Published on September 28th, 2015 | by Sunit Nandi

HisGadget iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger review – Probably the only charger you will ever need

Introduction

I’m not usually excited about chargers. However, when I got an invitation from HisGadget Inc., to evaluate products from their iClever series of chargers, I said, “Why not?”. I wasn’t really expecting much fanfare by reviewing them, but today after finishing my series of tests, I’m pretty much sure I’ll look at chargers much differently from now on. The first product I tested was the iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger with SmartID technology. In this article, I’ll be writing down my experience with it in as much detail as possible. I sincerely hope that everyone finds it a good read.

Specs in brief

The iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger with SmartID technology is a wall charger that takes 110-220V AC input and provides 5V 2.4A DC output on 6 USB ports, letting you charge 6 devices (like phones, tablets, handheld gaming consoles, music players, power banks, etc.) in parallel. The specs on their Amazon product pages claim the following:

SmartID Technology: Identify a particular device by itself and thus ensuring maximum charging efficiency.
Super output of 50 watts through 6 ports lets you charge any combination of phones, tablets or other USB-charged devices simultaneously.
Sturdy construction, excellent specifications and dependable circuitry guarantee reliability throughout the rigors of daily use.
The unibody design makes it lightweight, compact and extremely portable. Easily fits in pocket.
AC 110-220V input voltage makes it ideal for international travel.

The specs look pretty interesting. But does the product deliver what it promises? Let’s find out.

Unboxing

The iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger with SmartID technology comes in an attractive paper and cardboard box with lucid illustrations on the paper slideout.

Upon sliding away the paper cover, we get a brown box with a distinctly placed iClever logo.

Opening up the box, we get a plastic tray containing the charger, a 1.5m power cord, a user manual and a warranty card.

We take a closer look at the charger. It is a sleek black device having a rubber finish over its plastic body. It has the iClever logo placed at the corner of one of broad sides, while the other side is blank.

On the narrower sides, one has printed information like the power rating and regulatory info. The other side is rounded.

The front side of the charger has 6 USB ports supplying 2.4A each along with an LED light that lights up when the charger is connected to a power source.

The back side of the charger has a connector for the power cord, which in turn connects to a wall AC port.

The remaining things are the warranty card and the user manual.

Now that we’ve fully unboxed the product, lets move on to the actual review.

Usage

The iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger with SmartID technology is dead simple to use. You just plug one end the power cord to an AC source and the other end to the charger. Then you plug upto 6 of your devices to the USB ports of the charger. After that turn on the power and let your devices charge. The green LED on the front face of the charger lets you know if power is available and the devices are charging.

I tested out the charging using a YU Yureka, a Sony Xperia E3, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7″, a Micromax feature phone, a Xiaomi Mi 10400 mAh power bank and a STIN Jolt Box Portable 10,000 mAh External Battery Power Bank, thereby maxing out all the 6 ports. I tested the time it took to charge to full.

The YU Yureka charged from 2% to 100% in 3 hours and 30 mins. The Xperia E3 went from 10% to 100% in a little less than 2 hours. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 went from 0% to 100% in 4 hours sharp. The power banks took a little over 5 hours to finish charging. Since this was all happening in parallel, I had to wait for only 5 hours for all devices to finish charging.

Doing some basic approximation, I found out that YU Yureka drew 714 mA average current over the course of charging (2500 mAh battery with 3.5 hour charge time). The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 took 1A average current (4000 mAh battery in 4 hours). The power banks drew 2A average current (10,000 mAh in 5 hours). This charger definitely charges faster than any stock wall chargers.

I had a bit of disbelief at this finding, so I decided to test it out a few more times, the charging time seemed to be consistent.

Still I wasn’t convinced. This time I decided to log the battery stats using Battery Monitor by 3c Android app. I set it to record logs every minute while it was charging. The readings stupefied me. My phone usually never pulls over 900 mA when connected to a standard wall charger, even if the charger is rated to a higher rating like 2.5A. Suprisingly, the iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger supplies a peak current of 1490 mA (500 mA more than stock) and an average current of 749 mA (around 100 mA greater than stock). Here are some screenshots to make the trends clear.

What you will also notice is the manner in which charging happens. A standard wall adapter supplies steady charging current and leaves the power management to the device. So the charging current is the highest when the battery is near empty and gradually declines as it fills up. This charger, on the other hand, has a peculiar pattern; it starts charging with a low current (~300 mA), gradually rises to the peak (~1490 mA) and then falls again (~300 mA), repeating the cycle until the battery is full, keeping the average pretty high at ~740 mA, thus effectively speeding up the charging by a great extent. I think this is what they refer to as “SmartID technology” trying to pack in as much power as possible in as short a period as possible. Usually standard chargers heat up the phone when it is charging on low battery. However, my phone remained stone cold throughout while charging with the iClever charger.

However, the irony is that, despite the phone remaining cold, the charger itself heats up considerably when all its 6 ports are in use. I wish the heat dissipation could be taken care of, because it becomes unbearable to touch when you want to move the charger around to adjust nearby objects. In low load, however, the charger remains cool and calm. Moreover this charger is silent and despite its high capacity, it does not make any high-pitched transformer like humming sound.

I was very impressed with the product and I’ll definitely recommend this one to any one who is fed up of carrying multiple chargers while travelling.

Summary

Pros

Sleek, small and light
Impressive build quality
Hassle-free charging for 6 devices in parallel
Charges much faster than any standard wall charger, even faster than the ones having higher current ratings

Cons

Heats up considerably when all 6 ports are in use

Getting one for yourself

The iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger is on sale at Amazon US for $19.99 and at Amazon UK for £18.99, which I consider are reasonable prices for such a charger (because, any branded OEM stock charger is sold at around that same price too).

Conclusion

I would rate iClever 50W 10A 6-port USB travel wall charger a 9.5/10. If you can ignore the heating issue, it is a fantastic charger, and probably the only one you will ever need. You won’t need to lug around multiple chargers while travelling and you can safely say goodbye to your stock chargers when you have one because it frees up your power strip. It is very small, sleek and well built and charges 6 devices in parallel in such speeds like there is no tomorrow. This is one of those chargers that made me realize that all chargers are not created equal. I suggest everyone to try this device out, and I’m pretty much sure you’ll be glad that you bought it.

Tags: 10A, 50W, 6-port, charger, HisGadget, iClever, travel, USB, USB charger, wall

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.