This Magsafe power bank gives us a glimpse of future battery tech

Have you ever purchased a 5,000mAh Magsafe battery bank thinking, “This should fully charge my iPhone or even more because my iPhone battery is smaller”? But then, with real-world use, you only get 50% to 80% charge? This has happened to me on a few occasions. While the mAh measurement of those battery banks is true, Lithium-ion battery tech tends to lose energy through heat, wireless charging inefficiencies, and voltage conversion. But solid state battery tech is here to fix that, and Kuxiu’s S2 has shown me the future.

Before we get into what a solid state battery is and how it works I want to talk about this battery bank that showed me just how much more efficient and reliable solid state batteries can be. Here are the specs:

• 5,000 mAh capacity
• Qi2 certified, so it charges wirelessly at 15W
• 20W wired charging in and out
• Charge iPhone 16 Pro Max from 0 to 100% in 1.5 hours
• Made of aluminum with a frosted glass-like finish
• Weighs 5oz and is .39in thick
• Has a 5W low charging mode to charge AirPods
• Solid state battery tech

From a spec and design standpoint, this thing is great. It’s lightweight, feels premium (literally feels like a 16 Pro Max iPhone with the frosted back), can charge multiple devices in multiple ways and I like the design choice of integrating the spec list on the device. Makes it feel transparent.

Solid state battery vs regular lithium ion

To break this down as simply as I can, do you remember when we went from regular hard drives to solid-state drives for external storage? The idea is very similar. Solid state SSDs were much more reliable because there were few to no moving parts, meaning there were fewer points of failure compared to the traditional spinning disk hard drive. While storage and battery tech are different, the idea here is the same.

Traditional lithium-ion batteries use a liquid electrolyte, which is flammable and can degrade over time, leading to reduced performance and safety risks. We would see phones with batteries expanding because they would start to leak internally and begin to balloon and eventually explode. Solid-state batteries replace most or all of that liquid with a solid or gel-like electrolyte. This change makes the battery more thermally stable, less prone to leakage or combustion, and capable of longer lifespans.

Kuxiu S2 solid-state battery:

• Improves safety by reducing heat buildup and leak risk
• Extends battery lifespan to over 1000 cycles before seeing any degradation
• Increases energy density, resulting in using much more of the 5,000 mAh

I love to see tech like this working because I can see a world where these solid-state batteries could be placed in actual phones and not used as just a supplemental accessory. I don’t know about you, but if I fast-charge my iPhone battery wired in, my iPhone does get pretty warm. Hopefully, solid state in phones would reduce that. Kuxiu posted a video of them stress testing their batteries vs traditional batteries:

Hands-on experience

I recently brought the Kuxiu S2 on a trip to Florida, where it was hot. I used it as my primary charger for 6 days, and it passed with flying colors. The first ‘wow’ moment I had was when it fully charged my iPhone 16 Pro Max from 12% to 100% and still had battery left over. I am not going to say it stayed perfectly cool, but given the conditions it was in, it never got hot, and it would warm up just a tad when it was pushing the 15W of charge, but would quickly come back down to normal temperatures.

Other quality-of-life notes I like are the simple iOS integration it has when it first connects and the insanely strong magnets.

Pricing & availability

The Kuxiu S2 is available today in two different colors: Black and Natural Titanium. I wanted to match the color of my iPhone, so I went with the back version. It’s on sale for $79.99, and I believe they are running a Mother’s Day promotion as well to get an additional 5% off.

So if you are looking for a new Magsafe battery bank for yourself, a loved one or just want to try out solid state battery packs for the first time, this is a great way to go! Let me know what you think!