Anker Prime Charger review — A desktop charger that really can charge anything, and everything!

When it comes to charging your devices these days, the options are seemingly endless. But when it comes to really getting the job done from a single device, the field narrows. Anker approached me to take a look at their Prime Charger and I was keen to see how well it delivered.

What is it?

I’m really surprised to be saying this, but it’s a multiport, 200W 6 Port GaN charging station. That’s an impressive name for a device that’s impressive in its capabilities.

You can charge a bunch of things with this one device, covering your laptop, tablet, phone, headphones, smartwatch and still have a port and some watts spare. It’s reasonably compact in size and, being a GaN device; it produces negligible heat making it pretty safe to use in relatively (don’t completely cover it) small spaces.

How does it perform in the real world?

I’ve been lucky enough to have this on my desk for a couple of weeks now, and during the day it’s providing power to my phone (via a QuadLock wireless charging desk stand), laptop, docking station (which charges another laptop and plugged in accessories), at least one review device, my iPad and is often used to charge my battery bank. At one point, I was charging two laptops at full speed, plus a phone and iPad, with all devices showing as fast charging at the time.

During that testing, I loaded it up as much as I could and not once did I notice any significant heat, noise and had zero instance of connected devices that stopped, or even slowed down charging. I also took it with us for a weekend away, having only a single charging device (with assorted cables) to pack made life remarkably easy; it also meant that no chargers, or cables were left behind as it was out in clear view in the hotel.

The reality of having 200W available across 6 ports leaves you with plenty of spare capacity if you’re primarily charging mobile devices that are typically under 40W. So that will leave you with heaps of spare capacity to charge all the things!

Is it worth the money?

This is always a subjective discussion and at $149.99 for a lot of people that’s going to be a big ask. For my use case with multiple, high-output devices needing charging on a daily basis, the answer is a very clear “yes”. The advantage to me, as someone who primarily uses USB-C charged devices, is that I can charge them all at full speed and only consume one power point from the wall. At the end of the testing period, I’ve been really happy with the results of using the Anker Prime Charger, 200W GaN charging station from the outset.

Importantly, it does exactly what it says it will – delivery plenty of power across up to 6 ports. It does that well, it does it consistently and without any of the hassles — heat and noise from fans — associated with high output charging units. Being GaN it’s very capable of delivering the power you need while (as mentioned) not producing much heat, allowing the unit to be smaller and lighter than other “traditional” chargers.

You’ll be able to grab one of these little charging beasts from Amazon for the earlier mentioned $149.99