The Best Multiport USB Wall Charger

For an impressive amount of power in a tiny package, we like Aukey’s 12W / 2.4A Home Travel USB Wall Charger Adapter with AIPower Tech. You get as much juice as you’d get with Apple’s iPad charger and an extra charging port, in a much smaller package—a scant 1.4 by 1.2 by 1.2 inches with its prongs folded in—for half the price. The Aukey is the smallest full-speed iPad/tablet charger we’ve found, and it’s a great travel companion for charging a tablet and phone overnight, for fast-charging two smartphones, or for just charging your phone and a Bluetooth headset or speakers. (It provides a total of 2.4 amps of current, which means it can fast-charge an iPad by itself; if you connect two tablets, or a tablet and a smartphone, those 2.4 amps will be split between them.)

ChargeTech’s Fast Charge Dual USB Wall Charger is essentially the same product as the Aukey 12W / 2.4A, above, but more expensive.

Zolt is a tiny (3.2 inches long, 1.3 inches in diameter, 3.7 ounces) travel charger with fold-out prongs and three USB-charging ports, one of which can provide up to 65 watts to your laptop when paired with the included proprietary cable and the appropriate charging head for your laptop. (The company includes eight connectors to work with most major laptop brands, including Dell, HP, and Lenovo; you can purchase a $20 MagSafe cable for use with older Apple laptops.) We tested the Zolt with three Mac laptops, and the only issue we saw was slow charging with the 15-inch 2015 MacBook Pro, which requires 85 watts to charge at full speed. As for USB charging, when testing with an iPad Air and an iPad Air 2, instead of charging at full speed (2.4 amps), each iPad drew about 2.1 amps. If space when traveling is truly at a premium, the Zolt is a neat accessory worthy of a look. But its $100 price ($120 if you need to buy the Mac cable) is too high for most people, especially considering that it doesn’t live up to all its promises. In addition, as of the July 2017 update to this guide, the Zolt website has gone dark, though the charger is still available on Amazon.

Tylt’s Energi 5-Port USB Charging Station is so much more expensive than our top charging picks that we have a really hard time recommending it despite its novelty. Four USB ports provide up to 2.4 amps each, as advertised. But what makes this one kind of cool is the inclusion of a 1-amp, 3,200-mAh battery pack that slides into the base station for charging—you just pop it out when you need portable power. (The 0.8 inch by 0.8 inch by 3.7 inch battery can also be charged via a Micro-USB cable on the go.) However, considering that similar-capacity batteries from reputable brands go for as little as $10, we don’t think the huge price premium for the setup is worth it.

We saw all sorts of weird readings with Photive’s 50-Watt 6-Port USB Desktop Rapid Charger on our power meters during testing.

Poweradd’s 50W 6-Port Family-Sized USB Desktop Charger didn’t live up to the company’s claims. It promises two 2.4-amp ports, two 2.1-amp ports, and two 1-amp ports, but in repeated tests, one of the 2.1-amp ports put out only about 0.5 amps.

A few chargers made it past the first round of testing but were dismissed based on their performance with multiple tablets. Choetech’s 50-Watt 6-Port Desktop Rapid USB Charger continuously reset the amperage meters we used when five or six iPads were connected, and we saw wild fluctuations in the charge rate to an iPad Air even with only four tablets plugged in.

iLuv’s RockWall 6 Compact 6 USB Port AC Charger worked fine when five iPads were connected. With the sixth plugged in, the current sometimes, but not always, fluctuated dramatically from 1 amp to 2.3 amps. We also saw the dreaded “This accessory may not be supported” message on the screen of some connected iPads. Though neither of these are absolute dealbreakers, our top picks didn’t exhibit such issues.

The Bolse 60W / 12-Amp 7-Port Fast Charging USB Wall / Desktop Charging Station With SmartIC Technology has more ports than any other unit we tested. Though we didn’t have seven iPads on hand to test, it turns out that we didn’t need to fill all seven ports to eliminate this one from contention. With only six iPads plugged in, our amperage meters continuously reset, likely because the charger itself was shutting down due to built-in protection circuitry. This one also one felt cheap in a number of ways—for example, it was sometimes difficult to insert USB plugs into the charger’s ports because of alignment/fit issues.

We also ruled out Griffin’s PowerDock 5, mainly because its ports are capable of putting out only 2.0 amps each rather than 2.4 amps. This is true even if only one iPad is plugged in—the ports are simply 2.0 amps each. The PowerDock 5’s thin plastic dividers also pop out of the base a bit too easily.

Kanex’s Sydnee has only four ports, and each of those puts out only 2.1 amps—pretty good, but not enough for power-hungry tablets to charge at full speed. And the design of its tablet-organization slots means those slots work only with naked tablets or ones in thin cases. The Signal model, our former recommendation, provides an additional port (and maximum output from each) for only a few dollars more.

In an earlier version of this guide, we picked Signal’s Power Station 5 High Performance Universal Charge Dock as our favorite organizational charging dock. It can hold and charge five 9.7-inch iPads at full speed simultaneously, and we liked its sturdy metal base and thick, rubber-covered dividers. However, though our review unit has functioned properly for nearly a year, Wirecutter readers and Amazon customers have had too many negative experiences for us to continue to recommend the dock. The most common issues include DOA units and individual ports (or the entire dock) dying within a few months of purchase.

We’ve been testing Griffin Technology’s Griffin Technology’s Cove, and although it’s an appealing idea, its high price ($130 as of this writing) makes it difficult to recommend for most people. The Cove is a plastic shell measuring 16.8 inches wide by 12.8 inches deep by 6.7 inches tall. Most of the body is white, but the top and the exterior of the fold-down front door are covered in a woodlike veneer (your choice of birch, walnut, or ebony). Inside are three shelves with openings to route charging cables that you connect to a five-port USB charger built into the top, slide-out shelf. (Only a power cable for the charger is included—you don’t get any device-charging cables.) Each port can provide 2.4 amps of current, and the front door can either close completely or sit slightly ajar to act as an angled tablet stand, using the door’s handle as a cradle. The shelves are covered in thick felt, and a drawer-like cubby in front of the charger ports offers a good place to stash your smartphone. The Cove keeps your devices organized and hidden while charging, though keeping the cables organized inside the Cove takes a bit of finagling. And despite the Cove’s sturdy looks, the top is largely unsupported—you can store a MacBook on top, but anything heavier (or similar in weight but not spread out over the top of the Cove) will cause the top to sag, which prevents its door from opening. If you’re seeking a way to keep all your devices hidden when charging, and you like the Cove’s design, take a look, but for the price, we’d like something sturdier and perhaps made with real wood.

Satechi’s 7-Port USB Charging Station Dock uses the same body as our organizational-charger pick, Skiva’s StandCharger, but only three of the Satechi model’s seven ports provide 2.4 amps of charging current; the other four offer only 1 amp each.