Touted as the replacement for silicon chip battery chargers, Gallium Nitride (GaN) is making its way from gallium nitride led light bulbs promising to shrink down to size current USB chargers while delivering more power and better performance.
There is, indeed, a lot to be liked about gallium nitride and Anker has recently released the PowerPort Atom gallium nitride USB C charger which is the cheapest and one of the smallest, if not the smallest, 30-watt USB C charger out in the market today.
Measuring 3.5cm wide and 3.8cm high, the Anker PowerPort Atom PD 1 gallium nitride USB C charger has a seamless shape-cube design with soft, rounded edges that add to the quirkiness of the PowerPort Atom charger.
On the front of the Anker PowerPort Atom gallium nitride charger you find a UK 3-pin plug and on the back you find a single USB-C port with Power Delivery (PD) which supports dynamic fast charging at 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 15V/2A and 20V/1.5V.
You can buy USB-C chargers without Power Delivery but these chargers aren't the same because they use USB 3.1 charging standards which can only deliver a fixed amperage. USB-C Power Delivery technology is similar to Anker's PowerIQ which is found in the PowerPort 4 Lite, PowerDrive+ Speed 2, PowerCore 2 and ROAV Viva.
PowerIQ chargers maximum output is approximately 12 watts, while USB-C Power Delivery chargers can handle up to 18 watts. The Anker PowerPort Atom can provide maximum fast charge rate to any device supporting Power Delivery including iPhone 8, iPhone XS Max, Google Pixel phones and MacBooks. The main difference though between the Anker PowerPort Atom and other USB-C PD chargers is much better efficiency due to the PowerPort Atom's gallium nitride chip which makes the Anker PowerPort Atom not heat up like silicon USB-C PD chargers do.
Because less heat is produced with a gallium nitride USB C charger, the PowerPort Atom is able to deliver up to 30 watts of power in the shortest time possible without heating up your phone's battery. This means the PowerPort Atom can keep delivering fast charge beyond 50% without having to cut off charging to preserve the health of the battery. In just 30 minutes, the PowerAtom can charge your battery to 50% capacity.
The release of the Anker PowerPort Atom PD 1 gallium nitride phone charger fast tracks the already strong case for USB-C Power Delivery chargers to become the universal charging solution for gadgets. Check out the review of the PowerPort Nano 20W charger.