Back in our day, phones used to come with chargers – now you’re lucky if you get a cable. The good news is that USB-C and USB charging standards have done away with the compatibility issue of the past (well, mostly), so a few good chargers are all you need.
That means that you have to pick the chargers yourself, though. Here are the ones we use. And yes, you do need multiple – for your home, maybe for work and your car, maybe for travel. We have separated them into groups based on use-case.
Table of Contents:
Wall chargers
These are the simplest kind of charger around – a wall wart with one or two ports, the kind you used to get in the box. And so, chargers from phone brands are a good place to start.
The Google Pixel Flex Dual Port 67W charger is one of the first with support for “Adjustable Voltage Supply”, AVS, which is the standard that iPhone 17 phones use. Either port can deliver up to 67W to an AVS device, but it also supports basic USB-PD and the more advanced USB-PPS. It’s a Swiss Army knife of a charger and we got one for the office for testing since we expect AVS to gain wider adoption, while PD and PPS are already widespread.
Samsung hasn’t jumped on the AVS bandwagon, so chargers like the 45W Power Adapter (EP-T4511) only support PD and PPS. This one claims super low standby power – “under 5mW” is the official rating – so it’s not wasting electricity when you leave it plugged in. A basic USB charger can burn through 0.1-0.5W just doing nothing and if you leave it plugged in for years (which you are not supposed to do, but it’s what usually happens), it adds up.
Looking past phone brand chargers, the UGREEN Nexode 65W has a retractable USB-C cable (69cm). It also has one USB-C and one USB-A port on board. You can use this at home and grab it for occasional travel – with this one you can be sure that you haven’t forgotten a USB-C cable. For dedicated travel chargers, look at the section below.
Alternatively, there is this UGREEN Nexode 65W slim charger if it’s a tight fit behind the furniture. The prongs are removable, by the way, so this is a compact option for travel too.
For more power, the UGREEN Uno 100W charger offers three USB-C ports and a USB-A port. Using one USB-C port, you get up to 80W of power, with two it is split 45W+35W. The third USB-C tops out at 20W, while the USB-A port can do up to 22.5W.
Similarly, we have an assortment of Anker chargers too – the Nano series strikes a good balance between size and power. The Anker 735 Nano II 65W can do up to 65W on one of its USB-C ports (up to 22.5W on the USB-A port) and 40W+12W+12W when all three ports are in use.
If you need a small charger to throw in your backpack when you’re out and about or when traveling, we’d recommend something like the Anker Nano 30W or 45W. They are powerful enough to keep your phone charged and you can forget they are in your bag – the 45W adapter weighs 60g (that’s only a fraction more than the included cable!) and measures 33x32x36.9mm.
The Baseus PicoGo GaN 45W is similar – tiny, one USB-C and delivers 45W with USB-PD and PPS support.
Laptop chargers
Modern laptops usually support USB-C charging – for some, it’s the only charging method, others still have barrel plugs (or, if you are looking at MacBooks, a MagSafe port). For laptops, you need a charger that can deliver at least 65W and often a lot more. You can also use these to charge large power banks.
Apple added USB-C charging to MacBooks and iPads before it did for iPhones. So it sells powerful chargers like these, the 96W and the 140W charger. For a MacBook Air, you don’t need all that much, but the MacBook Pros will definitely benefit from the extra power. Both chargers have only a single USB-C port, but you can use them to charge other devices while the laptop is not in use or runs on battery.
The 140W Laptop Charger from Anker can do up to 140W on one of its top two USB-C ports – that’s enough for all but the most bonkers of gaming laptops. If using all four ports, the charger delivers 65W on the top USB-C port, 45W and 12W on the second and third, respectively, and up to 12W on the sole USB-A port. There is a display that shows the power draw on each port as well as various modes, e.g. High Performance or Cooling Mode.
You can also go all out with the Anker Prime Charger 250W. This one has a total of six USB ports (4x USB-C + 2x USB-A) with the top Type C port delivering up to 140W. However, it can split its power between all available ports – delivering up to 240W/250W with two, three or even all ports in use. It has a 2.26” LCD to show the status (and also a clock, because why not). The dial on the side controls things like port priority, so you can divvy up the power however you need.
Car chargers
New cars have at least some USB ports on board – USB-A or USB-C, depending on the age of the car – some even have Qi wireless chargers. But not all cars have such ports and often they are not particularly powerful. Wireless Android Auto can sap away your phone’s battery surprisingly quickly!
In one of our older cars we use this 90W UGREEN charger. Retractable cables are cool in general, but in a car they are quite important – you don’t want dangling wires on your dashboard. And if your passengers need to charge up their devices too, there’s a regular USB-C port and a USB-A port on board too. By the way, if 90W sounds like too much, UGREEN also offers a 60W variant.
Anker also have a compact car charger with a retractable USB-C cable – this one delivers up to 75W of power and has an additional USB-C port if you need to charge more than one device at a time.
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