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Apple has announced the new iPhone 15 series, which replaces the company's longstanding Lightning connector with USB-C for the first time. We'll update this guide soon to reflect this development. Smart Fast Charger
If you’ve ever scrambled out the door with your phone’s battery in the red, you know that power is precious, and the faster you can get it, the better. Anker’s PowerPort III Nano is the best option for charging any phone fast: It's tiny and inexpensive, and it can get a fully drained phone battery to more than 50% full in half an hour.
USB-C chargers can top up phones faster than older USB-A models can, and they work with both iPhones and Android devices. As of November 2020, all iPhones come with the USB-C–to–Lightning cable necessary to take advantage of the faster charging USB-C offers. (If you got your iPhone before that, you may have to buy a cable separately.) If you have an Android phone and a USB-C cable already, you don’t need to buy anything extra to fast-charge with our USB-C picks.
This small and inexpensive charger will fast-charge any phone, including iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel handsets. But it has only one port.
If you want the smallest power brick available that’ll charge your phone at the fastest speeds, we recommend the single-port Anker PowerPort III Nano. It’s the same size as Apple’s ubiquitous 5-watt charger (the one that Apple used to include in iPhone boxes), and it supplies up to 20 watts over USB-C. That’s enough power to charge most phones—whether you have an iPhone, a Samsung Galaxy model, a Google Pixel handset, or some other Android phone with fast charging—more than halfway full in just 30 minutes. This model also powers Apple’s MagSafe wireless charging system at its maximum 15 watts.
Port one: 20 W USB-C Dimensions: 1.2 by 1.1 by 1.1 inches
This model has fast-charging USB-C and USB-A ports that provide maximum power no matter what cable you use, together in one small and reliable charger.
May be out of stock
RAVPower’s 30W Dual Port Compact PD Charger (RP-PC132) is more powerful than the smaller Anker PowerPort III Nano. Its USB-C port can charge at up to 18 watts, and it has a second port—in the form of the classic USB-A—that allows you to charge a second device at 12 watts. In our testing, the USB-C port charged a phone to 85% in an hour, compared with 70% from the USB-A port.
Port one: 18 W USB-C Port two: 12 W USB-A Dimensions: 1.9 by 1.9 by 1.2 inches
If you want to get the fastest charge possible to two modern devices at once, this charger is the best of the few options available. But you need to bring your own USB-C cables.
The Spigen PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro is what you should get if you want to take advantage of fast USB-C with multiple devices. When a single port is in use, it charges at up to 30 watts. When you use the two USB-C ports at the same time, both support full 20-watt charging, so you can charge two phones at top speed—an iPhone’s battery will go from 0% to more than 50% charged in a half hour, whereas in the same amount of time on the charger the iPhone comes with, it would be at about 20%. This kind of dual–USB-C charger is still pretty rare, and the PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro represents the best execution of it.
Port one: 30 W USB-C (20 W USB-C when both ports are in use) Port two: 30 W USB-C (20 W USB-C when both ports are in use) Dimensions: 1.9 by 1.9 by 1.1 inches
Affordable, fast, and compact, this charger can provide fast power to up to four devices at once, although not at the maximum speeds USB-C offers.
The Anker PowerPort 4 is the model to choose if you carry a lot of gear—say, a phone, a smartwatch, a power bank, and Bluetooth headphones—or if you’re traveling with companions. Each of its four ports supports a 12-watt power draw, as fast a charge as you can get from standard USB-A. No other reliable four-port charger packs that kind of power into such a diminutive size and at such a low price.
Port one: 12 W USB-A Port two: 12 W USB-A Port three: 12 W USB-A Port four: 12 W USB-A Dimensions: 2.6 by 2.6 by 1.1 inches
This small and inexpensive charger will fast-charge any phone, including iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel handsets. But it has only one port.
This model has fast-charging USB-C and USB-A ports that provide maximum power no matter what cable you use, together in one small and reliable charger.
May be out of stock
If you want to get the fastest charge possible to two modern devices at once, this charger is the best of the few options available. But you need to bring your own USB-C cables.
Affordable, fast, and compact, this charger can provide fast power to up to four devices at once, although not at the maximum speeds USB-C offers.
I’ve been reviewing mobile accessories since 2011 and covering them for Wirecutter since 2015. I’m also the author of Wirecutter’s guides to Qi wireless chargers and car chargers, for which I’ve seen and tested pretty much every available charging variation.
To make our picks, in addition to reflecting on years of experience, we relied on professional-level tools, including the Total Phase USB Power Delivery Analyzer and its Data Center Software. These tools allowed us to get more granular, precise data than we might have otherwise so that we could be confident in our picks’ performance.
If your phone’s or tablet’s original USB charger is broken or lost, you’re obviously in need of a new charger. But even if you still have the original chargers for all your devices, you might want to consider something that can charge your devices from a wall outlet more quickly or charge multiple devices at the same time.
Most people have more than one device that charges via USB: tablets, smartphones, external battery packs, e-readers, portable speakers, Bluetooth headphones and headsets, fitness trackers—the list goes on. Chances are, you’ll regularly need to charge two (or more) of those devices at the same time. Good multiport chargers cost only a little more than single-port chargers and aren’t much larger. If you think you might take advantage of a second port, they’re worth a few dollars extra, but you’ll save money and reduce bulk with a single-port model.
Micro-USB cables are cheap and ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean you should settle for a bad one. We tested six top brands to find the best at a great price.
Multiport chargers are also great for travel. Instead of having to pack a gaggle of chargers for the family—or when you’re traveling alone, for your phone, tablet, headset, and Bluetooth speaker—you can bring one charger that handles everything. (Of course, you have to pack the appropriate Lightning or Micro-USB cables, too.)
Choosing a new phone charger can be daunting: You can find hundreds of brands, many selling dozens of different configurations. We decided to stick to companies with established track records of great products and service. You can get a quality charger for a low price—so there’s no good reason to go with an unproven brand. To that end, we pored through the USB-charger catalogs of Amazon, Anker, Apple, Aukey, Google, iClever, Nekteck, RAVPower, Satechi, Scosche, and ZMI, and we considered nearly 100 distinct charger models.
From there, we whittled the list down based on a number of criteria:
Based on the above criteria, we’ve tested dozens of chargers over the years, including some with just USB-C ports, some with just USB-A ports, and some with both. To find the top options in each category, we put the finalists through a number of tests.
This small and inexpensive charger will fast-charge any phone, including iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel handsets. But it has only one port.
USB-C phone chargers have become dramatically smaller and less expensive in just a few years, to the point where you can get a great, fast charger for less than $20 (and often closer to $10). Anker’s PowerPort III Nano is the best, most compact option for sending the fastest possible charge to most phones, capable of delivering 20 watts of power over USB-C.
The PowerPort III Nano is impressively small. Measuring 1.75 inches long, including the non-folding prongs, and only a little more than an inch wide and tall, its dimensions are almost identical to those of the 5 W charger that Apple packed with most iPhones for the past decade. It’s less than half the size of Apple’s comparable 20 W charger.
The PowerPort III Nano has a single USB-C port. Our testing hardware showed that the port worked as advertised, with a proper 20 W power draw measured at 9 volts/2.2 amps. (It also supports 15 W charging, which makes it compatible with USB-C devices that don’t use the Power Delivery standard, such as some Android phones.) As with all of the other USB-C chargers we recommend in this guide, you should see most phones charge from empty to somewhere between 50% and 55% full in half an hour or so, compared with 20% full in the same time period on a 5 W charger. In fact, during our tests the iPhone 13 battery reached about 52% capacity in that time and 83% in an hour.
The Anker charger also provides full power to MagSafe wireless charging accessories, including Apple’s MagSafe Charger and MagSafe Duo Charger. We briefly recommended sticking with 18 W chargers rather than 20 W models, but further testing has shown that the increased power is necessary for MagSafe, and this 20 W Anker charger isn’t any more expensive than 18 W equivalents.
Anker’s 18-month warranty is on a par with many of its competitors’ coverage offerings. On the rare occasions Wirecutter staffers have had to take advantage of the protection, they’ve found the process to be quick and easy.
This model has fast-charging USB-C and USB-A ports that provide maximum power no matter what cable you use, together in one small and reliable charger.
May be out of stock
The RAVPower 30W Dual Port Compact PD Charger (RP-PC132) is the best dual-port charger for charging your phone at the maximum speed no matter what cable you use. It provides both a 12-watt USB-A port and an 18-watt USB-C port, so you can charge your phone two to three times faster than with the charger that came in the box with your phone. And with two ports, the RP-PC132 offers good charging speeds for two devices at the same time; most other models this small and inexpensive can’t support fast charging on both ports at once. This power adapter is also small and light, making it ideal for carrying in a bag.
Although a USB-C port is smaller and faster than a USB-A connection and works with more kinds of devices, the USB-C standard is not yet ubiquitous. The RP-PC132 cleverly combines the benefits of USB-C with the convenience of USB-A, which means you can charge most phones released since 2017 or so at full speed using a USB-C cable (or for iPhones, a USB-C–to–Lightning cable) while also powering a second device on the USB-A port at a respectable rate using an older cable you already have.
The RP-PC132 is the smallest dual-port USB-A and USB-C charger we’ve tested, and in our tests it performed exactly as promised. You can expect an iPhone 13 to charge to about 36% in a half hour on the USB-A port and closer to 50% on the USB-C port.
This power brick is larger than what comes with most phones, but it isn’t huge. It measures about 1.9 inches long by 1.9 inches wide by 1.2 inches thick, and it weighs less than 3 ounces. Folding prongs make it convenient for travel. It’s barely larger than the Apple 12W USB Power Adapter—just a hair wider, taller, and thicker. That might make it a tight fit in the smallest pockets of a purse or a gear bag, but because it’s more than twice as powerful as smaller chargers like Apple’s, the bigger size is a fair trade-off.
RAVPower offers an 18-month warranty on its products, and you can extend that coverage to 30 months if you register your item on the company’s website.
If you want to get the fastest charge possible to two modern devices at once, this charger is the best of the few options available. But you need to bring your own USB-C cables.
The Spigen PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro is one of the few power bricks we’ve seen with two USB-C ports, and it’s the most impressive for its size, roughly equivalent to that of an AirPods case. Because the PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro delivers the promised 20-watt performance on each port when both ports are in use, you can charge two phones at full speed at the same time or fast-charge your phone and another USB-C accessory. If you’re using only one of the ports, that speed jumps to 30 watts, enough to power a tablet or some laptops. No other charger of this size is that powerful, and most other dual–USB-C chargers cost about the same as this one, so you have no reason not to get the extra power.
When we plugged an iPhone 13 into the PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro with a USB-C–to–Lightning cable, it charged from zero to about 52% in 30 minutes and to 85% in an hour. When we ran the charger through the Total Phase test, the performance matched exactly what Spigen had promised: Each port delivered 30 watts when used by itself, and the ports offered 20 watts when they were both in use.(That 30 W charging rate also means the Spigen PowerArc 40W can charge the iPhone 13 Pro Max at its fastest possible speed, though you'll only save a few minutes over using a 20 W charger.)
The PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro measures about 1.9 by 1.9 by 1.1 inches, so it’s small enough for you to carry it in a bag or purse without your really noticing it’s there. Its ports are stacked horizontally on the face opposite the folding prongs.
As Spigen does for most of its items, it covers the PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro with a two-year warranty.
Affordable, fast, and compact, this charger can provide fast power to up to four devices at once, although not at the maximum speeds USB-C offers.
The Anker PowerPort 4 offers four USB-A ports in a compact design, making it ideal for a couple who’s traveling (or one person who uses a ton of gear). It’s what I personally carry when my wife and I are on the go, as it allows us to charge our iPhones and Apple Watches on a single outlet.
The PowerPort 4 is one of the fastest multiport chargers Wirecutter has tested, across all of its ports. Despite its advertised 40-watt maximum output, we measured 12-watt draw from all four ports at the same time, for about 48 W total. Unless you have a Quick Charge–capable device, that’s as fast as USB-A can charge, and many multiport chargers like this can’t provide that much power to every port at the same time. Based on our experience with the PowerPort 4, we can say that even if the speeds do drop a bit in practical use, you can still be sure of fast USB-A charging across all the ports.
At just over an inch thick, the PowerPort 4 has the same thickness as all of the other Anker chargers we recommend in this guide. Rather than requiring a cable between the wall outlet and the charger’s body as most multiport chargers do, the Anker PowerPort 4 plugs directly into an AC outlet (without covering the second outlet), so it’s less bulky to carry than an adapter that requires a cable.
If the RAVPower RP-PC132 jumps in price or is out of stock, Anker’s PowerPort PD 2 is a good alternative. It’s larger but not hugely so, and we trust Anker products to last.
If you need an alternative to the Spigen PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro, the RAVPower PD Pioneer 40W 2-Port Wall Charger (RP-PC152)’s features are identical, with two 30-watt USB-C ports that can output 40 watts total when they’re both in use. It’s a little bit larger than the Spigen, but otherwise a good choice, especially if it’s on sale at a lower price.
If you need two chargers, RAVPower’s PD Pioneer 20W Wall Charger (RP-PC150) offers the same power output as our top pick and is almost exactly the same size and shape, but is only available in a two-pack. It’s a good deal since it’s cheaper per-unit, but you should only spend the money if you really need more than one charger.
If you prefer a charger with folding prongs, the single-port Spigen PowerArc 20W ArcStation Pro—the little sibling to our upgrade pick—performs just as well as our top pick, though it’s a bit larger.
If you want a flatter charger that might fit better in your bag than our other picks, go with Twelve South’s PlugBug Slim. It’s about half the thickness of our pick, meaning it doesn’t stick out as far from an outlet and may fit better in tight spaces, like behind a couch or a nightstand. The Bic lighter-shaped charger supports a full 20-watt output and its prongs fold in for travel. However, due to its long, flat design, it’s more likely to block another outlet when in use, which some people may find annoying.
If you’re particularly eco-conscious, Nimble’s Wally Mini Wall Charger offers a 20-watt USB-C port plus a USB-A port and is made from recycled plastic. But unlike with our C-and-A pick from RAVPower, on this model the combined power draw drops to 15 watts when both ports are in use. The size, shape, price, and environmental mission are otherwise respectable, but for sheer power-per-dollar value, stick with our pick.
If you want a USB A and USB-C charger that can also power a small laptop, the Aukey Focus Duo 30W PD Charger (PA-D1) is a good choice. It’s a bit larger than the RAVPower RP-PC132 we recommend, but the PA-D1 offers 30-watt charging on its USB-C port compared with the RAVPower’s 18 watts (though the Aukey’s USB-C speed drops to 18 watts if both ports are in use). If you can find it on sale, it may even be cheaper than the RAVPower.
We’re planning a new round of testing for the spring of 2023, pitting our picks against the following models:
Anker’s PowerPort III 20W is distinct from the 20-watt PowerPort III Nano we recommend. It’s quite a bit larger than our pick, measuring twice the volume, although it does have folding prongs. While the PowerPort III 20W typically sells for a few dollars less than the PowerPort III Nano, both are in the $15 range, so you’re better off spending a little more on the smaller model that functions just as well.
Apple’s 20W USB-C Power Adapter is larger than Anker’s 20-watt charger, costs more, and doesn’t have folding prongs. We don’t see any reason to choose it over the model we recommend.
Aukey’s Minima 20W PD Charger (PA-Y20S) and 20W PD Wall Charger (PA-F1S), as well as Choetech’s 20W PD Fast Charger, are all updated versions of models we’ve previously dismissed. We haven’t tested them all yet, but because they’re physically larger than our picks and priced roughly the same, we think you should stick with our picks instead.
Satechi’s 20W USB-C PD Wall Charger costs about the same as other 20-watt chargers, but it’s a bit larger without any benefits other than folding prongs.
Aukey’s Focus Duo 36W Dual-Port PD Charger (PA-D2) is very similar to our upgrade pick from Spigen, offering 30 watts on either port. It’s slightly slower when both are in use, with a maximum combined speed of 36 watts, but that’s a negligible difference in most cases. The biggest difference is size: This Aukey model is about half an inch wider and longer than the Spigen, and sold for about the same price.
The Scosche PowerVolt Power Delivery Dual USB-C Fast Charger has two USB-C ports but delivers only 18 watts per port, as opposed to the 20 watts per port that the dual-port Spigen PowerArc 40W ArcStation Pro outputs.
If you don’t care about getting the absolute fastest charging speeds, or if you just want the most affordable option that still delivers full USB-A power from two ports, go with the Anker PowerPort II. It’s about the size of the single-port 12-watt charger that Apple included with older iPads, but it has two ports that can simultaneously deliver 12 watts. We confirmed these speeds with our power-load and ammeter setup: An iPhone XS went from zero to 35% charged in a half hour and to a little over 70% in 60 minutes on the PowerPort II, compared with 50% and 80% over those respective periods with an 18-watt USB-C charger.
The ZMI PowerPlug 4-Port Charger (AD02Z) is shockingly cheap. (At this writing it’s selling for $10, and the company told us the price would never be above $20.) Each port is rated for 2.4 amps. Although our tests confirmed this claim, a tiny bump above that power-draw level—even as small as 0.01 amp—caused the variable load to reset. The other chargers we tested offered more wiggle room at their maximum output, without resetting.
We determined that the RAVPower 60W 6-Port Desktop USB Charging Station with iSmart (RP-PC028) and the RAVPower 60W 6-Port Desktop Charger with QC 3.0 (RP-PC029) were both too large for travel. If we were using our charger at a desk, we’d prefer a similarly priced model with USB-C.
Scosche’s PowerVolt PD32W is slimmer than the RAVPower RP-PC132, with a tall and narrow design, and the USB-C port is a little more powerful at 20 watts. But it costs more than the RP-PC132 at its normal price, and it’s not as flat as the Twelve South PlugBug Slim .
Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It’s impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.
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Charger Fast Charging Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).