GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX

An unusual thing has happened: the lady from Aukey gave Guru some bargain products to review. This is rare, owing to Guru’s prevailing reputation as a git, but he’s happy to switch out the usual moaning about cats for some genuine product criticism.

First up, the 8000mAh Wireless Charging Power Bank (£30), a slim black slab with Quick Charge 3.0 USB output, which somehow also features a Qi charger stuffed into its guts. A fundamentally great idea, although the capacity isn’t quite large enough to justify the bag space.

The Aukey 20,000mAh Universal Power Bank (£40) is certainly more like it in terms of capacity, and it spits out 3A even if it doesn’t have quick charging. It’s big, thin-ish and heavy enough to bat a seagull out of the sky. You can charge it via USB-C, micro-USB or (unusually) Lightning. Pointless? Sure! Cool? Absolutely!

The Aukey PR also loaned Guru not one but three wall chargers: the 4-Port USB Wall Charger (£30), which includes one Quick Charge 3.0 port, three automatic balancers and does the job with no fuss; the USB-C Wall Charger (£17), a compact 27W monster that can spew up to 3A down a (not included) USB-C cable and get typically warm while doing so; and the 60W 6-port Desktop Charging Station (£34), which powers itself via the same figureeight cable Guru plugged into his boombox back in the day. All of these are, frankly, fine, and cost-effective, though perhaps not as effective as using, say, your phone’s specific charger. Their engineering appears to be on a par with similar examples from Anker, a company name GaGu deliberately didn’t mention until he was running out of page space...