Oh no! My Galaxy S6 is dying and I don’t have time to plug it into the wall. I’m away from walls with outlets or don’t want to be tied to a wall. I need to be using my phone. What the heck am I going to do?!?
If you have the TYLT Energi Sliding Power case, the decision would be easy: Slide on the 3400mAh power sleeve and you’re good to go. No walls necessary. No cables attached to power banks. You just slide on this bulky Power Case and you can keep using your phone without attachments and cables. Your phone charges while you use it, wherever you are. It’s brilliant.
TYLT offers the ENERGI Sliding Power case for several different phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge (the S6 case comes with both S6 and S6 edge cases), Galaxy S5, Galaxy S4, and all the iPhone models since the iPhone 5. We tested the Galaxy S6 case and spoiler: It was awesome.
How it works
The TYLT ENERGI Sliding Power Case is two parts. The first is a simple “inner” case for your phone that is a dual-layer hard case with a soft coating on it. The buttons are all encased yet easily pressable. There are cutouts for all the ports, speaker, camera and IR blaster. One of my favorite parts about the case is that it’s very thin. I love cases that don’t add much bulk. Lastly, the case has slots on the side where the battery sleeve part of the case slides in.
Click to view slideshow.Part two of the ENERGI Slide Power case is the battery sleeve. Unlike the inner case portion, the battery sleeve is very bulky. I’m not dogging on the case here, because big batteries take up space. The battery sleeve for the Galaxy S6 contains a 3400mAh battery that is 1 1/3 larger than the Galaxy S6′s built-in battery. It can be charged on or off of the phone via Qi wireless charging or micro-USB. The power sleeve is 2.1 Amp quick charge capable of charging your Galaxy S6 up to 90% at a relatively quick charging rate.
I think the design of the battery sleeve is really well thought out. It slips onto inner case very tightly and there’s very little play, so the Galaxy S6 slides perfectly into the male micro-USB plug. There are two ways the battery sleeve can be charged: via a micro-USB port on the bottom or via Qi wireless charging. It can be charged with or without the phone, and it supports pass-through charging. So you put your phone in the case before you go to bed at night, plug in the case, and when you wake up in the morning, both your battery and phone will be charged. There’s a button on the back that can activate LEDs that indicate how much charge the battery sleeve has. When you want to charge your phone, holding the button down for a second begins the charging process. Lastly, the sleeve does cover the bottom-firing speaker on the Galaxy S6. Oh no! Well, TYLT thought of that and redirected the sound out to ports on the front of the phone, which seems more awesome than the bottom-firing speaker.
What I love
- CONVENIENCE. Most other power banks are probably not going to attach to your phone and will also require a cable in-between the battery and your phone. The ENERGI Sliding Power Case just slips on and you can continue to use your phone as usual. People probably won’t even know you’re charging your phone. They’ll just think your phone is HUGE.
- The inner case is very slim and very protective. Our Galaxy S6 has survived many falls with the protection of the dual layer hard case.
What I don’t like
- Colors. Other devices supported by the ENERGI Sliding power case have more colors options, but the Galaxy S6 case only comes in black. Boring.
- I’m disappointed by how the inner case has held up. The soft portion of the dual layer inner case seems to be quickly wearing off. Granted, this case has taken a beating — it’s been dropped multiple times over the month that we’ve been using it — but I think cases should last longer than a month. It’s still fully functional, but its appearance seems to be deteriorating.
- The battery sleeve can be difficult to slide off the inner case. At first, it was really hard, and we were searching the instructions to see if we were doing something wrong. Since then, we’ve either gotten better at our battery sleeve removal technique or it’s been broken in and gotten easier to take off. Maybe both.
- It’s pricey, but most TYLT Products are. The ENERGI Sliding Power Case is $79.99. There are cheaper battery cases out there for that Galaxy S6, but not many have great ratings.
The bottom line
If I were to give TYLT ENERGI Sliding Power case a rating from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, I would give it a 4.5. The design it great and it works great. I’m knocking a half point off because the inner case’s appearance is going south, but you’re probably the only one that will notice that.
Functionally, everything is there, and I’m super impressed with it. The ENERGI Sliding Power Case is a CTIA-certified battery and comes with a 1-year warranty. Its convenience factor is through the roof, and I wish I had a case like this for my Nexus 6. I do wish the price was a bit lower and it had some different colors.
The TYLT ENERGI Sliding Power case for the Galaxy S6 can be picked up on TYLT’s website or Amazon for $79.99. The ENERGI Sliding Power cases for other devices have varying prices.
What are your thoughts on the ENERGI Sliding case? Do you have one and think it’s awesome? Thinking about buying one? Think it’s overpriced? Let us know your thoughts and questions by commenting below.
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