The Best Wireless Chargers of 2023

What do you get if you cross a beer mat and a wireless charger? Something like the Tylt Puck, a pricey wireless charger that combines cork and plastic into one smart-looking package. On the bottom of the 0.9-inch thick puck is a cork base, which should stop both your bedside table from being scratched and soak up any spills. On the top of the puck is the white plastic cover that the wireless charger sits under. Plonk your phone on the top and a small, inconspicuous white LED lights up to let you know that charging has begun. We did find, however, that the top of this charger was somewhat slick: even a slight tap on the phone sent it sliding off the charger or moved it so that the charging process stopped.

All of the usual wireless charging modes are here, so it can pump out 7.5 Watts for iPhones and 10 Watts for Android devices, or 5 Watts for standard QI. We found that charging times were pretty average, taking 2 hours and 34 minutes to charge the iPhone XS and just under three hours to juice up the Samsung Note 8.

It certainly looks cool, but at $45, you seem to be paying a lot more for looks then performance. Not that there's anything wrong with things looking nice, but is double the price of other chargers that do just as good a job worth it? Probably not.

Want a no-frills wireless charging pad with a little blinky LED charm? The F500 has it. When you plonk your phone onto this small, svelte charging pad, a ring of green LEDs around the edge light up. After about 30 seconds the lights dim, so you’ll know that the phone is charging but you won’t be blinded by them. It took three hours to charge the iPhone XS and just over three and a quarter hours to charge the Samsung note 8: decent, but not overly fast time.

What you don’t get with this wireless charger is a USB power adapter, so factor the extra cost of an appropriate one into your sums. It was also a little slower to charge than some others, taking just under three hours to charge both the Note and the iPhone XS in our tests.

The Belkin Wireless Charging stand looks more like a piece of geometric sculpture than a charger. Aesthetics aside, this black plastic stand is large, but it does the job: We found that it charged both our test Samsung Note 8 and iPhone XS in decent times: just over two and a half hours and three hours 18 minutes, respectively. The unusual design of the Bold stand also allows you to sit the phone in landscape orientation: a plus if you like to lie in bed and watch movies while you doze off.

One interesting thing to note is that this charger doesn’t use a USB cable: Instead, it uses an old-school barrel plug and a dedicated wall charger. While that means it can handle the higher power 7.5W and 10W modes without issues, it also means that it is useless if you take the charger with you on a trip but forget the power adapter: You can’t plug it into a USB port on your computer.

The Belkin Bold Wireless Charging Pad goes for an Apple-like aesthetic but doesn’t quite pull it off. For one thing, at 0.64 inches thick and 3.7 inches wide, it feels too big and clumsy to be an Apple product. There are some nice touches though: a ring of soft rubber on the top that stops the phone from getting scratched and the soft rubber base that keeps it steady and doesn’t scratch the surface it is on.

Its performance was lackluster: it took over three hours to charge the Note 8. Most of the other chargers we tested completed the task in about 30 minutes less time. Performance with the iPhone XS was better, however: it took three hours and 18 minutes to fully charge it.

The Anker PowerPort pad is a blocky stand with a single LED on the bottom. It looks cheap and, to be fair, it is cheap; it was one of the least expensive chargers we tested.

The PowerPort includes a USB cable, but no charger. This means that you’ll have to buy a QuickCharge USB power adapter if you are using it away from your computer, which will add to the charging pad’s total purchase price.

There is no support for the Apple 7.5W charging mode, but in tests, we found that it didn’t make that much difference, taking three hours and 18 minutes to charge an iPhone XS. The Samsung Note 8 was another matter: It took just two hours and 20 minutes to charge the large battery of this Android phone, the quickest charge time out of any of our tests.