Keeping your devices juiced on the go is a perennial challenge for the road warriors among us. Today, Anker is revealing a lineup of chargers that is promising to keep even the most power-hungry sated. The new series uses Gallium Nitride (GaN) for its silicon, which promises much higher power outputs at far lower heat loss. In other words: Smaller chargers, less heat.
The GaN tech isn’t new, exactly — but the technology is finally showing up in consumer products at reasonable prices, which is worth celebrating.
“GaN is allowing us to completely change the way we charge our electronics by delivering better power transfer efficiency, faster-charging speeds, and smaller, more portable chargers,” said Steven Yang, CEO of Anker Innovations, in a press statement. “Our partners provided exclusive access to cutting-edge GaN technology that empowered us to create chargers that last longer and are more sustainable.”
The new series of chargers include wall chargers with USB-A and USB-C ports, ranging from the super compact but slower 65 W “735” charger with two USB-C and an USB-A socket, right up to the 150 W beast called “747,” and a couple of clever “power strips” and wireless charging solutions.
The full lineup of Anker’s newly launched chargers and powerbanks. Image Credits: Anker (opens in a new window)
To me, the reason these chargers are interesting is portability above all. Anker’s 737 charger, in particular, packs 120 W worth of power delivery at once to two USB-C devices and a USB-A device. Together, that means that you can charge two laptops at once, or — more likely — a laptop and a phone or tablet, plus an accessory of some sort, without having to take up more than one power socket.
The top-of-the-line 747 delivers even more of a wallop but sacrifices the small size of the 737 in favor of an additional USB-C port and an additional 30 W of power delivery capacity.
On paper, these chargers out-perform the ones included with, say, an Apple laptop. Time (and reviews) will tell whether they’re as robust and reliable, but Anker has proven over time to be a pretty serious player in this space, with high-quality products that aren’t exactly the cheapest around, but find a good balance between quality and price.
As a hardware hacker and maker, I’m also excited about having more power delivery options available for my own projects; USB (and, more recently, USB-C) is a versatile, near-ubiquitous standard. Having access to high-speed, reliable chargers is a boon to prototype builders and creators-on-the-go alike.