7 ms·

I've found high-wattage USB-C chargers to have very poor reliability. All the 18-W chargers I've owned have lasted multiple years, but the compact 90-W+ charger

I've found high-wattage USB-C chargers to have very poor reliability. All the 18-W chargers I've owned have lasted multiple years, but the compact 90-W+ chargers have a lifespan measured in months. Of course, they all purport to offer a warranty, but if you try to claim, they will not honor it. They will claim it's because you bought from Amazon and they don't warrant Amazon purchases (despite this being their main retail outlet, and the fact that they advertised the warranty IN the Amazon sales materials). Or something similar.

rektide 4y ago
I have a ravpower, a hyper, and just bought the new ugreen. The ugreen is too new to judge, but the others have ran for over two years, and a good amount of that time has been outdoors in the sun. I constantly expect failures. This seems like an absurd task I'm putting them up to. But they are all still alive & doing the job. I've had a kill-a-watt so I can see their power consumption. A large amount of their life is spent ~60 watts, but there's definitely hours on end & heavy usage days, where they go up to or stay at 90+. My anecdotal data looks different than yours.
- _delirium 4y ago
  My Ravpower device died within 8 months, and they refused to honor the warranty, giving as the reason that the purchaser of record was Amazon LLC, not Ravpower. Even though they advertised a warranty on their Amazon page, which was the main way they sold the devices.
  - retcon 4y ago
    ... dreams of the EPA obtaining warrants for the fraud on the public for the disposal costs of so much wasted electronics...
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    In the EU you get 2 years warranty for all items from every retailer by law, and most generally honour them.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      So this is a very frequently repeated misconception about what the EU law actually says. Yes, there is an EU law that says retailers are responsible for 2 years(6 in a some cases) for any item they sold......but only to rectify any manufacturing defects. The law additionally states that any defect found in the first 6 months is presumed to be a manufacturing issue, anything after the first 6 months it's the responsibility of the customer to prove that the product has failed due to a manufacturing problem. I'm sure you can appreciate that this can be very hard to do. It's not a "warranty" in the sense that most people mean warranty. If your laptop fails 18 months after purchase, the retailer only has to fix it if you can prove that it failed due to a manufacturing defect. It's different to manufactuer's warranty, which usually covers any defect no matter the reason. And yes, there is also the law that states that products should last a "reasonable" amount of time - but what is reasonable is not a strict definition, and again, unfortunately sometimes has to be argued in small claims court. It's not so straigtforward.
      - microtonal 4y ago
        However, in practice most good retailers do not make a big deal out of the burden of proof as long as there is no visible damage that could cause the issues. I have used warranty frequently after 6 months and never had to prove it is a manufacturing defect. Of course, if you buy at some shady webstore or known-bad retailer, you might have more issues.
      - tinus_hn 4y ago
        These are not EU laws, they are EU directives directing the member countries to implement laws. But these laws are not all the same, for instance in how much effort a customer has to make to ‘prove’ that a device failed due to a manufacturing defect.
  - gorbypark 4y ago
    Does Amazon not honour the warrenty in that case? I've never had to deal with a similar situation but I kind of figured that Amazon would do something if the page advertised a warranty and the company refuses to honour it.
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      I have never been able to get Amazon to honor a warranty when the manufacturer refused, even though the law in my country clearly says the retailer is responsible in the first place. In fact the button to return a product disappears from the order after a couple months, and they don't even have a category in their support system for this.
      - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
        Talk to Amazon customer service and tell them you'd like to make a claim pursuant to consumer rights law.
  - thathndude 4y ago
    I smell a class action.
adrianN 4y ago
If you bought the device off Amazon, I believe Amazon should be your point of contact for warranty claims.
pugz 4y ago
What brands have you used? My Apple 96W USB-C charger is still doing fine after having it for just under two years now.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Apple cares about its brand. Chinese no name vendors don't at all, it's horrifying what plain illegal corner-cutting they often engage in. But that's of course what they're rewarded for.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    In fact, if you're in a bind and need a USB C charger that will work reliably, you may want to pay the cost to get a genuine Apple one. (I won't order Apple chargers from Amazon; I get them direct from Apple or a real retailer because I don't trust the co-mingling). Some of the power-tool brands are beginning to make USB-C devices, those chargers should be reliable also. Here's Dewalt: https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb094k/usb-charging-kit https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb094k/usb-charging-kit
lrem 4y ago
My two Minix P2s had no issues over 1.5 years.
torginus 4y ago
I agree - I wonder why Chinese junk that basically barely works and not for long even then has managed to establish such a strong foothold on the retail market (particularly Amazon). I had the same experience - moreover my charger had multiple ports, but as soon as you plugged more than one thing into it, the wattage would drop drastically. my 100W charger would do 30W on port 1 and 10W on port 2. And that was the optimal case - more often than not, using more than one port would make devices randomly disconnect.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Be happy the wattage dropped. When I connected 2 fast charging devices my charger just fried.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  I just had a 4-port USB brick burst into flame. It certainly would have burned down the house if I had not happened to be in the room. It had sat untouched for an hour before the event.
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    Wow, what brand?
    - torginus 4y ago
      These brands are like the ship of Theseus - you'll never get the same thing twice.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Better than the brand is the picture of the device (before fire, hopefully) as all the yumcha brands off of Alibaba will usually keep the exact same physical characteristics.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  It's cheap and there's little responsibility for selling crap. Amazon is the only site I'm aware of where you can actually somewhat judge the quality of a product through reviews, and those too are often dodgy as hell. Otherwise it's all just the same fake pictures and outright lies about specs. And nobody cares because it's cheap. Companies selling under brands want a premium for them (Anker, Aukey) and "no name brands" you can actually put a little confidence into (Ugreen, Blitzwolf) are, for some reason, rare.
solarkraft 4y ago
I have had a couple of pretty cheap high wattage USB bricks for years (5-6 or so at this point) and none of them have died on me so far. Props to Ugreen, I guess!
Youden 4y ago
I think you might be unlucky or buying low-quality models. I have a 100W Minix NEO P2 that was one of the first GaN chargers available near me and it's still going strong 2 years later. I also have a 60W Satechi travel charger that's been powered-on 24/7 for 3 years now without the slightest hint of a problem. It's even been buried under cushions for hours at a time. The only charger I've had actually die was a Hama-branded device. Hama is the cheapest possible Chinese junk the brand can find.
SkyPuncher 4y ago
I have an Anker GAN power block that's working extremely well.

rektide 4y ago

I have a ravpower, a hyper, and just bought the new ugreen. The ugreen is too new to judge, but the others have ran for over two years, and a good amount of that time has been outdoors in the sun. I constantly expect failures. This seems like an absurd task I'm putting them up to. But they are all still alive & doing the job. I've had a kill-a-watt so I can see their power consumption. A large amount of their life is spent ~60 watts, but there's definitely hours on end & heavy usage days, where they go up to or stay at 90+. My anecdotal data looks different than yours.

_delirium 4y ago
My Ravpower device died within 8 months, and they refused to honor the warranty, giving as the reason that the purchaser of record was Amazon LLC, not Ravpower. Even though they advertised a warranty on their Amazon page, which was the main way they sold the devices.
- retcon 4y ago
  ... dreams of the EPA obtaining warrants for the fraud on the public for the disposal costs of so much wasted electronics...
- londons_explore 4y ago
  In the EU you get 2 years warranty for all items from every retailer by law, and most generally honour them.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    So this is a very frequently repeated misconception about what the EU law actually says. Yes, there is an EU law that says retailers are responsible for 2 years(6 in a some cases) for any item they sold......but only to rectify any manufacturing defects. The law additionally states that any defect found in the first 6 months is presumed to be a manufacturing issue, anything after the first 6 months it's the responsibility of the customer to prove that the product has failed due to a manufacturing problem. I'm sure you can appreciate that this can be very hard to do. It's not a "warranty" in the sense that most people mean warranty. If your laptop fails 18 months after purchase, the retailer only has to fix it if you can prove that it failed due to a manufacturing defect. It's different to manufactuer's warranty, which usually covers any defect no matter the reason. And yes, there is also the law that states that products should last a "reasonable" amount of time - but what is reasonable is not a strict definition, and again, unfortunately sometimes has to be argued in small claims court. It's not so straigtforward.
    - microtonal 4y ago
      However, in practice most good retailers do not make a big deal out of the burden of proof as long as there is no visible damage that could cause the issues. I have used warranty frequently after 6 months and never had to prove it is a manufacturing defect. Of course, if you buy at some shady webstore or known-bad retailer, you might have more issues.
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      These are not EU laws, they are EU directives directing the member countries to implement laws. But these laws are not all the same, for instance in how much effort a customer has to make to ‘prove’ that a device failed due to a manufacturing defect.
- gorbypark 4y ago
  Does Amazon not honour the warrenty in that case? I've never had to deal with a similar situation but I kind of figured that Amazon would do something if the page advertised a warranty and the company refuses to honour it.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    I have never been able to get Amazon to honor a warranty when the manufacturer refused, even though the law in my country clearly says the retailer is responsible in the first place. In fact the button to return a product disappears from the order after a couple months, and they don't even have a category in their support system for this.
    - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
      Talk to Amazon customer service and tell them you'd like to make a claim pursuant to consumer rights law.
- thathndude 4y ago
  I smell a class action.

adrianN 4y ago

If you bought the device off Amazon, I believe Amazon should be your point of contact for warranty claims.

pugz 4y ago

What brands have you used? My Apple 96W USB-C charger is still doing fine after having it for just under two years now.

solarkraft 4y ago
Apple cares about its brand. Chinese no name vendors don't at all, it's horrifying what plain illegal corner-cutting they often engage in. But that's of course what they're rewarded for.
- bombcar 4y ago
  In fact, if you're in a bind and need a USB C charger that will work reliably, you may want to pay the cost to get a genuine Apple one. (I won't order Apple chargers from Amazon; I get them direct from Apple or a real retailer because I don't trust the co-mingling). Some of the power-tool brands are beginning to make USB-C devices, those chargers should be reliable also. Here's Dewalt: https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb094k/usb-charging-kit https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb094k/usb-charging-kit

lrem 4y ago

My two Minix P2s had no issues over 1.5 years.

torginus 4y ago

I agree - I wonder why Chinese junk that basically barely works and not for long even then has managed to establish such a strong foothold on the retail market (particularly Amazon). I had the same experience - moreover my charger had multiple ports, but as soon as you plugged more than one thing into it, the wattage would drop drastically. my 100W charger would do 30W on port 1 and 10W on port 2. And that was the optimal case - more often than not, using more than one port would make devices randomly disconnect.

scotty79 4y ago
Be happy the wattage dropped. When I connected 2 fast charging devices my charger just fried.
ncmncm 4y ago
I just had a 4-port USB brick burst into flame. It certainly would have burned down the house if I had not happened to be in the room. It had sat untouched for an hour before the event.
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  Wow, what brand?
  - torginus 4y ago
    These brands are like the ship of Theseus - you'll never get the same thing twice.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Better than the brand is the picture of the device (before fire, hopefully) as all the yumcha brands off of Alibaba will usually keep the exact same physical characteristics.
solarkraft 4y ago
It's cheap and there's little responsibility for selling crap. Amazon is the only site I'm aware of where you can actually somewhat judge the quality of a product through reviews, and those too are often dodgy as hell. Otherwise it's all just the same fake pictures and outright lies about specs. And nobody cares because it's cheap. Companies selling under brands want a premium for them (Anker, Aukey) and "no name brands" you can actually put a little confidence into (Ugreen, Blitzwolf) are, for some reason, rare.

solarkraft 4y ago

I have had a couple of pretty cheap high wattage USB bricks for years (5-6 or so at this point) and none of them have died on me so far. Props to Ugreen, I guess!

Youden 4y ago

I think you might be unlucky or buying low-quality models. I have a 100W Minix NEO P2 that was one of the first GaN chargers available near me and it's still going strong 2 years later. I also have a 60W Satechi travel charger that's been powered-on 24/7 for 3 years now without the slightest hint of a problem. It's even been buried under cushions for hours at a time. The only charger I've had actually die was a Hama-branded device. Hama is the cheapest possible Chinese junk the brand can find.

SkyPuncher 4y ago

I have an Anker GAN power block that's working extremely well.