Cheering on the magic disk

My wife came to me a couple of days ago with a phone problem - the battery on her Samsung Galaxy S5 was holding as much charge as a dead Rhino and if I had a sec could I see if I could fix it.
So I leapt at the challenge, failed miserably and eventually bought a bit of tech to do the job for me.

Enter: The Magic disk.

No wait, my disk has nothing to do with this dog...

Now once upon a time I was one of those people who if I problem popped up, I would throw money or beer (most of the technicians and talented people I have roped into fixing my mistakes have been happily paid in many a beer) at it until the problem went away. Nowadays in the interests of not spending so much and eventually becoming a millionaire, I like to roll up the sleeves and get down to business.

And after a couple of minutes of fooling around with different charging cords, safe mode, power supplies, resetting it a few times and then trying on all of the accessories on my own phone to ensure they worked, I deduced that it was all the batteries fault and out it must come. So before you could say 'Well this would be way cheaper on eBay' I was at the local Batteryworld and deciding if a name brand or a generic one would do the trick. $60 down and a new battery in later and the problem...
....was still there. We had power, but no charging.

So the phone came with me on my way to work but before I stepped into the office, I swung by a local tech shop who had done a brilliant job on a faulty charging port on my Galaxy 6 Edge previously. They took one look at it, plugged it in and then told me the best thing to do...was to go to eBay.

'Pardon?'

'Look on eBay for a wireless charging kit for less than $100 and that should do the trick. Otherwise we can change it over but because it's connected to the screen, you'll need a new screen and you'd be up for roughly $220...'

Brilliant. Love an honest business that helps me save coin.

So it was onto eBay to wade through the dodgy counterfeits and bargains so good I wondered if they actually worked. According to various reviews some cheapies did, some didn't and some came with a fan that made plenty of noise to wake the dead. Oh good. Narrowing it down to what we'd need would be a tall order because not only would I need the charging pad but because the S5 didn't come with the charging loop that mine does, we'd have to buy one of those as well.

Luckily an interstate business had thought of this and had created a bundle designed for an S5 including the disk and the cord and the charging card you stick in the back of your phone. $60 bucks later and it was in the mail and on the way to our place, right at the same time my wife tried to charge her phone once more...and it worked.

Isn't it always the way? It's only when you order a new part that the old one suddenly springs to life again for fear of being cast out. Well at least we had an extra charging solution for both phones now..

So our latest edition to the household is the Nillkin Magic Disk (very similar to this one on Amazon) a Qi Wireless charger that you rest your phone of top of and it charges away while you go and do something productive. No wires to plug in, just rest the phone on top of it, disc goes blue, you let it charge and come back when it's done. Magic really.

And it even matches our rental kitchen! Score!

While my Samsung S6 Edge has this extra charging ability built in, the S5 doesn't but it's easily fixed with a charging card made just for it - simply slot it in the back, put your cover back on and never plug another cord into ever again (well aside from headphones or a usb cord to transfer photos to a computer or something I guess..)

Something like this ideally

So now both phones have two ways of charging which is handy as my wife and I often steal each others cords and wall plugs when our phones are down to 2%.
If you're in the same boat with your Galaxy S5 and the charging port is getting a bit on the fritz, definitely have a look at this tech that not only can you can impress the neighbours with, but you can also use to charge your phone! Magic disk!