AUKEY Graphite Trio Wireless Fast Charger REVIEW | MacSources
The charger is a nice upgrade from scattered charging cables.
I love wireless charging as a feature. Not too long ago, I had to rely on cable for charging every single device that I used on a daily basis and my nightstand was a mess. Fortunately, more devices today are compatible with wireless charging and my three main devices — earbuds, Apple Watch, and iPhone — no longer need cables in order to charge at the end of the day. For a while now, I’ve been looking at investing in a wireless charger that can accommodate all three devices and one of my favorite accessory companies, AUKEY, happens to have a wireless charger that fits the bill — the Graphite Trio Wireless Fast Charger.
DETAILS
The Graphite Trio Wireless Fast Charger is a 3-in-1 charger. It can charge a phone, Apple Watch, and earbuds simultaneously. The charger outputs a maximum of 25W of power and is capable of charging at fast speeds (10W for Android; 7.5W for Apple iPhones). The surface is a nonslip design and comes equipped with an LED indicator for power distribution and charging status. The charger works with all Qi-enabled devices and will work with most cases (less than 3mm thick) unless they are made of metal. The package contents include the charger, a 36W power adapter, and user manual.
Model: LC-Q10
Technology Compatibility: Qi
Input: DC 12V 3A
Wireless Output 1/2: 5W, 7.5W, 10W
USB Output: DC 5V 1A
Total Power Output: 25W
Dimensions: 8.27 x 3.58 x 0.61 inches
Weight: 6.67 ounces
USER EXPERIENCE
If you’ve ever read my AUKEY reviews in the past, you know that I always comment on the plain nature of their product boxes. They are plain; but effective. I like that they aren’t flashy and that they very simply have an illustration of the product on the box along with the name and that’s it. Their boxes are simplicity at its finest.
Another thing I really appreciate about AUKEY products is there ease of use. They are almost always ready to go out of the box. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case with the Trio Wireless Fast Charger. The trio is made up of three wireless charging areas. Two of those areas are Qi-compatible and work with smartphones, earbuds, and other Qi-compatible devices. The third area is designed to work with the Apple Watch charging puck. That puck is not included. It’s slightly misleading in images I found online and in the description because it doesn’t state that an Apple Watch cable is required and not included. That said, the package contents are outlined on the product description and it doesn’t say that it is included.
So, the beginning of my experience with the charger was retrieving my Apple Watch cable from a different charger and routing it through the bottom of the AUKEY Trio charger. It’s not difficult per se, but it does take a little time to get it done right. Once it’s routed, the Apple Watch can only charge flat and cannot take advantage of Nightstand mode. This is a downside to me because I use a watch band that doesn’t allow the watch to lay flat unless I unlatch one side of it. I would imagine that others might get turned off by this as well.
Once I got the Apple Watch side set up, I placed my earbuds and iPhone on the other two areas and let them charge for a while. All three areas worked as they should and the LED indicators showed that power was being output to those charging areas. One thing to note here is that the LED for the Apple Watch charger will always be green if a USB cable is plugged into the port on the bottom of the charger. It doesn’t matter if the watch on the puck or not.
I did analyze the charging rates of the iPhone and Apple Watch over a period of 30 minutes. When I started tracking the charging rate, the Apple Watch had 19% battery and the iPhone had 90% battery. At the end of the 30 minutes, the watch had 50% battery and the iPhone had 96%. This ended up being a 1.03% per minute charging rate for the Apple Watch and a 0.2% per minute charging rate for the iPhone. This is quite a bit slower than I typically experience for the iPhone and quite a bit faster than I get for the Apple Watch.
CONCLUSIONS
The AUKEY Graphite Trio Wireless Fast Charger has a few drawbacks, but its price ($35.99 at the time of publishing) makes up for it. I recently completed a review of another wireless charger that has three charging areas and it retails for $120. That charger does include the wireless charging puck for the watch and has the ability to charge in Nightstand mode, but with it being 4 times as expensive, it doesn’t seem to be quite as worth it to me. The AUKEY Graphite Trio Wireless Fast Charger has really good potential and it’s a nice upgrade wired charging.
For more information, visit aukey.com, Facebook, and Twitter.
Originally published at https://macsources.com on August 13, 2020.
