Friday, May 27th 2022
340 Watt GaN Charger for Gaming Laptops Displayed at Computex
Somewhat unexpectedly, there were a handful of exhibitors from the PRC at Computex and walking around the mostly empty show, we spotted a company called Wii Power (no relation to Nintendo) that had a range of rather interesting Gallium Nitride or GaN chargers on display. The headline product wasn't even the most interesting model on display, but at 340 W, it's by far the most powerful GaN based charger we've seen to date. Although it wasn't a final product based on the looks of the housing, it gives us some insight into what to expect from future laptop chargers. It's still a rather large power brick at 150 x 86 x 34 mm, but it can deliver 20 V at up to 17 A over the fixed power cable. In addition to that, it also has a USB-C port with support for USB PD and a range of other charging standards that can deliver up to 45 W.
The company showed off another charger that has a combined output of 240 W and the primary USB-C port supports revision 3.1 of the USB PD standard and can deliver 140 W on its own. The secondary USB-C port can deliver another 100 W, but what makes this product interesting outside of this, is that Wii Power offers an adapter that can combine both of these outputs into a single 240 W output for charging more demanding laptops. There's even a third USB-C port and a USB-A for peripheral or phone charging, although each port is limited to 30 W and the total output can never exceed 240 W. A built-in display shows the Voltage, Amperage and Wattage that's being put out. It's still rather chunky at 130 x 80 x 32 mm, but considering the power it can put out, it's more compact than most similar non GaN chargers. Finally the company had a compact USB PD 3.1 travel charger that can again deliver up to 140 W, which is the equivalent of 28 V at 5 A. We're not expecting to see any of these products in their current guise in retail, but it's a clear sign of what to expect in terms of future charging products.
The company showed off another charger that has a combined output of 240 W and the primary USB-C port supports revision 3.1 of the USB PD standard and can deliver 140 W on its own. The secondary USB-C port can deliver another 100 W, but what makes this product interesting outside of this, is that Wii Power offers an adapter that can combine both of these outputs into a single 240 W output for charging more demanding laptops. There's even a third USB-C port and a USB-A for peripheral or phone charging, although each port is limited to 30 W and the total output can never exceed 240 W. A built-in display shows the Voltage, Amperage and Wattage that's being put out. It's still rather chunky at 130 x 80 x 32 mm, but considering the power it can put out, it's more compact than most similar non GaN chargers. Finally the company had a compact USB PD 3.1 travel charger that can again deliver up to 140 W, which is the equivalent of 28 V at 5 A. We're not expecting to see any of these products in their current guise in retail, but it's a clear sign of what to expect in terms of future charging products.
30 Comments on 340 Watt GaN Charger for Gaming Laptops Displayed at Computex
I wonder what's the C port on the back besides the mains power.Just a different model. The will pop up on AliExpress sooner that you think, but not cheap.
Still, it's nice to see GaN start proliferating in higher wattage chargers - it's about time.
USB PD 3.1 has fixed Voltage points for 28, 36 and 48 V, but supposedly allows for non standard Voltages as well, as long as the current is limited to 5 A or less.
As you can see, you have to use their weird two to one adapter to go beyond 140 W and that converts the two USB-C outputs into one or another type of DC jack.
Well, the higher power GaN model was why I took at look at the booth to start with, as I haven't seen anything over 100 W for a single output so far, even though there have been some 2x 100 W chargers on Kickstarter, but I haven't seen any of those in retail as yet. USB PD 3.1 will obviously change things up a bit, so it'll be interesting to see what else turns up in the near future.
And yeah, that two-to-one adapter is ... something. I guess it makes for a more flexible brick - you're not tied to it having a single chunky wire for charging hefty laptops, and you can travel with it as a multi-device type-C charger - but it's rather clunky still. It's good that it at least supports 28V5A though, as that at least makes it somewhat forward compatible.
And that 340W unit is quite impressively small - for comparison, Dell's 330W chargers are 200x100x43mm, and doesn't have any additional ports. At 150x86x34 this is .44l vs. the .86l of that Dell, or just barely more than half the volume. Still hefty, but that's an impressive difference. It's not that much larger thanRazer's 240W charger (170x70x24.5mm/.29l).
Even so, it's a big step forward in power conversion.
Also provided full measurements in the article, in case you didn't notice.
The comparison to another known object is just a nice touch. A sort of adding more value to the article, in this very competitive field of tech journalism.
[B]誠に申し訳ございませんでした!![/B]
Also, I've been on many tradeshows. Sadly, I'm now banned from most. And noy because I was carrying a banana for scale.
And yes, even a 65W GaN charger weighs a lot for the size of a box of matches. You can't have it all, I guess.