If only the iPhone would last all day on one charge.  How awesome would that be?  But style-conscious Apple wants to keep their flagship product slim and sexy, which limits the size of battery they can shoe-horn into it. 

Because they don’t, and because there’s a high demand for longer use between recharges, we have the option of iPhone cases that come with extra power built into them.  They do the trick, but at the cost of increasing the iPhone’s size and weight, and also – in many cases – reducing the signal strength.

This one from Tekkeon, however, does not suffer from loss of signal strength.  I can attest to that personally, as I’ve been using it for about two weeks now.  Signal strength actually seems to be better – probably because the iPhone thinks it’s plugged into external power (which in a way it is) and so doesn’t tone down signal strength as a power saving method.

(This is just a guess, based on my impression of using it.)

They have two versions, one made of faux leather (shown here) and one made from the real thing.  PETA-sympathizers will probably opt for the former, which is just as well because it’s less expensive but gives you the same capabilities.

Let me tell you, having the battery meter show full all day long is awesome.  To me it’s worth the extra size and weight.  Totally.  I use this phone constantly for just about everything, and now I can finally go all day without worrying about running out of power.

The case also doubles as a dock, and comes with a standard mini-USB cable that can be used to charge or data-connect the iPhone.  That in itself is really handy when you’re out and about and want to hook your iPhone up to a USB port but don’t have an Apple cable with you.  Your standard mini-USB cable that comes with some cameras and external hard drives works just fine.

The only control interface on the case is a single light, which changes color depending on what’s going on.  It’s simplistic but it works fine.  Green means your fully charged and ready.  Red means you’re drawing power from the battery, or that it is currently charging.  Dark means the case’s battery is dead and you’re running from the iPhone’s battery.

That’s another cool thing about this case – while the iPhone is running off the case battery, it’s bypassing the iPhone battery.  What typically happens to me is I run all day long, and just at about 5-6 PM the case’s power is depleted and it switches to the iPhone battery, which is still fully charged.

Since getting this case, I have not run my iPhone out of power, even with almost continuous use.

What people do have to keep in mind about the iPhone is that it’s not really a phone.  It’s a powerful miniature computer with telephony built into it.  The device has a powerful processor and a large screen.  It’s going to suck juice, and there’s no way around that.  So you either make it twice as big, which will turn a lot of people off, or you make it esthetically pleasing and then let third-party companies fill the gap.

This gizmo, which I hereby officially proclaim as very groovy, fills that gap perfectly.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s now permanently part of my iPhone.