Nomad's new wireless chargers offer MagSafe convenience and clean style

MagSafe is maybe my single favorite iPhone feature over the past few years, and it's just so simple of a concept. And while Apple submitted a modestly tweaked version of their "ring of magnets around an inductive charging coil" as a new Qi2 wireless charging standard, we're still looking limited to only MagSafe products since no Apple phones (or any others) have Qi2 yet. Just one problem: MagSafe licensing fees aren't cheap. Nomad products aren't cheap either because they're just as high quality hardware as the stuff Apple makes, so it's not surprising that their MagSafe-equipped Stand and Base chargers were pricey.

But you can still get MagSafe magnetic grippy goodness without the price premium — you just have to be willing to accept slower charging speeds. And that's exactly what Nomad did with the new MagSafe compatible versions of the Stand and Base wireless chargers: they kept the magnets but dropped the little chip (and licensing fees) that make MagSafe charging speeds possible for iPhones. The result is a charger that'll pump 7.5W of inductive charging goodness into any Qi-equipped iPhone (any since the iPhone 8) and 15W for any compatible Android phone (though they lack the slick alignment magnets). The magnets make it "compatible" with MagSafe, though the charging speed is halved compared to proper MagSafe.

Even better, because they're not required to use Apple's MagSafe hardware, Nomad was able to do a nice color-matching pad for the phone instead of Apple's "any color as long as it's white" option. Otherwise the MagSafe-compatible Stand and Base appear to be largely identical to the MagSafe-equipped versions with the same white or black options — they're just $30 cheaper. Still, not cheap, but Nomad's never been cheap. You get what you pay for, and these are very nice options to charge up your phone.