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We seem to be gradually entering the era when phone brands no longer bundle chargers with their smartphones and in some cases, even tablets. Fortunately, this is also coinciding with a rather unique period in tech when you can use pretty much the same charger to power up your smartphone, tablet, camera, headphones, TWS and even your notebook. Making this possible is charging through USB Type-C, which is now also available on iPhones too, with a little help from the European Union. With so many devices charging off USB Type-C ports, it is now technologically possible to use the same charger and cable to charge all of them.
Of course, it is not quite as simple as that. They may charge off similar looking USB Type-C ports but devices often have different charging requirements. So you cannot simply take your phone charger and plug it into your notebook’s type-C port and expect it to get all juiced up. If you are looking for a single charger to charge them all, you will need to get one which can meet the requirements of as many devices as possible. And the more devices a charger supports, the more expensive it gets, so much so that suddenly having multiple chargers does not seem like a bad idea, in a financial sense.
Which is why we like the Xiaomi Mi 67W SonicCharge 3.0 Charger combo. It was released a year ago, but at a price that close to Rs 2,500, making it an expensive proposition. Today, its price is officially down to Rs 1699, and it is often available from some online and offline outlets at prices which are very close to Rs 1,000. And at these new prices, it is perhaps the best charger your devices could get for not too much money. What’s more, it even comes with a cable in the package!
The Mi 67W SonicCharge 3.0 is not exactly super compact, but it is not too bulky either. It can fit in a trouser pocket but will make an unseemly bulge, and at 180-190 grams, is slightly on the heavy side. It is made of glossy plastic and is very cleanly designed. It has a two-pin connector that can fit into most power outlets on one side, and on the other has a USB Type-A port. Also in the package is a one-meter Type A to Type-C cable.
And it works rather well. It can charge up supported Xiaomi devices at a very brisk 67W, but its real plus point is the fact that it can charge other devices too, and often at a very good rate, if not quite at 67W. It can charge an iPhone, iPad and even a MacBook Air and most notebooks at decent speeds, and also handles the Pixels very well indeed. It comes with support for Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 (a standard which works with a number of phones), which generally maxes out at close to 36W, so if you are dealing with a phone with a battery of about 5000W, it should generally get charged within an hour or so. It also charged our cameras, headphones and TWS without any problems – basically, it will charge anything with a Type-C charging port.
It needs to be kept in mind that proprietary charging systems like those in OnePlus and Oppo devices and some Samsung phones are not supported (these will charge at slower speeds), but by and large, you are likely to get a very good charging speed, and unless you are toting a notebook with very high power requirements, it should be able to juice it up as well. The attached cable is of very good quality with a thick exterior and in our period of usage, has not shown any sign of fraying. The charger comes with Surge Protection and is BIS Certified, so seems safe enough to use on paper. What’s more, it comes from a well-established brand.
It is not all roses. As we had mentioned earlier, the 67W charging speed is not available to all devices, although we generally got reasonable 18W speeds even on devices with proprietary charging standard devices like the OnePlus 11 and the Samsung Galaxy S23FE. Some might be disappointed that the charger has only a single port and that too a Type A rather than a Type C one, preventing one from using the official cables accompanying a new Pixel or a new iPhone with them, but we think the presence of the Type A to Type-C cable in the box compensates for this. That one-meter cable can, however, seem a little short at times, especially when the power outlet is close to floor level (which is often the case). And the white exterior of both the cable and the charger makes them prone to getting dusty and messy.
But those are minor quibbles. The simple fact is that at its reduced price, the Xiaomi Mi 67W SonicCharge 3.0 Charger is perhaps the best charger you can get to handle multiple devices at a decent speed. There are other chargers at lower prices (some with more ports) – Xiaomi itself has a 33W charger at Rs 899 – but most of them come with lower charging speeds, or from lesser-known brands. If you are looking at one charger that can deliver seriously fast charging across multiple devices. and have a budget that is in the vicinity of about a thousand Rupees (or just a touch more), then this is perhaps the option for you. Just make sure you get an original product (there are quite a few copies around) and a good deal – we have seen some dealers ready to offer it at Rs 999!
