The Ugreen Nexode is a capable but fiddly charger that comes at a high cost. Because of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology, power adapters have become smaller over the years, but Ugreen’s $179.99 Nexode 200W charger uses the technology for high power.
This substantial four-by-four-inch square brick can be placed on your desk and power three, possibly four, laptops at the same time or power a combination of up to six mobile devices.
If you’re like me, you’re part of a remote workforce and were given a work laptop, but you also like to use your personal laptop.
My desk is cluttered with two MacBook Airs, a docking station, headphones, a Bluetooth speaker, a game controller, and an iPhone MagSafe stand, each with its own power brick.
All of these were replaced by the Nexode, which consisted of a single brick and a two-meter power cable.
The high-powered charger from Ugreen is not cheap. You can get multiple 100W USB-C chargers for $180.
However, if you’re thinking about buying extra power adapters to keep at your desk so you can keep the originals in your travel bag, it might be worth it.
The Ugreen doesn’t feel cheap either: the charger’s plastic body is very solid, and it comes with a one-meter braided USB-C cable that supports 100W charging.
It doesn’t come with a cute vertical desktop stand like Satechi’s 165W charger, but it does have four grippy rubber feet to keep it in place, plus two more ports. However, for that price, it had better be capable of charging 200W of electronics.
After some testing, I discovered that this is mostly true, but charging can slow down or stop completely if you don’t pay attention to the connections and capabilities of the four USB-C Power Delivery ports and two USB-A ports. The ports aren’t labelled with their capabilities like Anker’s 120W charger, so keep a cheat sheet handy or you’ll end up playing plug roulette.
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