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Power. Charging. Batteries. It's the drumbeat of our modern technological age. That's why the new Spigen 70W ArcStation Pro and SPigen 100W ArcStation Pro Chargers are so darn interesting. Built around the latest Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology, they offer dual-USB-C ports and two different ways to share power. I offer up a detailed analysis, including tests and wattage analysis too.
Check them out at Amazon:
Spigen 70W Charger: https://amzn.to/3tT9Mro
Spigen 100W Charger: https://amzn.to/3Ez6Y7w
Check out Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
#spigen #charger #70w #100w #askdavetaylor
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0:00
Next-gen chargers for all your power needs. Let's check them out
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Dave Taylor here and I'm checking out the Spigen 70 watt and 100 watt ArcStation Pro chargers
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Now, they both have gallium nitride, which is why they're this small and have a super amount of
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power. And they have the Spigen PowerArc system, so there's lots of overwattage, overcharge
0:29
overheating protection and everything. And more importantly, it also negotiates with devices to
0:34
give them the maximum wattage for the fastest possible charge. So I'm going to talk about
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these and then we're going to look at some numbers and see how this actually works
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So first off, the 70 watt, this is dual USB gallium nitride charger and the upper port
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they're not denoted as different, but the upper port gives you a maximum 20 watts
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and the lower port gives you a maximum of 60 watts. Plug in two devices simultaneously and
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the lower one drops down to 50 watts, but you can still charge your MacBook and your iPhone
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for example, or your Android phone and your, I don't know, ThinkPad or something simultaneously
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Input-wise, they can both handle anything from 100 to 240 volts at 50 or 60 hertz, so they're
1:20
not globally compatible, but they're pretty widely compatible across the US style plug
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Size-wise, this is 2.4 inches by 2.4 inches by 1.25 inches and it's 5 ounces. This little guy
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can give you more power and is much more flexible than a lot of much bigger chargers that come with
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devices. I really like that chargers are getting smaller. Now, I'm going to give you some tests
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and then at the very end, we'll actually look at the price and everything, but let me talk about
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the 100 watt too, because this one's bigger. It's heavier. This one's 8 ounces, 2.6 by 2.6 inches
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1.4 inches thick, so you can see it's just a little bit bigger than its little brother
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but this one gives you 100 watts on either of the two ports. You don't have to worry about
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which one you plug in and it's a max combined, so if you plug in two devices, they will each get
2:18
45 watts of power. So that means, ironically, that this one's probably a little better if you want to
2:24
simultaneously plug in your computer and your phone because you can plug them in the correct
2:30
ports and get more power from the lower one, but this one's great if you want to, for example, power
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up and charge your MacBook Air and your, I don't know, Microsoft Surface or something, so both of
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them will get that 45 watts off of a single charger. Nice. So let's see. Let's actually run some
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tests. So here's what I'm going to do. First off, we'll just go ahead, and I happen to have
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convenient power here, so we'll start with the smaller one, plug it in, and so here's an easy test
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I will charge simultaneously my iPhone 12 Pro, which I'll plug in, and it's charging. Not a huge
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surprise. And then this is the Google Pixel 5a, and one of the neat things about the Pixel line is
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it actually tells you about what's going on when it gets a charge. So when I plug this in, it's not
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only charging, but at the very bottom it says charging rapidly, which means it's getting the
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maximum possible wattage, and these charge really fast when you get that rapid charge going, much
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faster than an Apple iPhone. But here we are. I'm charging both phones simultaneously. No hassle
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All right, well, let's do this. Let's take the iPhone off the loop, and instead I'm going to do another
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USB-C to USB-C, and this time we're going to plug in to my MacBook Pro. Now the MacBook Pro shows you
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how much wattage it's getting when it's getting a charge. So I'm going to open it up, and let's see
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here. I'm going to go into the easy way to actually find out is you want to go to System Report
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and when you go to System Report, you can get there from the Apple menu about this Mac, and then it
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gives you some information about your computer, and then there's a System Report button right there
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and then choose Power, and scroll down a little bit, and you can see here that it's telling me
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that, let's see, well, that's interesting. Did I plug them in wrong? I did plug them in wrong because
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it's saying, hey, I'm charging, but you're giving me 20 watts. That can't be right. Let's switch this around
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Unfortunately, System Report does not update, so I'm going to have to quit, and I'm going to have
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to launch it again, which is not super complicated. But now let's go back to Power, and there we go
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So now we can see that it is charging. Actually, well, what happens is that Apple says, no, it's not
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charging, but it really is charging at 50 watts. Not an optimal charge power for a MacBook Pro
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but I'll tell you, if you are in this sort of situation, close your computer and leave it off
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and it will actually get a lot more out of that power than it would otherwise. But what happens if I unplug the phone, and now this is all the only thing we have plugged into
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a 70 watt charger. Again, I have to quit the program, a little tedious, and then I have to start it again
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and this time, let's see what we have here. So now it's getting 60 watts, and now it's saying
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that it is charging, so that's nice. And let's see. So now let's try all the same sort of thing
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with the other power charger. So now I'm going to unplug this, and we'll go to the bigger one
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This is the 100 watt charger, and this one, again, we can do the two phones, and
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so this one is saying charging, oh there we go, charging rapidly. I guess it had to wait a couple
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of seconds to negotiate. So this is charging rapidly, and this is charging hopefully rapidly
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So theoretically, they're getting 45 watts each out of this connection. So now let's unplug the iPhone
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Actually, just to mix it up a bit, let's unplug the Pixel. Let's leave the iPhone plugged in, plug in the MacBook Pro
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A lot of dancing with cables here, and I'll go back into my computer, and let's see this time. I'm going to
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try to do a refresh, and sometimes that works in system report, sometimes it doesn't. Let's see
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what we have here. Okay, so now here we're seeing charger connected, wattage 45, and charging no
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So again, it's kind of charging. I've played around with really low wattage. You can charge something
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like a MacBook with even like 20 watts of power. It's just super duper slow because it really wants
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more. It really wants like 60 or 70 watts. So let's unplug this iPhone. So now this is the only thing
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plugged in, and let's see again where we are with this. So now I'm going to use the refresh. I never
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really knew this had a refresh, so that's really cool. And now when I go down, it's getting pretty
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much the maximum that a MacBook Pro can ever give you, which is 60 watts. Now my guess is the next
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generation of MacBook Pros are going to be able to handle higher wattage to get you faster charging
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but this is showing me that I'm getting a 60 watt, basically full power charge from this unit
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which is in fact not far off from what I got with this when it was by itself, right? So that is a 60
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watt lower charger. So you know, depending on what you're trying to do, the smaller one might actually
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work just fine for you. But the important thing to recognize here is that both of these let you
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charge multiple devices simultaneously with a pretty solid charge option. Now it would be great
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with this as a 100 watt charger if it could say it's like a maximum of 20 watts on one, and then
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you'd have 70 to 80 watts on the other. That would be absolutely optimal for my iPhone and MacBook Pro
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but it doesn't do that. I'm not sure why. I guess they want to make sure that there's the option of
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you being able to charge two actual computers rather than being limited to generally speaking
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a mobile device and a computer. But either way, these are really sweet options. If you're looking
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for a charger, don't just go to somewhere like Dell or Apple or Lenovo and buy a replacement
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charger for your computer. Something like this gives you just the same capabilities and that
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glorious second plug, which means you can use it for two different devices simultaneously
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These are exactly the devices I have in my computer bag. I don't use any OEM or original
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computer chargers because these are so much more flexible. There's so many more options and ways
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that I can charge things. If I'm in a crisis, charging a phone or a tablet and a computer at
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the same time with one charger, an obvious win. So cool. The only thing left to talk about is the
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price. But before we get to the price, I'm going to ask if you would be so kind as to subscribe to
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my channel. I really appreciate when people do that. And as you can tell, I'm really candid
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straightforward. I give you data. I don't just give you the pitch. So obviously, you know
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subscribe and you'll be able to get more of that. Cool. So this is the Spigen 70 watt ArcStation Pro
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charger power arc system. And this is $44.99 discounted currently on Amazon.com down to a
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pretty killer $31.49 at Amazon.com. 70 watts. This is actually my favorite of the two
10:13
And then this is the Spigen 100 watt ArcStation Pro charger with power arc system. And this one
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is $58.99 discounted down to $41.29 at Amazon.com. I think this one is your choice if you have a lot
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of laptops or tablets and you need to be able to charge multiple. But if you're a one computer and
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lots of other mobile devices sort of person, this might be a better option. Either way, these are
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both worth checking out. Gallium nitride is a great technology to make our power chargers smaller
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and not run as hot. And it's definitely worth checking out. With that, I got to get back to
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charging. So I'll catch you in my next video
#Consumer Electronics