In some ways, I’m a curmudgeon. I don’t always adopt new technology immediately, which I know sounds odd given I write about consumer electronics for a living.
But when it comes to laptops, hanging on to my barrel charger was more a matter of self-preservation than any outright prejudices (or as my colleague Gordon Mah Ung likes to accuse me of, cheapskate tendencies). Nor is it me having transformed into my parents, unable to let things go until they’re dead and unfixable.
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While a love for troubleshooting runs strong in my family, you can instead trace my hesitance to my earliest experiences with laptops. Back in the dark ages (aka the early 2000s) and for many years after, third-party chargers could be hit or miss—and a laptop was not a cheap investment. The first notebook I ever bought (a Dell Latitude X200) cost $1,400 used. I sure as heck was not chancing its life expectancy on an aftermarket charger.
But waiting to buy my first gallium nitride (GaN) charger was unjustified.
For anyone not yet acquainted with GaN chargers (unlikely, given how long I held out), they’re similar to smartphone chargers, but push much more juice. Where a typical phone charger tops out around 25 to 30W these days, a GaN charger can power a 100W laptop. And it’ll do so with a much smaller footprint than most original (OEM) laptop chargers. For thin and light laptops, which usually take a 45W or 65W charger, you can usually pick up the GaN equivalent at affordable prices.
Example: These wildly popular, itty-bitty Anker models are just $40 for the 45W model and $55 for the 65W model. Pair one with a USB-C cable rated for high wattage power delivery and you have a hugely portable charger that takes less space than today’s laptop chargers.
I could have picked one up well before emerging from pandemic seclusion—a little before COVID hit, GaN chargers were taking off in popularity. But at the time, laptops were only just making the transition to USB-C charging. My laptop still went with a barrel charger, though it did include a Thunderbolt 3 port capable of USB-C charging.
Now, years later, I’ve made the transition. You might want to as well.
I haven’t literally tossed out my laptop’s barrel charger, but these days, it sits parked at my desk, which I occasionally return to with the laptop. For the most part, the GaN charger and I are best buds. You’ll often find us together when I’m lounging on my sofa, perched on my bed, out at a friend’s house, or traveling to a farther-flung destination. I actually even opted for a slightly larger model since I wanted extra USB ports. It lets me also charge my phone, tablet and/or e-reader off the same wall wart while still shaving weight from my backpack and packing more compactly. I sometimes travel internationally on budget airlines. Every ounce—heck, every gram—counts in my bag, as does every square inch of space.
Long story short, I feel stupid having waited this long to make a quality of life improvement. Everyone else who got on board this train before me is welcome to sit back smugly. That’s fine. I’m just going to go back to my quest to find a suitable replacement for my incredibly lightweight but aging eight-inch Windows tablet.
