Cheryl Tan
Jul 25, 20223 min
First up, it's a GaN charger, which means it uses gallium nitride, a material that produces reduced heat, meaning chargers that use it can be made even more compact. That's pretty much a trademark of GaN chargers, they're much smaller than traditional wall plugs on the market while still providing a very fast charge.
And the 108W charger from Belkin is definitely compact. In fact, it's so compact I tried bringing it as my sole means of charging my devices on my recent trip to San Francisco, and it worked perfectly. I had enough ports to juggle between charging my iPhone, my MacBook Pro, my Apple Watch, my wireless earbuds, my portable wi-fi router and my power bank.
They all charged up super quickly too, because of how Belkin splits the wattage across the four ports. There are two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, which actually isn't the most ideal for me. I would have preferred three USB-C ports and one USB-A port seeing as most devices nowadays are shipping with a USB-C plug on the charging socket end. Regardless, because of how quickly the charger was able to charge my devices, it wasn't much of a pain to just change out which device I was charging.
So let's look at the charger. The two USB-C ports get a total of 96W, which means if you're only using the port on the far left, you get a whopping 96W charge that will be able to charge a laptop incredibly quickly. 0-50% in 39 minutes for a MacBook Pro, according to Belkin, and I paired the charger with a Belkin Boost Charge 100W USB-C to C cable that worked perfectly with my MacBook Pro, meaning it was able to take full advantage of this fast speed while I wasn't stuck with carrying around a USB-C to MagSafe cable that could only charge my laptop. Allowing charging through both MagSafe and USB-C is definitely one of the smarter things Apple has done for the company's new laptops.
If you decide to use both USB-C ports though, that left port is relegated to 65W while the second USB-C port now takes up 30W. Still very, very fast and I used this a lot to charge my MacBook Pro while also charging my iPhone 13 Pro Max, so I can attest to the speed of both.
The two USB-A ports have a total of 12W and if you're using just one, you get the full 12W, otherwise, it'll be split across the two devices. Belkin has a handy infographic as shown above which shows exactly what wattage you get in a variety of different situations with different ports in use.
What's even better, the power cable is detachable from the brick, meaning it can be conveniently packed into a bag. The cable measures 2m long, which is more than enough for most people and four rubber feet on the bottom of the charger ensure it stays put on a surface instead of sliding around.
At S$129, the Belkin Boost Charge Pro 4-Port 108W GaN Charger is an excellent addition to any home or workstation, and it's definitely a solution to consider for frequent travellers who carry around plenty of gadgets.