I took the Journey Glyde on a four-week overseas trip and it barely kept up with my adventures

Journey Glyde 4-in-1 travel charger review

It was love at first sight with the Journey Glyde. When I came across it, I was getting ready to embark on a four-week overseas holiday that involved road trips to different places. So I was rather excited that this MagSafe travel charger would not only work as a wireless stand for my iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch, but also work as a portable charger with a 10,000mAh capacity.

While I’m not a fan of the matte white top panel that has the charging pads for a phone and AirPods – it picks up scratches very easily – I love the sliding panel underneath that pops up the charging pad for the Apple Watch. The splotchy grey finish is interesting, and I’d have preferred something similar for the top panel as well. Its weight and bulk, however, were concerning.

While Journey lists the Glyde at 395g, it felt heavier in my hand and, weighing it myself, it tipped the scales at 411g. The extra 16g may not seem like much, but when you’re packing for an overseas trip, the grams quickly clock up. Its sliding design also makes it bulky for a travel charger.

Personally, I think it’s best to carry a smaller 20,000mAh portable charger instead, a capacity that pretty much every international airline allows in carry-on luggage. Most of these are smaller and lighter, so won’t eat away at your luggage allowance. I suppose if Journey increased the backup capacity on the Glyde to 20,000mAh, it would make the whole device even heavier.

For a long journey, 10,000mAh doesn’t sound like much but, in a pinch, it’s better than nothing at all. It was just enough to top up my Apple Watch SE 2 and my iPhone 13 Pro only once after use throughout the day. That would drain the Journey Glyde fully which, in my specific use case, wasn’t ideal as it would need time at the mains to top up. Otherwise it was just a bulky and heavy wireless charger. If I wasn’t going on multiple mini trips during my overseas holiday, I’d probably not have felt the need for more portable capacity than 10,000mAh, but that was exacerbated by the fact that, as a power bank, it was inefficient – something that a colleague proved through testing.

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The Glyde does not support newer efficient fast-charging protocols like PPS, but does output 20W, so can still do reasonably fast top-ups.And while most power banks typically offer 15% less of their advertised capacity due to conversion losses, the Glyde gave 34% loss during testing. Even at an easy slow charge, the losses were 27% – way above what’s expected.

This means that of the 10,000 mAh capacity, only about 7,000mAh is available in normal use – enough to give a phone and a smartwatch a single charge, but not a good result considering the price. It’s much better to use wired charging on the go, as wireless charging is even less efficient, and you can expect around 50% of the rated capacity. On the plus side, it works fine as a charging stand, and can hit the 15W Qi charging rate when plugged in.

Journey Glyde: Price & specs

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Also consider

There isn't much else out there to compare the Journey Glyde directly to, but there are travel chargers aplenty. Below are a couple of alternatives, although neither will get you a backup battery.