Back in the day, phones came with chargers – now you’re lucky if you can get a cable. The good news is that USB-C and USB charging standards have eliminated the compatibility issue of the past (well, mostly), so some good chargers are all you need.
This means you’ll have to choose the chargers yourself, though. These are the ones we use. And yes, you need more than one – 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 type – a wall wart with one or two ports, the way you used to access 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 “Adjust Voltage Supply”, AVS, the standard used by iPhone 17 phones. Either port can supply up to 67W to an AVS device, but it also supports basic USB-PD and the more advanced USB-PPS. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of a charger and we got one for the office for testing because we expect AVS to see wider adoption, while PD and PP are already widespread.
If you’re specifically looking for an iPhone charger, Apple’s 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max is the obvious choice—it can provide 60W for about 10-15 minutes and then it drops to 40W. The iPhone doesn’t need 60W for long anyway, so this charger goes as fast as a phone.
Samsung hasn’t jumped on the AVS bandwagon, so chargers like the 45W Power Adapter (EP-T4511) only support PD and PPs. It claims super low standby power—”under 5MW” is the official rating—so no power is wasted when you leave it plugged in. A basic USB charger can only do nothing by 0.1-0.5W and if you leave it plugged in for years (which you’re not supposed to, but it usually does), it adds up.
Looking at past phone brand chargers, we also found one of these in the office—the Baseus Enrcore CJ11 with a retractable USB-C cable. It also has two USB-C ports on board. You can use it at home and grab it for the occasional trip—plus you can be sure you didn’t forget the USB-C cable. For dedicated travel chargers, see the section below.
We also have several Akafast chargers. For example, the ACEFST PD65W charger has three ports. The transparent design looks so cool, it’s almost a shame to plug it into the socket way. Use the code Sky Zarkami For $20.
Some of us are long-time base users and if you need to charge multiple devices at once, something like the Picogo 100W is a solid choice. You can get 67W+12W+12W from all three ports (two USB-C and one USB-A)—the handy display will show you how much each port is delivering.
Similarly, we also have a variety of chargers. The Nano series strikes a good balance between size and power. The Inker 735 Nano II can do 65W on one of its USB-C ports (up to 22.5W on the USB-A port) and up to 65W on 40W+12W+12W when all three ports are in use.
Laptop chargers
Modern laptops usually support USB-C charging—for some, it’s the only charging method, while others still have barrel plugs (or, if you’re looking at a MacBook, a MagSafe port). For laptops, you need a charger that can deliver at least 65W and often more. You can also use them to charge larger power banks.
Apple added USB-C charging to MacBooks and iPads before iPhones did. So it sells powerful chargers like these, 96W and 140W chargers. For the MacBook Air, you don’t need that much, but MacBook pros will definitely benefit from the extra power. Both chargers only have one USB-C port, but you can use them to charge other devices while the laptop is not in use or running on battery.
Anker’s 140W laptop charger can do up to 140W on one of its top two USB-C ports—more than enough for all but the most demanding of gaming laptops. If using all four ports, the charger delivers 45W and 12W on the second and third respectively, and up to 12W on the single USB-A port, 65W on the top USB-C port. There’s a display that shows the power draw on each port, as well as different modes, such as high performance or cooling mode.
You can also go all out with the Inker Prime Charger 250W. It 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 for two, three or even all ports in use. It has a 2.26″ LCD to display status (and a clock, too, because why not). The dial on the side controls things like port priority, so you can allocate power however you need.
The base Enerful FH11 GAN charger is quite powerful for its price – it can deliver the full 140W to a single laptop or split it between two laptops, each getting 70W. If you use all four ports, the charger outputs 65W+45W+9W+9W.
Car chargers
Newer cars have at least a few USB ports on board—USB-A or USB-C, depending on the age of the car—and some even have Qi wireless chargers. But not all cars have such ports and often they are not particularly powerful. Wireless Android Auto can drain your phone’s battery surprisingly quickly!
In one of our older cars, we use this 90W Yegrin charger. Retractable cables are usually cool, but in a car they’re pretty important — you don’t want dangling wires on your dashboard. And if your passengers need to charge their devices too, there’s a regular USB-C port and a USB-A port on board too. By the way, if 90W seems too much, Ugreen also offers a 60W variant.
Naturally, the bases have car chargers with retractable cables as well. The Base Ultra Mini Car Charger offers up to 60W with its 31.5″ retractable USB-C cable, which can be split into two with a regular USB-C port.
The base Prime Trap VR2 Max is up to 163W and has two retractable cables, 31.5″ each, plus an extra USB-C and USB-A port. There’s also a 240W variant, but check your car’s fuse first! 240W is more power than a typical auxiliary power outlet (the “cigarette lighter” we had when we were young).
Travel chargers
Here we will list the adapters that you can take while traveling. These include small ones that you can throw in your bag and not worry about weight and those that will charge you anywhere in the world.
While USB-C won the DC power war, AC is another matter. The Base Encore CG11 is a 70W universal travel adapter, which can be plugged into a wall socket in 200+ countries worldwide. This gives you a universal port that you can plug AC devices into, plus a retractable USB-C cable, a regular USB-C port and two USB-A ports. You can get a dedicated plug adapter and a separate charger, of course, but a combo unit like this takes up less space. We did one on our trip to China and it worked great.
Anker has a similar device, the Anker Nano Travel Adapter. It can be plugged into any wall outlet and gives you a regular US outlet. Note that the built-in USB ports can’t deliver much power—at 20W, they can charge a phone slowly, but we wouldn’t trust them with a laptop.
If you’re not leaving the country – or moving to a country with compatible wall outlets – we’d recommend the Inker Nano 30W or 45W. They’re powerful enough to keep your phone charged and you can forget they’re in your bag – the 45W adapter weighs 2.11oz/60g (that’s just a fraction of the included cable!) and measures 1.3 x 1.26 x 1.5in/33x32x36.9mm.
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