Nowadays, mobile productivity entails carrying more than a few necessary technological devices. Depending on how you work, your daily carry may include a laptop, a smartphone, a smartwatch, a camera, a webcam, a tablet, Bluetooth earbuds, a Nintendo Switch... I hope you get the idea.
When it comes to carrying all of these gadgets on the move, one of the more frustrating difficulties is the amount of chargers that you may have to stash away in your backpack, as well as the limited number of AC outlets that you have to keep them all fueled up throughout the day. One innovative option is a desk charger from UGREEN, a Chinese electronics manufacturer, that can charge up to six electrical gadgets at once. The charger, simply and aptly named the 200W Desktop Charger (or Nexode in some regions), is capable of simultaneously delivering up to 200W of power to your electronics (100W maximum for a single device), with four USB-C Power Delivery ports capable of supporting any tech that requires a bit more wattage to remain functional. But first, let's go over the charger's design and construction. Not at all cumbersome. The charger (now available for roughly US$199.99) is well-made, with a plastic exterior casing that doesn't feel cheap and an appearance that will likely fit into any work setting. Furthermore, it is rather heavy, making it more ideal as a permanent fixture on top of your desk rather than something you'd carry around on a regular basis (although you can do that if you want, as well). IMAGE: Southeast Asia Mashable However, given the amount of power it can produce, you'd be thrilled with the dimensions, which are 3.97 x 3.97 x 1.27 inches. This is due, of course, to the use of gallium nitride (GaN) as a semiconductor, which has allowed most modern-day chargers to reduce in size without sacrificing performance. IMAGE: Southeast Asia Mashable Finally, the device includes a meter-long braided USB-C cable that enables 100W charging as well as a normal power chord that connects into a wall socket. It's strong, but it's also a little perplexing. The charger appears to be more than capable of producing power for most users' needs, albeit establishing the power output of the six ports (4x USB-C and 2x USB-A) would require you to refer to a perplexing chart provided by UGREEN. Looking at the diagrams, you'll note that the charger sends out varying levels of watts depending on how many devices you connect in and which ports you utilize. Using only the first two USB-C ports, for example, provides up to 100W of Power Delivery fast-charging, however connecting a third USB-C device to the subsequent third port limits the maximum charging output to 65W per device for all three ports. Then there are the various maximum outputs for the individual ports to consider if you really want to know how much power you're getting for each of your devices. Depending on your priorities, you should assign the first two USB-C ports on the charger to the devices that demand the most power (or that need to be charged right away), and the remaining ports to the less critical devices in your setup. Charge output is limited to 65W for the first USB-C port, 45W for the second and third USB-C ports, 20W for the fourth USB-C port, and 5V4A (20W) for the remaining two USB-A ports when all six ports are used. Trying to recall these specs was obviously not worth the effort, so I ended up relying on the diagrams provided (see below) to keep track of things. It has the ability to charge everything. Despite the confusing specs, I found the charger to be capable of powering many common gadgets without breaking a sweat. In my tests, I connected a laptop with a specialized graphics card, a 2021 Macbook Air, two iPhones, a Microsoft Surface Pro 7, and an Apple Watch and observed that all of them received enough electricity to charge from 0% to 100% in reasonable time periods. IMAGE: Southeast Asia Mashable To see if the charger could actually deliver its claimed 200W maximum, I connected my gaming laptop and the Macbook Air to the first two USB-C ports, which UGREEN claims can send 100W each (for a total of 200W), and discovered — via battery reporting software — that this was also pretty much true, with charge rates hovering around the 100W mark when receiving power around the 20% charge mark. This amount of power is more than enough for most people to power a daily array of portable electronics, making the 200W charger a highly useful tool for replacing the many charging bricks and adapters that take up space in a backpack. In my case, instead of bringing a huge power brick and a wall converter, I only needed to bring the charger and accompanying USB cables to keep my gaming laptop, iPhone, AirPods, and smart watch powered for my days at the office. IMAGE: Southeast Asia Mashable I must add that the 100W charging from the first two USB-C ports was more than adequate to keep my demanding gaming laptop charged throughout the day while I performed chores such as word processing, video watching, and web surfing. However, individuals purchasing this charger for their own gaming laptops should keep in mind that it is insufficient for serious gaming sessions, which require more juice to handle dedicated graphics cards such as an RTX3050 (or anything similar or more demanding). For such cases, you should obviously stick to the supplied power bricks. Finally, even charging many devices at the same time, the charger did not grow hot or even warm most of the time. This is due, once again, to the efficiency of gallium nitride as an internal semiconductor. If there was one thing I wish UGREEN had done better with the charger, it would have been to include some LED indicators to indicate operationality or problems when in use. Right now, the only way to find out if your gadgets are receiving power is to check on them individually. However, as one of the very first devices of its sort, I can't really blame the charger's design, though I do expect future iterations to rapidly improve in terms of design and cost. In terms of price, the UGREEN 200W GaN charger presently sells for a hefty US$199.99 on the brand's official website, making it a product that many will have to carefully consider before making a purchase decision. Obviously, such a high price is to be expected given the novelty of such a powerful charger, but I believe its functionality will (for the time being) appeal primarily to those who truly want something that can seamlessly replace their jumbled collection of charging bricks and wall chargers. Ejtandemonium.com
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