Review: U-Way Elevator – Qi Wireless Charging Stand UNINC-690QU

U-Way is a corporation based in Taiwan which supplies a variety of Qi TX/RX modules and they also manufacture their own Qi wireless charging products. They are a member of both the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP). Since they have been established since 1995, they have quite a few products under their belt. Luckily for us, they have sent a few of these products for us to review. One of these is the U-Way Elevator, which is an adjustable Qi wireless charging stand.

Packaging

The U-Way Elevator comes in a simple box with the picture of the product upfront. One side shows that its height is adjustable and the other side shows the contents inside the package. Lastly the back gives lots of information about the product such as its features, specifications, and different positions available to charge your wireless charging enabled phone.

Contents

Inside the package you’ll find U-Way’s Elevator wireless charger, the adjustable stand, a USB to DC charging cable, and a 5V/2A AC Adapter. There are some wireless chargers that don’t come with an AC Adapter since it is assumed that you already have one of your own. It’s nice to know though that the U-Way Elevator comes with its own AC Adapter just in case.

What I did find a bit awkward is its use of a USB to DC cable. Using a micro-USB cable could help if ever the cable would malfunction since it is widely available. Nonetheless, it works pretty well and does its job without much of a fuss.

The stand is made out of plastic and is quite sturdy. There is a pad on the spot where the phone would be placed to keep it from sliding off and stick it in place. The part with the ridges for height adjustments has a little bit of grease on it to make positioning easier.

If you are planning on keeping the stand on your desk or table, there’s double-sided tape at the bottom that you can just peel off and stick it on a flat surface to keep it from sliding around. There is also a hole there to have the light pass through when using the wireless charger.

The U-Way Elevator is a square wireless charger approximately 3’ on all sides with a bit of a forward slant to perfectly fit it on the stand. It has a nice matte finish on the top and bottom keeping it clean from fingerprints with glossy, reflective sides. The cap the holds the Elevator on the stand and can be removed if you want to bring your wireless charger on-the-go or to lay it flat on a table. It has rubber padding as well to keep it from sliding about.

Functionality

For the test, I used my Xiaomi Mi3 with a universal wireless charging receiver.

As I reviewed the U-Way Elevator, the wireless charger works just as how you would expect it. It wasn’t hard to properly align the receiver to the wireless charger and I wasn’t able to make it give a constant error with the alignment. Placing your phone either horizontally or vertically works just fine.

When it charges, the light at the bottom will have a bright blue glow. If an error occurs, a red light will appear. There is no sound notification if though which would help in identifying errors and misalignment. You have to be looking at the wireless charger to know what’s happening. At night though, the light can get quite bright but not up to the point of it being bothersome. Since the light is facing the table, it just spreads through the surface it’s on instead of shining it upwards.

Adjusting it up and down is quite a bit of a task since moving it requires a little bit of effort and once it moves, it starts to slide. So it might take a few tries to get the perfect position. Although once the position is fixed, you won’t need to move it anymore unless you’d want to take it out.

To remove the U-Way Elevator from the stand, you can just pull it out then push the cap on the back down to remove it. It’s quite hard to take the cap off and it sounds like it’s going to break when you remove it, but it is just fine afterwards. Maybe we’re just a bit too careful with this wireless charger.

Placing the U-Way Elevator flat on the surface is quite handy and isn’t much of a problem as well. The rubber pads work well by keeping the wireless charger in place and positioning the receiver wasn’t a problem either. With the light being on the side, it can be easily seen without the need to move your phone around.

Pros:

• Good and sturdy stand
• Adjustable height
• Can place your device either horizontally or vertically
• Keeps the phone in place
• LED light is always visible
• Positioning the phone to charge is easy

Cons:

• Wireless charger slides too much when adjusting
• Use of DC instead of micro-USB
• Requires a bit of effort to remove the cap on the back
• No notification sound

If you are interested in buying the U-Way Elevator Qi wireless charging stand, you may check here. They are a supplier and they sell this in bulk. Although I believe you may contact them for inquiries regarding personal use. The prices in bulk ranges from $16 to $22 and the price they have listed along with my review unit is $30 for 1 unit.