As we increasingly use more battery-operated products, we end up carrying more charging adapters to cater for each item. These original chargers are usually larger than third party ones with multiple ports. Of course, consumers may be concerned whether these third party chargers can perform as good as the original. More importantly, are these third party chargers safe? UGREEN GaN 65W PD Charger (model: CD224) is designed to meet the consumers’ needs – performance, size, and safety.
For this review, UGREEN arranged to send a free retail unit to me so that I can share the product and benefits on my blog. As always, all opinions and reviews are from my own experience and I was not paid to publish this article.
This model is UGREEN’s first charger using gallium nitride (GaN) technology. GaN is a new semiconductor material that performs better than silicon when it comes to delivering higher electrical fields. power density and efficiency. This UGREEN product uses SC1933C GaN IC, and has been certified by Singapore PSB (cert no. 210426-11). Official global retail price is US$65.99, but UGREEN products are often available at online promotion prices, and this charger can be bought at .
I like the texturised pattern on the sides of the charger instead of just plain matt surface to give the charger a bit of character and style, even for a generic product. It would probably cost a little bit more to manufacture, but that is the level of design attention that UGREEN would go.
The GaN 65W charger has 3 USB-C ports and 1 USB-A port. There are fewer USB-A ports in newer chargers because the USB-C ports deliver far higher power that new chargers like GaN 65W promotes. If you only require more USB-A chargers, then you should research for other charger models.
This charger is rated 65W, which means it can deliver up to 65W electrical power maximum. If you charge a single device that requires 65W, it will receive 65W. If you plug another device, then the first device will not get the full 65W since the charger needs to deliver some electrical current to the second device. But if you plug multiple devices and they all require lower wattage, say 15W, then you can charge four devices together since they only add up to 60W, which is still within the charging capabilities of the GaN 65W charger. Note that the charger will not deliver more power than the device can take in, hence it is unlikely to cause charging overload.
USB-C 1 and 2 are the highest-rated ports that can charge your laptops that require 65W PD specs. These are the combo that it can support:
- 5V/3A
- 9V/3A
- 12V/3A
- 15V/3A
- 20V/3.25A
USB-C3 supports just DC5V/3A, 9V/2A, 12V/1.5A, 18W max. USB-A can support DC4.5V/5.0A, 5V/4.5A, 5V/3.0A, 9V/2.0A, 12V/1.5A, 22.5W max.
These are the fast charging protocols supported:
- PPS/PD3.0/PD2.0 (USB Power Delivery)
- QC4+/QC4.0/Qc3.0/QC2.0 (Qualcomm)
- Adaptive Fast Charging (Samsung)
- FCP/sCP/sFCP (Huawei)
- PE2.0/PE1.1 (Mediatek)
- BC1.2 (USB Battery Charging 1.2)
At , the UGREEN GaN 65W PD charger is certainly high on the price-value chart, especially when smartphones from Apple and Samsung no longer ship with chargers. It would definitely make more sense to buy a UGREEN GaN 65W charger with 4 ports that support many other fast charging protocols rather than restricting to the specific brand that you buy. Go to your favourite online store like and and buy it at their lowest sale price you can find!
Likes
- Certified safe to use by Singapore PSB
- Supports fast charging protocols from Samsung, Huawei, Qualcomm, Mediatek
- Relatively compact
- Priced below S$40
Dislikes
- No LED to indicate power status
Visit the official product website here.
