More Battery Capacity

Last Wednesday, Apple introduced the Smart Battery Cases for its iPhone 11 lineup to offer more energy for this year’s release of its flagship smartphones.

As the orders arrived recently, we give you some initial reviews of what to expect and the differences between this year’s Smart Battery Case and the offers of previous years.

When it comes to design, except for the square camera cutout, the rest of the case looks exactly like previous year’s. The change is for the double or triple camera module to poke.

The same bump is still there to house the battery that contains the extra energy for the phone and the thickness has not changed much.

You will have basic controls like buttons for volume up and down, for power, and for controlling the cameras. When you press the button, the cameras will be launched, even when the phone is locked.

Press the button once and the camera app will be opened, but press it again when the camera is at work will take a picture. Holding will shoot a QuickTake video. The selfie camera can be controlled by the button too.

Users have the choice to acquire the Smart Case for iPhone 11 Pro Max in white, pink sand, and black. If you own an iPhone 11, your choices are limited to white and black. The black color has changed for this year’s model. In 2018, what we have is a charcoal logo on a back case. However, this year, the logo is in a deeper back on a lighter charcoal skin.

The capacity of the Smart Case has also been improved. Last year’s model for iPhone XS Max featured two 1,369mAh cells. This year, the two batteries have a capacity of 1,430mAh. They are connected to act like one to provide 10.9Wh of power in comparison with 10.1Wh of the model for iPhone XS Max.

The new iPhones have already had a more capable battery but the Smart Case will prolong that time by 50%, as stated by Apple. To make the benefits clearer, with the case on, you may expect to have nine and ten more hours of video playback on the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max respectively. This figure for iPhone 11 is 8.5 hours.

When users use the Smart Case on the new iPhone lineup, the phone will draw power from the case first and then the onboard battery. This process will happen by default and owners can do nothing to change or shut it off. When the phone is on the charger, users can see the power level of the Smart Case. Another way to view this information is in the Notification center, under the Today view.

To charge the case, users can choose between the wireless charger based on Qi or the Lighting cable. If you charge the two of them, the case and the phone together, the phone will always get the power first. Those who have headphones and other accessories based on Lighting, you can enjoy the passthrough ability of the case.

The Smart Battery Case of Apple comes as the price of $129 (around Rs 9,260)