An amazing charging option from an amazing company.
As a writer, I always do research on companies I’m writing about. AUKEY has been a favorite company of mine for quite some time because they design reliable, powerful accessories. Now, I have another reason to love this company. On March 25, the company posted a blog about a donation they made to Italy in the wake of the COVID-19 global health crisis. Here is an excerpt from that blog.
Although AUKEY is mainly known as an electronics brand, the parent company has a wide range of resources at its disposal. When it became clear that the COVID-19 situation was becoming particularly serious, AUKEY decided to put its manufacturing might to good use and mass-produce face masks and other supplies to try to help out.
The accessory company sent 100,000 masks to various parts of Italy that have been the hardest hit during this crisis. It’s an amazing show of how the world comes together — even when we have to stay apart.
In addition to providing much needed supplies to a country far from their design labs and manufacturing plants, AUKEY is still producing some incredible accessories like the Omnia Duo 65W USB-C Dual-Port Charger.
DETAILS & SPECS
The Omnia Duo is, as its name suggests, a 65W dual-port wall charger. It features two (2) power delivery USB-C charging ports. The charger is powered by AUKEY’s OmniaChip, an advanced GaN power IC. It increases charging rates up to three times and it’s just half the size and weight of other chargers (compared to Apple’s 61W laptop charger). The Omnia Duo can provide a ‘fast charge’ to PD compatible smartphones like the iPhone or Google Pixel. It’s able to charge a 13″ MacBook Pro and other similar USB-C laptops. The charger comes equipped with Dynamic Detect, a technology that allows for one USB-C port to output 65W when used alone or 45W when both ports are in use. The charger also has built-in safeguards to protect devices against excessive current, overheating, and overcharging.
SPECS
- Model: PA-B4
- Input: AC 100–240V 50/60Hz
- USB-C Out 1 (Max 65W): DC 5V 3A/9V 3A/12V 2.5A/15V 3A/20V 3.25A
- USB-C Out 2 (Max 18W): DC 5V 3A/9V 2A/12V 1.5A
- Dual-Port Out: Max 63W (45W + 18W)
- Max Out: 65W
- Dimensions: 52 x 52 x 30mm / 2.05” x 2.05” x 1.18”
- Weight: 111g / 3.92oz
USER IMPRESSIONS
The charger comes in a simple brown cardboard box with an outlined drawing of the product on the front. The back of the box has the model number of the product included and AUKEY’s contact information on it. This nondescript packaging is the usual option for AUKEY products. It’s functional, but it’s not particularly eye-catching. This is really the only recommendation I would have for AUKEY. If they ever decide to sell their products in a retail setting that is face-to-face with customers and not just an online ordering situation, they may want to change up their packaging a bit.
When you open the box, you will find the charger wrapped in plastic and below it, there is a warranty card and user manual. Even though operation of this product is somewhat self-explanatory, there is some useful information in the manual. For example, AUKEY includes a description of what USB Power Delivery is.
USB Power Delivery is a universal multi-voltage charging standard that dynamically negotiates power output over a USB Type-C connection to safely and efficiently recharge a wide range of compatible devices.
The charger has foldable prongs to that when it’s not in use, the charger can be super easy to store. When you plug it into a power outlet, an LED that sits above the two USB-C ports will illuminate indicating that there is power flowing through the charger. To test the charging capabilities of the Omnia Duo, I plugged my iPad Pro (2018) into one port and my iPhone 11 Pro into the other (using a USB-C to Lightning cable) and timed how long it took both products to charge. As was expected, I got two very different charging rates. For the iPad Pro, the charging rate was approximately 0.4% per minute and the iPhone’s charging rate was 0.97% per minute. I also noticed that the charger was perceivably warm when I unplugged it after charging both devices simultaneously. So, using an infrared thermometer, I took a reading of 100º. That isn’t anywhere near 140º, which is typically the temperature that is considered ‘dangerous’ for devices.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Even though the charger warmed up a bit, I still think this is a great device to have around. It charged my iPad and iPhone efficiently and because it’s so much smaller than my MacBook Pro charger, I think it’s a better choice to carry in my laptop bag.
For more information, visit aukey.com, Facebook, and Twitter.
