Smartphones just keep getting better and better. They can do more things than ever. Just the other day I needed a pitch counter for the game I was coaching. Let me download one real quick. The convenience of problem solving on the fly like that is priceless. But smartphone makers still struggle with building a device that can get many of their customers through a full day. Battery life is the real struggle when it comes to smartphone design and implementation. Luckily my last two phones came with a feature called Quick Charge.

Qualcomm Quick charge allows for up to 75% faster charging than conventional USB chargers. It currently stands at 2.0 technology but just recently it was announced that 3.0 is on its way. I have owned an HTC wall charger with Quick Charge technology for some time now. It is great for a quick boost before heading out for the evening. It does a great job of rapidly charging the device. This is important for me because I am a heavy user.

Let me define heavy, nine pages worth of apps heavy. My wife has the same phone and makes it to bed most days with around 50% battery. I on the other hand need to recharge at least once in most cases. In addition to my Quick Charge wall charger, I own a few portable battery packs. The only chink in my power armor was the car charger.

Enter the Aukey USB Turbor Car Charger. It’s a dual USB charger that offers one Quick Charge connection and a 2.4A option as well. I tend to use Google Maps with GPS on quite frequently. Nothing is a bigger drain than GPS navigation for me. I usually keep it on a standard car charger just to maintain battery level. Over the last few days I have used the Aukey charger and have gotten some really great results.

I tried to stay off the wall charger and see if the Aukey car charger would be able to keep me going. On Saturday post practice I plugged in on the drive to meet with family and went from 73 percent to 91 percent 25 minutes. I thought that was pretty solid as compared to a standard charger. On Sunday I gave it another run and got from 73 percent to 88 percent in 15 minutes. That was a great result in such a short amount of time.

The Aukey car charger is a great value at $17 on Amazon. With coupon codes from time to time, the price has dropped as low as 9 bucks. You really can’t go wrong, but understand one thing. Not all phones come with Qualcomm Quick Charge technology. So make sure your device is compatible. The charger will work with an USB connected decvice, but you may not get the same results as I did.