I cracked open a '1,000W' portable charger after it failed me in minutes - the cause was clear (and gooey)

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ZDNET's key takeaways

Things that look "too good to be true" invariable are just that.

This example got dangerously hot in a short period of time before dying.

There's no legitimate charger that comes close to delivering on the 1,000W promise.

Being a tech reviewer for a living means that I get offered some very interesting things. Not interesting as in Bugatti supercars or jewel-encrusted Fabergé eggs, but interesting as in "this thing could easily be a fire hazard -- want to take a look?"

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Submissively, I often say yes. And I'm glad I did with the most recent pitch, because it was very interesting indeed.

Meet the "interesting" charger

This time around, the thing of interest was a charger that claimed to deliver an incredible 1,000W through its ten ports -- four 140W USB-C ports, four 100W USB-C ports, and two 20W USB-A ports.

The person who bought this charger told me that they'd plugged it in, used it to charge their phone for "a few minutes," got worried when it became "a little hot," and unplugged it.

The unit was suspiciously light and plasticky, especially given its built-in power supply. Compare this to Ugreen's Nexode 500W charger, which weighs a hair under 5 lb.

There was also a slight whiff of melty plastic, which made me think that this had been a bit more than a little hot.

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Color me suspicious, but I had a gut feeling that the only way this charger would be able to push out 1,000W would be if it caught fire.

Turns out I wasn't far wrong.

How long would it last? Answer: Minutes

Talk is cheap. It was time to test the charger.

So I plugged it in, turned it on, and started using it. Within a couple of minutes of starting to use it, I noticed a few things:

No matter what I tried, I couldn't persuade the charger to deliver more than about 60W from any of the ports.

As for peak output, I managed to get close to 250W.

The power output was very uneven and noisy, fluctuating wildly. The more ports I used, the worse it got.

The unit got very hot to the touch very quickly, even under light loads.

But… before I could get the thermal camera out to check how hot it got, there was a pop and the unmistakable smell of "Magic Smoke." The charger had been sent to Silicon Heaven within minutes.

Diagnosis time

Time to take it apart and have a look inside. For an item that plugged into the mains power, this unit was shockingly easy to take apart.

And even unplugged and broken, it was capable of delivering zaps! If the case came off while this was plugged into an outlet, it could very easily be deadly.

After getting inside, the unit was filled with a grey goo that I'd seen in a previous disappointing charger I'd taken apart. This is a thermal paste that's used to try to dissipate the heat generated by the components.

It's not really going to work because it's sealed in a plastic box with no effective heatsink. It's a token gesture at best. At worst, it creates a mass that'll slowly heat up and hold temperature because it's got no way to get rid of it.

Next to this goo was a bank of capacitors -- the black cylinders in the photo -- which were the cause of the failure. They'd clearly overheated, with three of them showing signs of bulging.

Well there's the problem!

I also noticed that two of the components -- bridge rectifiers that are used to turn AC mains into DC -- have been fixed on an angle to make the touch a metal heatsink. It's not really an effective way to cool down components.

The bottom line

Another "too good to be true" device bites the dust. It's not the first one I've come across, and it won't be the last.

Moral of the story here is that manufactures are using big number marketing — in this case 1,000W and masses of ports — to scalewash poor quality products.

This might be a half-decent product if it was built to deliver 100W, but there's no end of competition at that end of the market. Silkscreen "1,000W" on the outside, sprinkle in a few reviews that feel scripted and fake, and all of a sudden it's interesting and exciting… right up until it blows up.

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I know of no 1,000W charger. In fact, the 500W Ugreen Nexode is the highest-power charger that I've tested that's legit. And the price is also legit -- $250.

But it's built to deliver on what it promises and is packed with safety features, including "tip-over protection," which cuts the output when the unit tips over and prevents it from falling on its side, where it can't dissipate heat effectively. Now that's an attention to safety that I like to see in a product that handles that much power.

But if you want 1,000W of output, you'll have to buy two and duct tape them together.