Disconnect: Apple’s new battery case is awful. Please do not buy it.

Disconnect is a new weekly column in which Tech in Asia’s Charlie Custer pokes at holes, plays devil’s advocate, or otherwise attempts to rain on the tech industry’s parade.

Apple is a polarizing name these days. Either you love the company for its simple-but-elegantly-functional products, or you hate it for its absurd prices and extreme lack of customizability. Both perspectives are completely reasonable, but no matter which side of the Apple fanboy fence you fall on, I want to implore you: don’t buy Apple’s new iPhone battery case.

Yes, in case you didn’t know, the company is now selling an Apple-made “smart” battery case. The case, which slunk quietly onto Apple’s web stores yesterday, will fit your iPhone 6 or 6s and promises “increased talk time up to 25 hours.”

Sounds great, right? No. It is terrible. Let me count the ways that’s the case (no pun intended).

1. Ugly aesthetics

Apple is pretty famous for its ability to craft devices that are both beautiful and functional, but obviously its good designers were all on break when this battery case was created, because it looks awful. It looks like your iPhone is pregnant with an iPod. It looks like you’ve strapped an extra battery to the back of your phone with electrical tape. Coming from Apple, the inelegant approach is really kind of shocking, especially when other companies have already produced much cleaner designs.

And of course, since it’s an Apple product, here’s hoping you’re happy with a black or white case, because there aren’t any other color choices. Whatever happened to the company that made those colorful iMacs? Why did Apple decide all of its high-end products have to be black and white?

2. Weak power for the price

The Apple iPhone smart battery case will run you US$100, which gets you an extra 1,877mAh battery. Apple doesn’t share that number on its site, and there’s a reason for it: the power-to-price ratio is terrible. It’s not even enough power to fully recharge your iPhone if the battery runs out. That doesn’t mean it’s useless, but it does mean it’s overpriced. For your money, you could get a lot more power.

For example, if you insist on spending US$100, you could get a Morphie Juicepack Air, which sports a 2,750mAh battery and a smoother aesthetic.

But you don’t need to spend anywhere near that much to get that kind of power. You could get a 2,850mAh battery in the Anker Ultra Slim case, which is The Wirecutter’s top-rated iPhone case and which is currently on sale for US$30. For that price you could get three extra battery cases with a combined 4.5 times the power capacity of Apple’s smart battery case while still having spent US$10 less than the Apple case will cost you. Anker also makes a premium case with a sexier look and 3,100mAh of power that still costs under US$50.