‘Tinkering Review’ — Still Torn Over Chargers? Let 61W Take You Flying
Translated from the Chinese original.
Introduction
As the digital industry has developed at high speed, fast charging has become an essential part of everyday life. But the greater the power, the more the weight and size become hard to ignore. I had recently got an iPhone 11, so I was both happy and frustrated. You only understand after using it that the iPhone 11 really is as good as people say: with the A13 chip behind it, the experience is as smooth as Dove chocolate, and its rear dual-camera module—styled like a bathroom heater—is excellent for night photography. I was very pleased with the phone.
But here’s the problem: it was already 2019 (or “9102,” as Chinese netizens joke), and Apple had stingily bundled the iPhone 11 with only 5V/1A. Its charging speed was truly infuriating! Apple’s unchanged-for-years 5V/1A charger is unbelievably slow. After I was recently won over by a GaN charger with an exceptionally small body, I kept looking for a charger for my iPhone 11 and MacBook Pro that was compact, high-powered, ran cool, and supported multiple charging protocols.
That was when I finally received the RAVPower fast-charging kit sent by Zealer. The 61W RAVPower GaN charger was exactly what I had been hoping for, and after a night of waiting, SF Express delivered it the next day. I’m bringing you an unboxing and my experience with the product. To get a better understanding of the RAVPower brand, I also looked up its background online and am sharing it here.
Brand Overview
RAVPower is a high-end North American charging brand founded in 2001. It focuses on laptop batteries, AC adapters, power banks, and various battery chargers. Users in mainland China may not have heard of the brand very often; at least, I only got to know it recently. RAVPower has good sales and a strong reputation overseas. The products it sells also receive very high ratings, which shows that users in China recognize RAVPower.
Product Overview
For the packaging, this RAVPower 61W fast charger uses a white-and-blue design that is simple and refined. The large R brings out the brand logo’s understated style. The box clearly shows “RAVPower” and “61W Fast Charger,” and you can also see the charger’s specifications on the packaging. By this point, I was even more excited to try the product!
Here is the RAVPower 61W fast charger in the flesh! When I saw it—wow! Oh my god! I had all kinds of exclamations. My first impression was that it was refined and compact. It was hard to believe that GaN technology could achieve 61W of charging power in such a small body. The reason RAVPower’s 61W charger can be this small is the use of GaN, or gallium nitride. So what exactly is GaN?
“GaN” means “gallium nitride,” a new semiconductor material with excellent properties including high thermal conductivity, high-temperature resistance, radiation resistance, acid and alkali resistance, high strength, and high hardness. It is known as a third-generation semiconductor material. As technology has advanced and costs have fallen, gallium nitride has also been widely used in consumer electronics. Chargers that contain this kind of semiconductor component have always given people the impression that they are small, light, fast, cool, and efficient. With GaN’s help, these chargers are the straight-A students of the charger world! They really are small. Compared with Apple’s 87W charger, they are already excellent.
These GaN all-rounders are good in every way, but they are expensive! Expensive!
Take Anker’s well-known 60W GaN charger. It normally costs RMB 318, and even during occasional promotions it only drops to RMB 238. Every time, I could only swallow the pain and give up. Then this new RAVPower product appeared and once again reset the price of GaN chargers: a 61W GaN charger plus a PD fast-charging, Apple MFi-certified USB-C-to-Lightning cable costs only RMB 209. That is an exceptionally fair deal, with everything included in one purchase.
The RAVPower 61W fast charger measures 505032.2mm and weighs only 105 g.
Both sides of the product have a smooth finish, with the “RAVPower” logo printed on each. The area around the logo is raised in the center and lower toward the edges, which looks good and gives it a strong sense of design. The charger also has foldable prongs with a matte finish. They take up less space, solving one of the biggest storage problems for people who carry chargers when they go out.
I’m not sure whether this was a problem with the quality control of an individual unit, but the gap in the middle of the charger I received is very large, and it makes a clicking sound when pressed. That genuinely disappointed me!
The PD charging port is a USB-C port. Look closely and you can see a layer of green hidden inside the port, which makes you feel that this is what high performance should look like.
The RAVPower 61W can work with the broad range of devices that support PD charging today.
Don’t underestimate its lightweight body.
The RAVPower 61W is fully backward-compatible. Its PD output supports 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3A, and 20.3V/3A. Most importantly, it supports a maximum output of 61W.
Hands-On Experience
The RAVPower 61W charger has a clean, attractive appearance while also being practical. It can power my MacBook Pro, and it can also charge the USB-C laptops currently on the market, such as Xiaomi and Huawei laptops. It has a built-in smart identification chip that automatically matches the current required by the connected device. It can power phones, tablets, game consoles, and other devices. I may well carry one of these little gadgets with me whenever I travel from now on.
The RAVPower USB-C-to-Lightning fast-charging cable uses an Apple original C94 terminal and supports up to 3A of current. The model I received is a white TPE plastic Apple fast-charging cable. The connectors on both ends are made from a rubber-like material, and the “R” brand mark is printed on them, giving the cable a strong brand identity. The cable joints have a diagonal stripe texture. I’m not especially impressed by the TPE jacket: the workmanship made it look quite cheap at first glance. It is not especially stiff, but compared with a braided cable, it feels more flexible.
Charging Test
After all that, how could we stop without a real test? I did not have a USB current and voltage meter, so I used the Mac software coconutBattery and iMazing for testing.
I have never really agreed with using professional instruments to produce numerical results, because users cannot feel the power of those numbers when they are using a product.
For everyday use, what matters to users is how much faster this charger really is and how much time it can save when you are rushing out and need a quick charge. So I will test its performance from the perspective of an ordinary user, using my daily routine.
- iPhone 11
I left home at 8 a.m. and returned at 6 p.m. with 15% battery remaining on my iPhone 11.
I charged the iPhone 11 with the RAVPower 61W charging kit and used iMazing to view the charger’s power status. With only 15% battery remaining, the “little gadget” delivered PD power very quickly: less than three seconds after connecting it, the power had essentially completed its ramp-up to 15W. When the battery reached 57%, it held steady around 21W with some fluctuation. The peak never exceeded 30W during the whole charging process, but once it reached 80%, the power dropped to 12W and stayed there until it reached 100%.
The “little gadget” also stayed fairly cool when charging the iPhone. Its temperature was about skin temperature, so the thermal control was good. Of course, that is thanks to the temperature-control protection. For safety, the RAVPower 61W charger has multiple protections, including overvoltage, overtemperature, and short-circuit protection—five protections in total. The charger’s casing is also made from flame-retardant material, making charging safer!
- MacBook Pro ’15
After a full day of service, the MBP was ready to “eat.” Under full-load operation, its output power had settled at 60 W. At that point, the “little gadget” had reached a warm temperature, but its heat control was still quite good compared with other chargers.
Of course, the accuracy of the software test data is for reference only.
Although higher power shortens charging time, once I considered the size and weight of Apple’s 87W charger, I lost interest completely.
By contrast, this “little gadget” has a much smaller body and compatible protocols that let it beat Apple’s 87W charger outright. It is also much better than that earlier charger from another brand that advertised 65W but could not even reach 50W in real-world testing.
Summary
After using the RAVPower for several days, its advantages were obvious, and its disadvantages came along with them.
Advantages:
①. Small body, high power. With a charging protocol compatible with the MBP, it weighs only one-third as much as Apple’s original 87W charger.
②. Lightweight and compact, with foldable prongs. Compared with the inhuman chargers on the market whose prongs cannot be folded away, this is much more considerate. After all, it is already 2019 (or “9102,” as Chinese netizens joke).
③. It supports and is compatible with multiple fast-charging protocols. Support for MBP fast charging is what matters most to me about this product. It can also give the iPhone 11 the fastest charging power available. In an era when a dead phone can make you more anxious than losing your wallet, and everyone wants to save charging time, fast charging really can cure most people’s frustrations.
④. In this era when looks are everything, the white TPE fast-charging cable still feels exceptionally attractive: simple and substantial. The design concept behind the R logo is also quite good.
Disadvantages:
①. As I said above, the charger’s two sides do not close evenly. Its quality control needs improvement, and the closing gap is obvious.
②. A single USB-C port can easily become a bottleneck. If I am away from home and more than one digital device needs charging, one port is not enough.
③. The outer material of the white TPE fast-charging cable is a little too flimsy and is not especially durable.
The Charger Industry
In this era of lightweight design, charger manufacturers are all actively changing their products and moving toward lighter designs. That gives us a chance to use products that are better and more efficient.
Behind the Product
In 2019, GaN gallium-nitride PD chargers were developing at an astonishing pace. Before this, I had attended several exhibitions organized by ChargerLAB and seen well-known manufacturers such as RAVPower, ANKER, UIBI, and ZMI release their own GaN fast-charging products. Updates and iterations were happening extremely quickly.
This small RAVPower 61W charger shows how mature GaN technology has become: charger power keeps increasing while product bodies keep shrinking. The combination of PD fast charging and GaN will certainly be the trend of the fast-charging industry in the future. It lets everyone enjoy the fast charging experience that high power brings, along with the convenience of easier storage and portability from a smaller product. As demand for GaN fast-charging products increases, technological growth will lower costs and make prices more accessible, allowing everyone to enjoy the convenience that technological progress brings.
Finally, thanks again to Zealer for providing the product for this hands-on experience! I hope Zaaap keeps getting better and better.