Review of the Anker 5 Port Wall Charger

It’s funny, Anker saw a picture of how I deal with my charging situation when I am on the road and I posted that it may end up being a fire hazard.

Anker let me know they had a new product out that is a 5 port wall charger that is capable of charging 2 tablets and a smart phone, or 5 smartphones at the same time.  This is the perfect 5V / 5A charging solution for those who have a household of gadgets that need to be charged from one centralized location and it is very portable.

The Anker 5 Port Wall Charger also known as a desktop charger as you can just plug it in under your desk, sit it on your desk and use it to charge multiple devices at the same time is pretty compact.  I opened it up and it’s dimensions are smaller but thicker than a smartphone.

Now the device is optimized for specific ports to pair with specific devices to make sure charging speeds are optimized.

This means the 2 iPad ports will charge an iPad faster than an Android tab plugged into the same port in theory because it was optimized to charge the iPad.    I had iPad, iPhone 4S and 2 Kindle Fires to test out the charging capabilities of the Anker 5 port wall charger and it charges 2 tablets pretty fast, charging my iPad 2 in only a few hours with a Kindle Fire charging at the same time.

I pushed it to the max with charging and the 5A limitation really means you can’t charge 5 devices at the same time unless they are less than 1A input each, you can get 5 phones to charge at the same time for example.  But you really get 2 tablets and 1 or 2 smartphones assuming 2.1A draw on the tablet, Kindle Fire (1st gen) has less power draw than an iPad, but you still can’t do more than 2 charging at the same time.

So, here is where you would charge 5 devices, 1 would be a Bluetooth Headset, 1 or 2 Smart Phones, 1 External Battery like an Anker Astro, and 1 Tablet, or 2 tablets and an external battery and a HTC One X for example.  You can still get a lot of gadgets charging at the same time and only use 1 wall outlet plug plus have your USB cables handy.

Product improvements

As always I look for ways a product can improve and I immediately think, I want to charge 2 Kindle Fires and 2 iPads at the same time, which covers every tablet device in my house.  But this would require at least 8A of power draw in a device to accomplish this, so maybe one that offers more output to accommodate devices that require more power draw.  The other is that this is billed as a desktop charger but slides all over the desktop when you move devices and cables around.  It really needs a way to stabilize and stay in place, so rubberized feet or some sort of sticky material which allows it to adhere/grip a surface without sliding so easily would be a really nice feature.

Overall, this Anker 5 Port Wall Charger does solve most of my power draw issues and and actually turns my first picture above into a single device with 1 outlet taking care of all those 4 devices that were being charged.  It is a great option for those who need to charge 3-4 devices at a hotel room or at home on their desk at the same time and beats having a power strip with having 5 separate outlet plugs consuming a power strip as this takes only 1 outlet.  You just have to make sure you always have all the right USB charging cables with you for your devices.

Disclaimer:  Anker sent me one of the 5 Port Wall Chargers so that I could do a proper hands on review of the product.  The opinions expressed are 100% mine and mine alone.