CHOETECH T530S review: wireless car charger for $30

Anyone who ever went on a roadtrip with their car knows about the necessity of a car charger. The next level, however, is a wireless car charger like the CHOETECH T530-S, which can also charge your smartphone wirelessly!

• CHOETECH wireless car charger
  • at CHOETECH for $30.02

CHOETECH T530-S wireless car charger: what’s in the box?

The CHOETECH charger for your car comes of course with the Qi charger and a mounting clip for the ventilation slots including a black nut. In addition, the manufacturer puts a black USB type C cable with a length of slightly more than one meter into the box. Everything is well packed and every part is functional. However, we are missing a car USB charger – luckily I ordered one for my holiday shortly before.

Every smartphone should fit

The CHOETECH T530-S KFZ wirelesscar charger looks like an ordinary smartphone holder for the car. The oval shape has a length of 10.6 cm and a surface area of 13.1 cm when it is extended. The actual Qi charger, where the “CHOETECH” emblem is printed, has a perimeter of 5.5 cm and serves another function, more about that later.

On the left and the right there are two holders, which are equipped with a 1 cm thick rubber layer on each side to protect the smartphone. Such a rubber is also on the lower holder, which is adjustable in several steps. According to the CHOETECH car charger, it offers support for smartphones with a size of 5 to 6 inches. However, a Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 with a 6.39″ diagonal also fits loosely into the holder, as does an iPhone 8 with a 4.7″ diagonal.

Altogether I find the finish on the car charger well done. Partly the car charger looks a bit “wobbly”, but this is only due to the different adjustment possibilities. The parts were connected with several screws and the gap dimensions are reasonably small. It also offers enough ventilation slots for the Qi charging coil and the USB type C slot is also slightly hidden in the case, which makes the plug a bit more protected.

How to adjust the phone

To attach the smartphone to the charger, open the side “handles” by squeezing the plastic pins underneath. Not only does the holder open, the Qi charging coil also moves approx. 1 cm out of the housing. If you now insert your smartphone and press the coil down, the springs of the holder jump back again, whereby the two handles are perfectly adapted to the smartphone. The grip is very good in my eyes and even when driving on cobblestones the phone should stay where it is.

The lower handle can also be extended in several small steps. The Mi Mix 3 also fits into the holder, if you want to align the Qi coil correctly, this is the easiest way. To fully extend this handle, just press the button on the back. So the CHOETECH T530-S Qi charger has both a horizontal and a vertical adjustment possibility – very good.

How to mount the charger in the car

Of course you also have to mount the charger to your car. Unfortunately, we had most problems with that in the test, which is mainly due to the car. Finally, on top of the 140 g weight of the cradle there is the respective smartphone weight, which quickly leads to a weight of over 300 g. The battery charger is also very light. CHOETECH relies on a clamping mechanism that offers almost exactly 6 mm clearance. You release the tension by pressing the clamp on top of it and tighten it again by releasing it. Here only the small black pin annoys me a little bit, which functions like a barbed hook and makes the removal of the holder with thin lamellas more difficult. I had to remove the complete ventilation part once.

This attachment is connected to the bracket by a ball joint and allows 90° play in any direction. So that this joint also fits tightly, a plastic nut can be screwed onto the thread.

As already mentioned, the attachment is strongly dependent on the respective ventilation lamellas of the car. If they are vertically adjustable, the weight of the bracket will pull the bracket down. By the ball joint one has here still some clearance, in order to work against this. If your ventilation slots are completely free adjustable, I see this rather problematic. At this point we could only try it on three cars, where it didn’t work that well. CHOETECH gives an example of the type of ventilation for which the charger is suitable:

How well does the charger charge?

As the name suggests, the CHOETECH KFZ Qi charger can also be used to charge your smartphone – wirelessly! The T530-S supports a maximum output of 10W. This is absolutely sufficient considering the fact that most Qi-capable smartphones only support 10W. For this it needs an input of 9V1.8A, i.e. approx. 16W. Since there is no car USB charger in the box, you have to pay for it yourself. An option would be for example the ANKER PowerDrive Speed 2 with an output of 9V1.67A, which would almost come to the 10W. In the review we could unfortunately only test it with a 12W RAVPower car charger.

This was no problem in a test with an iPhone 8, which only supports 7.5W wireless charging. There we reached 30% charge in about 40 minutes. A Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 needs about 2 hours and 15 minutes for a complete charge, if it is charged with 10W wirelessly. If you want to charge faster wirelessly, you probably have to invest in a Xiaomi Mi 9, which is currently the only smartphone with 20W wireless charging and can also be charged so fast with the 20W Qi car charger from Xiaomi. This is currently on its way to us and will soon be review by us.

Should I buy the CHOETECH wireless car charger?

In my opinion, the CHOETECH T530-S KFZ Qi charger is a clever smartphone accessory for all smartphones with Qi support. In terms of processing, design and function, I have nothing to complain about. However, it is important to mention that it is not compatible with every car! Three cars in which we tried to install the charger it, it didn’t work properly and could not be mounted at all. In addition, I think it’s a shame that no car USB charger is included. So in the end you have to pay extra if you want to use the gadget.

The biggest advantage of a wireless car charger for me is only the convenience. It’s definitely more convenient to just push the phone into the holder instead of fixing it there and plugging in a cable. But you sacrifice a lot of charging speed for this convenience. So for short distances it’s not worth it in my eyes. Personally, I would only use it for longer road trips or for a ~ 30-minute commute.

Does somebudy here already use a wireless car charger in his or her car?