My work desk is a mess, a mish mash of working space, technology, hobby supplies, kids dumping ground. Somewhere in there are a bunch of charging cables, headset, earbuds, at least two laptops and everything else. I was on the lookout for a desk mat when I crossed paths with the ad for the Journey ALTI wireless charging desk mat, and I just had to try it out.
Background
Journey is a local company based out of Melbourne Australia. Just casually dropped into the bottom of the website says they are an Alogic brand.
First Impressions
The ALTI desk mat is available in black or light grey.
It features a vegan leather surface on one side, and plush felt on the other. It is stitched on short side which allows for the two pieces to be completely rolled back to put something thin in between – like loose pieces of paper, or the 20 Naira we found near school back at the start of the year.
I have a personal preference for the felt side, the texture is comforting. The vegan leather side works great as a mouse pad and easy to clean, but my MX Vertical didn’t have any issues with the felt side.
The marketing says the cushiony felt surface is warmer to work on on cold mornings. They weren’t wrong as I commence writing this on the first day of winter.
The ALTI also comes with a wireless charging pad with two charging coils.
In Use
A piece of technology that requires minimal effort to work, the toughest decision to make is which side to put your charging pad. That decision affects which orientation to lay the desk mat.
The side with the stitching has magnets embedded into the edge to dock with the wireless charge pad. Both sides of the wireless charge pad has magnets so regardless which way you lay down the mat, the charger module will stay right next to desk mat.
The charge mat has a recessed port at the top for earbuds case that supports the Qi standard. This one maxes out at 5W.
Lower down is a raised circular puck for phone charging, being MagSafe compatible with up to 15W supported. It is noted that the specifications says for iPhones it is limited to 7.5W.
As a tech reviewer I have all kind of gadgets to meet all kind of needs. I had a wireless charging pad which whilst was convenient for plonking my phone down to juice up, eventually it wasn’t used as often and I happily gave it to my partner when she asked for it. Why? Because on my work desk, it meant my phone was out of reach and I had to constantly grab it t triage my notifications.
With the ALTI desk mat, my phone is right next to where I am needed most of the time – next to my keyboard. It is charging away, and I can just take a quick glance to see if something needs my attention. In fact I can unlock my phone and do things without needing to take it off charge. Similarly my earbuds are getting juiced up between use and within easy reach.
The design of the ALTI having the charging pad positioned to the side of the work space makes the workflow more logical. All my key items – keyboard, mouse, phone and earbuds are all within easy functional reach.
I run Android phones so I can’t test for MagSafe. The issue I found was it took a little effort to position an Android phone to make the connection. Not a fault of the ALTI as there are no magnets to guide it in on the Android side (although it seems the latest Qi standard will make progress on this front). This gets easier as I get more familiar with the positioning of everything.
To be honest, I found the the charging pad a little … plain jane, so I busted out the Cricut and made some custom decals to make it more “me”. The charging puck was absolutely begging for the Death Star treatment. As for the Rogue One symbol, there is some method to the madness here. When my phone is about a centimetre from the top of the logo, that is where the wireless charging will kick in perfectly. And of course, I couldn’t leave the second charging area alone so it got a Tie Fighter.
Gripes
What’s there to complain about? Nothing, unless we can magnetically dock a cat bed on the other side …
Conclusions
The design is simple but it changed my work space far better than I could imagine. I love the felt surface but I do wonder how dirty it would get.
The Journey ALTI Wireless Charging Desk Mat has a RRP of AUD$149.00. At the time of publishing there is a 20% off deal with the code SAVE20.
DRN would like to thank Journey for providing the review unit. Yeah I really like it (so do all my kids). Really. This one gets a Pulse Award! Congratulations Journey!
Specifications
Input: USB-C
Output: Wireless Charger (MagSafe Compatible)- 15W(Max) iPhone 7.5W(Max) Wireless Charging Earbuds/AirPods/Pro – 5W
Product Dimensions: 370mm (W) x 780mm (L) x 4mm (D)
Color: Black or Light Grey
Weight: 55g
Package Contents:
1 x ALTI Wireless Charging Desk Mat & Wireless Charging Pad
1 x USB-C Cable
1 x User Manual
