I do a lot of work when I'm at home, and most of it is done on my desktop PC, which lives in my home office. However, there are many times I want to watch my kids play in the living room, where I must sit on the couch. While I'm keeping an eye on the kids, I could be working on my laptop, but unfortunately, my laptop often runs low on battery. So it's a tough choice: work in the home office or be with the family in the living room.
For $35, I've just solved the problem. In my living room, we don't have a lot of spare outlets near the couch, but we do have a 6-port USB charging station on a side table, and we use that for juicing phones, tablets, and smartwatches. The problem is that my current charging station can't output enough juice to power my laptop, and it only has USB Type-A ports on it when laptops must charge over a USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) capable USB-C port.
Enter Anker's A91C6, a small pyramid-shaped charging station with six USB ports, two of which use USB-PD to deliver up to 100 watts to a single device. If you have multiple devices plugged in, the tower will share that 100-watt budget among them, so keep that in mind. However, my ThinkPad X1 Carbon probably doesn't need more than about 45 to 55 watts when I'm using it so the 100-watt total limit should be fine.
Right now, the Anker A91C6 is just $35 at Amazon, reduced from $59. There are other charging stations on the market that can power or charge a laptop, but those from reputable brands usually cost a lot more than $35. Anker is probably one of the most reputable brands in the charging space.
It has six total USB ports, two of which are Type-A ports, two of which are regular Type-C, and two of which are USB-C power delivery. The Anker A91C6 also has three, 3-prong outlets you can use to plug in other appliances or chargers. These are totally passthrough, so they don't count against the 100-watt power delivery budget.
The charging station also has 300J surge protection, which means it's not just a charger but a power tower. However, unlike most power towers, it's pretty small. It only weighs 19 ounces and is mostly vertical.
I plunked down $35 to buy a charger, but what I'm hoping to get is more time spent in the same room as my family. That's priceless.
