Anker’s new Prime 240W charger and 250W battery bank are coming in July - The Verge

Anker’s new Prime 240W charger and 250W battery bank are coming in July

Anker’s 240W Prime USB-C charger can fast-charge two MacBook Pros simultaneously

Anker’s 240W Prime USB-C charger can fast-charge two MacBook Pros simultaneously

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Anker’s new desktop multi-port USB-C charger and its dockable portable battery bank can both fast-charge two laptops at the same time.

By Umar Shakir , a news writer fond of the electric vehicle lifestyle and things that plug in via USB-C. He spent over 15 years in IT support before joining The Verge.

Jun 14, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC |

Anker Prime 240W GaN Desktop Charger.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Anker presented its updated lineup of USB-C power adapters as a solution to e-waste during a product reveal event on Tuesday in New York City, betting these versatile chargers can swoop in as smartphone manufacturers stop shipping adapters in the box. After releasing a slew of new gallium nitride (GaN) chargers dubbed GaNPrime over the last year with the third generation of its fast charging tech, many of them will be rereleased as part of its new line, Anker Prime.

Anker’s new Prime desktop 240W charger is due for release in July and supports a max of 140W per device, which we have seen from manufacturers like Hyper and Ugreen.

Image: Anker

However, if you have two of the larger MacBook Pro laptops for some reason, you could fast-charge them simultaneously on this new desktop charger, assuming you’re using Apple’s MagSafe to USB-C cable and that at least one of them is a smaller 14-inch model. This should be able to deliver 140W of charging to a 16-inch MacBook Pro on one port and 96W on the other. For chargers capable of outputting 240W over a single USB port, we’ll have to keep waiting for Power Delivery 3.1 chargers or even the 180W one coming from laptop maker Framework.

There’s also a third USB-C port on the desktop charger, along with one USB-A port, available for whatever else needs power. And like Satechi’s desktop charger, it has a stand to hold it vertically on your desk. Anker’s 240W desktop charger is coming in July, and the price is to be determined.

Anker’s senior PR manager Mary Woodbury introduced the charger by saying, “Today, with USB-C 2.1 standard, we can now safely build a charger capable of 240 watts of power,” and suggested it as a pack-in to power tech like new gaming laptops. But with current laptops typically maxing out at 100W charging over USB, most gamers will want to keep standard chargers around to eke out the most performance possible without draining their batteries.

Anker’s Prime 250W Battery Bank

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

Anker’s first product to support 140W charging for a single device was actually last year’s PowerCore 24K battery bank. And now the company is beefing it up a bit by adding a 27,650mAh battery in place of the previous 24,000mAh, with the new 250W Power Bank (so named because it can output up to a total of 250 watts from all of its ports and pull off the same two-laptop fast-charging as the previously mentioned desktop charger). The upgraded bank also has pins on the bottom that lets you drop it on an optional 100W charging dock, which gives the battery a home so you can habitually keep it charged.

The dock for the new Power Bank was marked as $69.99 and has its own 100W charger with two USB-C ports and one USB-A port for other devices you’d like to keep topped up on your desk.

This dock has a 100W charger built in and lets you situate the Battery Bank on top for easy daily charging.

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

Anker Prime Reserve has a pop-out lantern light.

Image: Anker

There’s also a new emergency / camping battery called Prime Reserve. It’s got a handle so you can carry it like a lantern, and it even is a lantern since a light can pop out from the top. It’s powered by 60,000mAh LFP batteries, which Anker says have enough power to recharge an iPhone 10 times. Along with its dual USB-C and USB-A (each) ports, the Reserve has an XT60 connector to support add-on solar panels. It’s available now for $169.99.

Anker’s also got an updated power station — the one that has the two pop-out AC ports. This time, the thin power strip that’s married to a DC charger has a power status screen embedded in the area that used to have just a weird circle light (and totally looked like a wireless charging pad but wasn’t). It has two USB-C ports and two USB-A ones as well, all outputting a total of 140 watts of power (up from 100W). You can expect this, and most of the new Anker Prime products, to be available in July.

Anker already sold these as GaN Prime chargers, but they’re now part of Anker Prime.

Image: Chris Welch / The Verge

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