Back in January Anker ran another one of their We Love Testing contests. When you win the contest they send you a product (in this case its the Anker Atom PD 1) to test and write a fair and unbiased review of the product. I was one of the lucky winners. Below is my fair and unbiased review.
Check out the complete review over on my personal site. Its under the Reviews section. See the complete list of pictures over at flickr.
Unboxing and First Impressions
The Anker Atom PD 1 comes in a small white and blue box. Once opened, the charger is nicely packaged with the paperwork hidden under the packaging. After taking the the wall charger out of the packaging I found charger to be nicely made and on the smaller side. It’s slightly larger than the older iPhone cube chargers and a lot smaller than Anker’s 2 port charger. Unlike many of Anker’s other wall chargers the power prongs do not fold in. They are fixed in an outward position. If Anker had made the prongs foldable then the unit would have to be bigger. From what I can tell there really isn’t a way to keep it size and be foldable.
Testing
Wall Chargers are one of those items that is simple to run real life tests on. You test using several different devices and check charge times and how hot the charger gets. For my testing, I used a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and an Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C using the OEM USB-C to USB-C cable that came with the PowerCore.
I ran a variety of tests ranging from 8% to 100% through partial charging testing. In each I ran the Anker Atom PD 1 never got hot. It was slightly warm like your average chargers might get.
I found that charging from 8% to 100% took an hour and thirty-six hour minutes to charge and charging from 30% to 100% took about an hour and fifteen minutes to charge. The average charge time on a standard high speed charger is about two to two and half hours for charging between 20% to 100% charges.
Charging times on my Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C takes forever to charge do to its large size. Using the Anker Atom PD 1 cut that time almost in half. (I’m still testing this.)
Things to Keep in Mind
As with many of the wall charger that Anker sells, it doesn’t ship with a charging cable. So you will need to provide your own cable. I would suggest getting an Anker USB-C to USB-C cable. If you have an Apple Iphone X or newer I would suggest using Anker’s USB-C to Lightning Cable. This is a new cable from anker and will give you best charge for your phone.
For me its not a big deal but for others it may be. The outlet prongs don’t collapse. This means you will have to protect the prongs when traveling. You just can’t throw it in your gear bag and forget about it. You might want to get a small case to carry it and your charging
Final Thoughts
I am impressed with its small size and how fast it charges my devices. This new charger is going into my travel bag and eventually into my computer gear bag once I get my new USB-C powered notebook.
I highly recommend the Anker Atom PD 1 if you need high speed charger and only have one or two devices. If you have a handful of USB-C devices and need to charge them at the same time, take a look at Anker’s other PD chargers.
Amazon link:https://www.amazon.com/AK-A2017121-27W-PD-1-Port/dp/B07DFGKFM3
