A few weeks ago, the delightful Sandy Foster gave us a review of the Anker MagGo 3-in-1 travel charger. I was intrigued, so I picked one up for myself. I have to agree with Sandy — three enthusiastic thumbs up.
What surprised me the most was how small and compact it is. It fits in the palm of your hand, and yet when unfolded, it expands significantly to reveal the three chargers.
I love how the Qi2 charger positions the phone perfectly for Nightstand Mode. Sandy mentioned that she uses it like this to see the clock during the night, and so do I. The Apple Watch charger can hold the watch up at an angle or let it lie flat. Since the watch charger comes out of the back, it really doesn’t matter how you mount it, because you can’t see the watch with the iPhone in place. I’m not an AirPods user so I can’t comment on the third charger.
My only complaint with the Anker MagGo 3-in-1 travel charger is that the included 15-Watt USB-C charger block doesn’t have fold-in prongs. For a product that’s designed to be so compact, it seems odd that they didn’t apply this same benefit to the charger block.
I travel with one tiny charger block from a company called Sharge. I’ve mentioned it a few times in passing over the years, and we interviewed the company at CES this year about their delightful chargers.
The one I’m in love with is called the Sharge Retro 67. It looks like a tiny original Mac with three USB-C ports on the top. When nothing is charging, the display looks like the Matrix with the green lines falling down. But when you plug something in to charge, you see on the display the number of Watts being supplied. They call it the Retro 67, because it can supply up to 67 Watts total across the three ports.
This tiny charger does have flip-out prongs to plug it in, which, along with its tiny size, makes it ideal as a travel charger. To get an idea of how small the Retro 67 charger is, I’ve included in the shownotes a photo I used in my article about the Amorus hands-free magnetic chest mount, where I’m showing off the Sharge charger. You can see I’m holding it between my thumb and forefinger if that helps you get a feel for the size.
Instead of carrying the oversized charger block for my new MagGo, I can use the Sharge Retro 67 as the charge block for my MagGo 3-in-1 charger, and then use the remaining two USB-C ports on the Sharge to charge up my MacBook Air and iPad Pro. I can charge four devices at once, stop carrying the Apple Watch charger puck, and see my iPhone in nightstand mode. Sure, I’m sharing those 67 Watts, but for overnight charging, it all works out.
The Sharge Retro 67 isn’t cheap at $69, but I love it enough that when I left mine on the plane on the way to Macstock, I immediately placed an order for a new one. If that isn’t a recommendation, I don’t know what is!
The bottom line is Sandy was right, the MagGo 3-in-1 charger is fantastic for travel, but find a fold-up charger block for it if you can, like the awesome Sharge Retro 67.