UGREEN Nexode Air 65W USB C GaN Charger Block with 3.3ft Cable, Black

Why it's worth it

This is the charger to keep in your bag and stop thinking about. It's roughly the size of a golf ball, the prongs fold flat, a cable comes in the box, and 65 watts is enough to take a MacBook Air from empty to about half in half an hour.

If you buy one charger, make it a 65-watt one. That's the tier where a brick stops being a phone charger and becomes a laptop charger. Tom's Guide points to 65W as the practical floor for fast-charging ultrabooks and MacBook Air models, which makes it the most useful single number for a traveler. Below it, you wait. Above it, you're mostly paying for headroom you'll use once a year.

The size is the whole argument. UGREEN lists it at about 1.2 by 1.3 by 1.6 inches, with prongs that fold in, and it weighs under three ounces. That's smaller than the plastic brick that shipped with most laptops. GaN chips are what make it possible — TechRadar puts gallium nitride chargers at roughly 30 to 40 percent smaller than silicon chargers of the same wattage, because they run more efficiently and waste less power as heat.

From our review of 7 ugreen charging accessories

What we like

• +If you buy one charger, make it a 65-watt one
• +The size is the whole argument
• +It comes with a cable, which sounds minor until you're in a hotel room without one
• +One port keeps things simple

What to know

• –Push it hard and it gets hot
• –The bundled cord is a charging cable, not a data cable — owners report it doesn't carry data