apple macbook pro travel charger

About the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit

You can use the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit to charge your Apple products when you travel to different countries or regions.

Use the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit

To charge your device, attach the correct AC plug adapter to your device's power supply. The Apple World Travel Adapter Kit works with any Apple USB, USB-C, or MagSafe power adapter that has a removable AC wall adapter (also known as a duckhead).

Just slide the duckhead off, then attach the adapter for your country or region.

Learn where you can use each adapter

The kit includes seven adapters. Most adapters also have a label with a three-character code that shows countries and regions where you can use it. You might be able to use some adapters in more countries and regions than what's listed. *

Here's how to identify your adapter:

Australia and New Zealand (AUS)

Description: Flat, angled blades

China mainland (CHN)

Description: Flat, parallel blades without holes

Japan and North America (USA)

Description: Flat, parallel blades with holes

Korea (KOR)

Description: Round, thick pins

Brazil (BRA)

Description: Round, thin pins

Continental Europe (EUR)


Description: Slightly angled, round, thin pins

Hong Kong, Qatar, Republic of Ireland,

Singapore, and the United Kingdom (GBR)

Description: Three-prong blades

The country or region that you're visiting might state that its electrical power is within the supported range for the device you're using, but make sure that the quality of the electrical power is up to specifications. Electrical spikes and brown-outs can damage electrical equipment.

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The best USB-C charger for your MacBook Pro or Air

Unlike the iPhone, Apple ships a USB-C power adapter with all its MacBooks: Air and Pro. Unless your laptop stays in the same place all of the time, having a spare or a specific travel MacBook charger is a useful addition. You can buy a second Apple charger or check out more versatile, cheaper and smaller MacBook chargers to suit your needs and budget.

It’s important to note that there are risks with buying a cheap charger and we don’t recommend you choose on price alone. That bargain MacBook charger might just fry your laptop or get dangerously hot. However, there are some great premium chargers from trusted brands that sell for less than Apple pricey chargers.

What to look for in a MacBook charger

PD charging

What you need is a Power Delivery (PD) charger that can connect to your MacBook via USB-C. PD chargers can support up to 240W of power, although the most common congregate around the standard laptop power requirements: 30W, 45W, 65W and 100W. All the USB-C chargers we have tested here are PD chargers. All the chargers tested here can also fast-charge an iPhone.

PD version 3.0 supports up to 100W. PD 3.1 can charge at 140W, which is what you need to fast-charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro. Note that the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports are all rated at PD 3.0—only the MagSafe port is PD 3.1 so you must use Apple’s USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable, rather than a USB-C cable, to fast-charge the 140W 16-inch MacBook Pro. You can still power the laptop via USB-C or Thunderbolt cable but 100W is the maximum power via that method.

The amount of power a charger can give your MacBook is, safety aside, the most important feature to look for when choosing a laptop charger.

A laptop is designed to draw up to a certain amount of watts when running at full power; that is when you are stretching it by using lots of apps or pushing the graphics and video rendering functions—not when you’re just browsing the web. This level of max power is what the manufacturer considers when it decides on the wattage of the charger it includes with the laptop.

When the laptop is idle or doing mundane jobs, it will draw only a small amount of power from the charger.

Fast Charging   

Apple supports silicon fast charging on its latest MacBook models . When connected with the right charger and cable, you can charge a MacBook battery up to 50 per cent in 30 minutes. The M2 MacBook Air can be fast charged using a 65W or higher power adapter and either the MagSafe or a USB-C charging cable; see our M2 MacBook Air fast-charging tests .

On the 14-inch MacBook Pro, you can fast-charge with a 96W or higher USB-C charger and USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable or USB-C charge cable.

On the 16-inch MacBook Pro, you can fast-charge only with an 140W USB-C Power Adapter paired with the USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable because the Thunderbolt ports are still 100W PD 3.0. Apple, Anker and Ugreen are the only companies to make a power adapter that supports the latest PD 3.1 standard that supports power output to up to 240W; other USB chargers have a practical maximum of 100W.

It is fine to charge a laptop with a higher-wattage power adapter than it needs. It won’t charge it any quicker (unless you follow the fast-charge rules above), but rest assured that a premium charger such as the ones reviewed here won’t overcharge the MacBook battery and may have extra ports to change iPhones and other devices. If the charger has more wattage than it needs, it can use the spare power to charge other devices at the same time as the laptop.

Until the M2 MacBook Air arrived in July 2022, all Apple MacBook chargers had just one port. It makes sense, but more ports make even more sense as we all have more than one device that needs charging.

When you’re using your MacBook at full power, your charger might not have enough spare power for charging other devices unless you buy a charger with a higher wattage where the excess power can be channeled to your iPhone or AirPods at the same time as you power your laptop.

With its 35W Dual USB-C Port Compact Power Adapter Apple has finally released a MacBook charger with two ports for its MacBook Air, although at 35W total, you’re going to get much slower charging than using it on its own.

Portability

Apple’s silicon-based power adapters are mostly larger than third-party chargers that are built using Gallium nitride (GaN) technology. GaN is a material that produces less heat—and less heat means components can be closer together. This means GaN chargers can be smaller than previously possible.

Some of today’s GaN chargers are so small they can slip in your pocket, although you’ll still need to coil that USB-C cable somewhere too. Apple is late to the GaN party, but its recent GaN power adapters are certainly smaller than its older models.

Due to their ultra-safe, sturdy three-pin Type G plug, the U.K. models are usually wider than their U.S. Type A and B plug counterparts. Fewer feature handy folding plug pins (see above) that can be found on most U.S. wall chargers, but they are becoming more standard on non-Apple-made chargers.

Dimensions given in our reviews are for the U.S. models, which are also pictured for each product, but U.K. models are mostly also available.

We have tested and reviewed wall chargers that ship with interchangeable plugs for international travel, as well as wall chargers that double up as travel adapters with all the plugs you should need wherever you are in the world plus USB ports and a spare power socket.

If you need true portability away from a power socket, look for a laptop power bank. We tested a 25000mAh power bank that can fully recharge a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

Wall, desktop or strip

Most of the PD chargers we review here are wall chargers that plug straight into the power socket. You could also consider a desktop charger, which differs from a straight-to-socket wall charger by connecting to power via a longer plugged cable, so offering greater range. This is sometimes a neater and more versatile desk solution, but isn’t as pocketable for travel as a wall charger that requires just the charger-to-device cable.

Another option is a power strip or extender. The best we’ve seen is from Ugreen. Its 100W 7-in-1 power strip features two 100W PD USB-C ports, one 22.5W USB-C and one 22.5W USB-A port, plus an extension plug socket on its top. Baseus has a more compact 100W PowerCombo strip with four USB ports. Both are reviewed below.

You need to connect the charger to your MacBook using a USB-C to USB-C charging cable or USB-C to MagSafe cable.

If your Mac has a MagSafe 3 port (MacBook Air introduced in 2022; 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro introduced in 2021), you can use Apple’s own USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable (PD 3.1-supporting 240W maximum). As well as freeing up one of the MacBook’s Thunderbolt ports, this can protect from accidental cable pulls and is required for MacBook fast-charging on the 16in, but it is expensive at $49 / £49 compared to a quality USB-C cable. Apple’s USB-C to USB-C charging cables (100W maximum) cost $19/£19 but you can find quality USB-C charging cables cheaper, for example from Ugreen ( direct U.S. / Amazon.com / Amazon U.K. ).

Few of the chargers reviewed here come with a USB-C cable. Of course, you can use the cable that shipped with your MacBook, but having a spare is always useful. We’ve rounded up the best USB-C and Thunderbolt cables .

Here are our reviews of our favorite MacBook chargers. Later, we give more specific tips on buying the right charger for your model of MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

Anker 713 Nano II – Best single-port 45W wall charger

• Ultra compact
• Foldable plug (U.S.)
• Single port

Dimensions: 1.38 x 1.49 x 1.62in (3.5 x 3.8 x 4.1cm)

Weight: 2.44oz (69g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (45W PD)

Colors: Black

Best for : MacBook Air

This single-port 45W charger is a much better option for MacBook Air owners as we believe that the Apple-supplied 30W or 35W Power Adapters are a little underpowered for the laptop’s potential maximum needs. It is also tiny in comparison to the Apple-supplied charger (38% smaller in volume than Apple’s non-GaN 30W Power Adapter, and 20% smaller than the 35W charger), and significantly cheaper while being a safe, trusted brand.

Like the other Anker wall chargers, this model features foldable (U.S.) plug pins. The U.K. model is as great, although without the neat foldable plug pins.

Because the M2 Air can be fast-charged using a 65W or higher power adapter, the Anker 715 65W Charger (below) is a better option and only a few bucks more in price and fractions of an inch in size. Or you should consider a multiport 65W charger, such as the Ugreen Nexode 65W 3-Port Charger or the Anker 735 65W Charger —both of which are super-compact and will charge other devices at the same time as you are charging a laptop.

Anker 715 Nano II – Best single-port 65W wall charger

Dimensions: 1.65 x 1.42 x 1.74in (4.2 x 3.6 x 4.4cm)

Weight: 3.96oz (112g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (65W PD 3.0)

Best for : MacBook Air; 13-inch MacBook Pro; 8-core 14-inch MacBook Pro

A single-port 65W charger is the most affordable fast-charger for MacBook Air owners. The Anker 715 is small in comparison to the Apple-supplied charger, especially with its foldable U.S. plug pins, and still cheaper but not as noticeably so as Anker’s 45W charger.

Owners of the 13-inch Pro and entry-level 14-inch Pro should consider this charger as the most affordable, premium compact alternative to Apple’s larger, more expensive 67W Power Adapter..

You can use it to fast-charge an M2 MacBook, but it won’t overcharge it and it will keep the battery topped up while you are working on your laptop. To fast-charge a 14in MacBook Pro, you’ll need a 96W or 100W charger.

Ugreen Nexode Pro 65W – Best= 3-port 65W USB-C wall charger

• Lightest multiport charger

Dimensions:   2.1 x 1.6 x 1.3 inches (5.5 x 4 x 3.2cm)

Weight: 4.1oz (117g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (65W PD 3.0) and 1x USB-A (22.5W)

Colors: Gray

Best for: MacBook Air; 13-inch MacBook Pro; 8-core 14-inch MacBook Pro

Ugreen’s Nexode Pro 65W USB-C Wall Charger has three ports and is a great choice for a super-compact multiport 65W charger. The plug pins on the U.S. model fold in neatly to make it very pocketable for a three-port charger. Note that the pins on the U.K. version do not fold, so users from that country should consider the older but still great non-Pro Nexode 65W Charger that does have foldable U.K. plug pins or the Anker Prime 67W Charger reviewed below.

It really is a tiny wonder. The Anker Prime 67W Wall Charger is just as compact, and both make fine mid-sized MacBook chargers.

The two USB-C ports each support 65W, and the lower USB-A port can charge at up to 22.5W. Other same-time charging options include 45W for a laptop and 20W for a second device, or 45W plus 15W shared between the other two outputs. And you can fast-charge an M2 MacBook Air when using just one of the 65W ports.

While it’s perfectly suitable for the 14in MacBook Pro, a 100W power adapter can fast-charge that model using either a USB-C charging cable or Apple’s own MagSafe 3 cable.

Anker Prime 67W GaN Wall Charger (3 Ports) – Best= 3-port 65W USB-C wall charger

• Foldable plug (U.S. and U.K.)
• Smallest multiport charger
• Not for the top-end 14-inch MBP

Dimensions:   1.6 x 1.5 x 1.9in (4 x 3.8 x 5cm)

Weight: 4.8oz (136g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (67W PD 3.0) and 1x USB-A (22.5W)

It might be bigger and heavier than the 45W or 65W single-port Anker chargers, but this GaN charger offers you much more with its three ports. Each of the two USB-C ports can supply up to 67W, although obviously not at the same time as 67W is the total possible output. And the USB-A port supports up to 22.5W. It is the smallest multiport USB-C wall charger, and it weighs just 136g, an indistinguishable difference to the equally compact 130g Ugreen Nexode 65W 3-Port USB-C Wall Charger.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. models feature a foldable plug. The U.K. model is a little larger due to the Type-G 3-pin plug but it’s the smallest and lightest multiport 67W charger available in the U.K.

Each port will adapt to your charging requirements. You can charge a laptop at up to 65W using just one of the USB-C ports or charge the laptop at 45W and another device at 20W via the other USB-C port. Another option is to power a laptop at 40W via USB-C, and an iPhone or Apple Watch at up to 22.5W using the USB-A port. Using all three ports, the first USB-C port can power the laptop at 40W, the second an iPhone at 12W, and the USB-A port could power up your AirPods at 12W.

It’s a great choice for fast-charging an M2 MacBook Air or just as a multiport solution for the 13in and entry-level 14in MacBook Pro. As with the Ugreen Nexode, reviewed above, it will power the top-end 14-inch MacBook Pro, but a 100W charger can fast-charge that model.

$15 cheaper is the Anker 726 Nano II 65W Charger ( U.S. model / U.K. model ), which has two USB-C PD ports, and a foldable plug on its U.S. model. When using both ports at the same time, the bottom one will charge at 45W and the top at 20W. Aside from being a little cheaper, it also has a white color option, which is missing from the other Anker laptop chargers.

Ugreen 65W 3C1A – Best 4-Port 65W USB-C wall charger

• One low 18W PD port
• Larger than 3-port chargers

Dimensions:   1.3 x 2.56 x 2.56in (3.3 x 6.5 x 6.5cm)

Weight: 8.8oz (249g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (65W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (18W PD) and 1x USB-A (22.5W)

This is the most ports (4) we’ve seen on a 65W USB-C PD wall charger, making it a versatile, multi-option power adapter for any MacBook Air or 13in Pro. It would also support the 8-core-CPU model 14-inch MacBook Pro.

It is noticeably larger than the three-port 65W chargers reviewed above, but is recommended if you need that extra charging port.

Two of the USB-C ports support 65W, and one is curiously low at 18W but that’s enough for most phones and mid-sized tablets. The USB-A port can Quick Charge and handle up to 22.5W.

Use one of the 65W PD ports to fast-charge an M2 Air, but to fast-charge a 14in Pro you’ll need to look for one of the 100W chargers reviewed here.

Anker Prime 100W GaN Wall Charger (3 Ports) – Best 3-Port 100W USB-C wall charger

• Can't fast-charge a 16in Pro

Dimensions:   1.7 × 1.5 × 2.4in (4.4 x 3.9 x 6cm)

Weight: 6.5oz (183g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0) and 1x USB-A (22.5W)

Best for : 13-inch/14-inch/15-inch MacBook Pro

The Anker Prime 100W GaN Wall Charger might have one fewer port than the 4-port Ugreen 100W charger, reviewed below, but it’s notably lighter and smaller than the 4-port Ugreen charger.

Each of the two USB-C PD ports has a maximum of 100W so you can’t fast-charge a 16in MacBook Pro, although it will easily supply the required standard-speed charge.

The USB-A port can support up to 22.5W charging.

A similar option is the Anker 737 GaNPrime 120W Charger ( U.S. model / U.K. model ) pictured above, which has the same three ports but with a maximum 120W output, meaning it can charge two mid-sized MacBooks at the same time. It’s a little larger (1.25 x 1.7 x 3.14in) and minutely heavier than the Anker 100W charger as a consequence.

Ugreen Nexode 100W – Best 4-port 100W USB-C wall charger

• Third USB-C port is 22.5W
• Bulkier than some
• Can't fast-charge 16in MBP

Dimensions:   1.3 x 2.72 x 2.72in (3.3 x 6.9 x 6.9cm)

Weight: 8.3oz (235g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (22.5W) and 1x USB-A (22.5W)

Suitable for all MacBooks, the four-port Ugreen 100W wall charger, with a foldable U.S. plug, is an excellent choice of versatile power adapter. It may not be as pocketable as the mini chargers, but it is still very portable. It’s actually lighter than the company’s own 65W 4-port charger.

It has multiple charging options, such as 65W for laptop and 30W PD for light-laptop powering plus lower outputs for phones and other devices. Using three ports you could charge at 45W, 30W and 22.5W. Using all four, it can support laptop power delivery at 45W and 30W plus two devices each at 10.5W.

And it can fast-charge a 14in MacBook Pro using one of the 100W PD ports.

The U.K. model is a rounder, more barrel-shaped design—without foldable prongs—but otherwise the same charger.

Ugreen has a newer, much smaller 100W charger, the Nexode Pro 100W Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ), which has one fewer USB-C port. If three ports is all you need (and that might be true for many) then this is the better choice, but we like the fourth port option.

Ugreen Nexode 100W 2-in-1 GaN Desktop Charger – Best 2-in-1 100W USB-C desktop charger

• Compact 2-in-1 charger
• 15W MagSafe adjustable iPhone stand

Dimensions:   6.49 x 4.9 x 4.2in (16.5 x 12.5 x 10.7cm)

Weight: 1.91lb (868g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-A (22.5W), 15W MagSafe charging pad

Colors: Gray/Black

Best for : MacBook Air; 13-inch/14-inch MacBook Pro; iPhone 12/13/14/15

Moving away from the USB-C wall chargers for a moment, we are big fans of this compact desktop charger that, at 100W, is powerful enough to charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro and also offers an adjustable 15W MagSafe charging pad for iPhones 12/13/14/15.

It has three powerful ports—to USB-C and one USB-A—plus the fully certified and maximum wireless 15W MagSafe pad that you can angle and place the iPhone on in either landscape or portrait modes.

Using all four charging options you could power at 15W (iPhone), 45W MacBook via one of the USB-C ports, 25W with the other, and the remaining 10W via USB-A.

If you want to charge your iPhone faster than even top-speed 15W wireless vai the pad, you can fast-cable charge your phone using either of the USB-C ports.

As a desktop charger it comes with a 2m power lead to connect to your wall socket.

Nekteck 100W Charger – Best budget 100W USB-C wall charger

• Ships with 2m USB-C cable
• Doesn't support MagSafe
• Not available in U.K.

Dimensions:   1.18 x 2.64 x 2.64in (3 x 6.7 x 6.7cm)

Weight: 8.29oz (235g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (100W PD 3.0)

Best for: MacBook Air; 13-inch/14-inch MacBook Pro

This is a simple one-port 100W USB-C charger that is smaller than Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro charger and much cheaper.

Note that Nekteck states that this charger does not support charging through Apple’s MagSafe cables, only USB-C, so that included 6.6ft (2m) USB-C cable comes in handy, and it’s not powerful enough to fast-charge a 16in MacBook Pro. It’s available in the U.S. only

Ugreen Nexode Pro 160W Charger – Best multiport PD 3.1 wall charger for 16in MacBook Pro

• 140W PD 3.1
• Apple Fast Charging for 16in Pro
• Smaller than Apple 140W charger
• Three ports

Dimensions:   2.8 x 1.7 x 1.3in (7.1 x 4.3 x 3.3cm)

Weight: 10.7oz (304g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (140W PD 3.1), 1x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (30W PD 3.0) and 1x USB-A (22.5W)

Best for: MacBook Air; 13-inch/14-inch/16-inch MacBook Pro

This is the first multiport PD 3.1 charger (with a 140W port) we tested and it is still noticeably smaller than Apple’s single-port charger. It is, however, slightly heavier than the Apple or Anker 140W chargers.

It can fast-charge Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro, using the top USB-C port as long as you connect to the laptop using Apple’s MagSafe 3 cable. It has another 100W port below, and a 22.5W USB-A port at the bottom.

There are many charging options: one-port using any of the above-mentioned ports, two 65W laptops simultaneously, or 65W+65W+30W charging at the same time—enough for a multi-MacBook charging session.

Remember that Apple still requires use of its proprietary MagSafe cable for fast-charging from the 140W port.

Apple 140W USB-C Power Adapter – Best global wall charger for 16in MacBook Pro

Dimensions:   1.1 x 3.78 x 2.95in (2.9 x 9.6 x 7.5cm)

Weight: 9.76oz (277g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (140W PD 3.1)

Colors: White

Once the only game in town for ultimate 16in MacBook Pro fast-charging if you add Apple’s pricey $49/£49 USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable , Apple’s 140W charger now faces competition from other third-party charger manufacturers.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro comes with both charger and MagSafe cable as standard but if you want to match this as a spare set of both will set you back a steep $148/£148.

It is one of the most up-to-date chargers, supporting PD 3.1, which is why it can fast-charge a 16in MacBook Pro.

The MagSafe cable is available in Silver, Space Gray, Midnight (blue) and Starlight (gold) but the charger itself is standard Apple White.

The U.S. model features foldable plug pins. Unlike the smaller Anker 717 140W Charger, it is available in multiple countries.

Anker 717 USB-C 140W Charger – Best one-port wall charger for 16in MacBook Pro

• Available with U.S. plug only

Dimensions:   1.22 x 2.66 x 2.31in (3.1 x 6.8 x 5.9cm)

While it has just one port like the Apple 140W Power Adapter, the Anker 717 is 40% smaller than Apple’s tall charger so makes it a much better choice if you travel with your laptop. It features foldable pins.

Again like the Apple charger, its USB-C port is PD 3.1 and so can fast-charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro (or any fast-charge-supporting MacBook for that matter) but only if you use the MagSafe rather than a USB-C cable.

It’s the same price as Apple’s charger and does also require the MagSafe cable to fast-charge the 16in Pro.

The Anker 717 is not available outside of North America.

Plugable 140W USB-C Power Adapter – Best budget one-port wall charger for 16in MacBook Pro

• Least expensive premium option

Dimensions:   1.24 x 2.99 x 2.95in (3.1 x 7.6 x 7.5cm)

This USB PD 3.1 charger looks a lot like Apple’s own but is smaller and cheaper.

It also has just the one port, which is fine if you will use it with only one device, but a multi-port alternative, such as the Ugreen Nexode 140W Charger reviewed above, offers more flexibility.

Combined with Apple’s MagSafe cable, this will fast-charge the 16-inch MacBook Pro, and makes a great spare for that laptop if you are based in North America.

Ugreen Nexode 300W GaN Desktop Charger – Best 300W USB-C Desktop Charger for 16-inch MacBook Pro

• 300W maximum

Ports: 1x USB-C (140W PD 3.1), 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (45W PD 3.0), 1x USB-A (22.5W)

Best for : MacBook Air; 13-inch/14-inch/16-inch MacBook Pro

While the Satechi 200W USB-C 6-port PD GaN Charger, reviewed below, has two 140W PD 3.1 ports, you can’t use both at 140W simultaneously as its max power is 200W. The Ugreen Nexode 300W GaN Desktop Charger, on the other hand, might have just one 140W PD 3.1 port but it can fast-charge both a 140W 16-inch MacBook Pro and another MacBook at 100W at the same time.

With all ports in action it follows a port hierarchy of 140W/65W/45W/10W/22.5W.

While this desktop charger ships with a 240W USB-C charging cable—which you have to buy extra with the Satechi—Apple requires you to use its own USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable to fast-charge the top-end MacBook Pro at 140W as the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports are rated at just 100W, making the inclusion a bit superfluous for Mac users.

If you require a desktop charger with an enormous maximum power output, this should be well enough for most needs.

Satechi 200W USB-C 6-port PD GaN Charger – Best 200W USB-C Desktop Charger for 16-inch MacBook Pro

• 200W maximum
• No USB-A port

Dimensions:   4.13 x 4.13 x 1.38in (10.5 x 10.5 x 3.5cm)

Weight: 1.37lb (622g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (140W PD 3.1), 4x USB-C (100W PD 3.0)

While its total output of 200W and six ports equals that of the Ugreen Nexode 200W 6-Port desktop charger reviewed below, this desktop charger supports PD 3.1 and therefore 140W fast-charging for the 16-inch MacBook Pro using Apple’s USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable.

200W is a lot but if you are powering multiple super-power-hungry devices, you might want to consider the 300W Ugreen Nexode desktop charger, reviewed above. With all ports in action this Satechi charger follows a port hierarchy of 65W/45W/20W/20W/20W/20W.

Each of the ports is USB-C so you’d need an adapter to use a USB-A charging cable, which some products—for example, Fitbit—still insist on.

The first two ports are PD 3.1 (140W) and the remaining four (PD 3.0) are rated at 100W.

It’s a shame that it doesn’t ship with a 240W USB-C charging cable, but Apple’s fast-charging USB-C limitation makes this inconsequential for Mac users.

Ugreen Nexode 200W 6-Port – Best mixed USB-A/USB-C Desktop Charger

• Ships with 1m USB-C cable

Dimensions:   3.97 x 3.97 x 1.27in (10.1 x 10.1 x 3.23cm)

Weight: 1.14lb (517g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 2x USB-C (65W PD), 2x USB-A (22.5W)

Best for : MacBook Air; 13-inch/14-inch MacBook Pro

This desktop charger is a beast in terms of total output and number of ports (6) but a lot smaller than you might expect. You wouldn’t want it carried on your person, but it’s compact enough for travel purposes.

We’d expect it to stay put, however, and charge multiple devices over a few desks. It can charge up to four USB-C devices (three laptops and a USB-C tablet) and two smartphones or other devices at the same time with its giant 200W of total charging power.

Despite the 200W total output, the most one port can manage is 100W, which is fine for charging even Apple’s largest laptop but not for fast-charging the 16in Pro.

This is a great option if you need to charge up to three MacBooks at a time—for example, two at 65W and one at 45W, and there’s capacity to spare to power another device at 20W.

Using all six ports would allow a combination of one 65W PD, two 45W PD, and one 20W PD and two less hungry devices, such as iPhone, AirPods or iPad.

It ships with a 3.3ft (1M) USB-C cable.

Belkin BoostCharge Pro 140W 4-Port GaN Wall Charger – Best travel wall charger for 16-inch MacBook Pro

• US/UK/EU pins
• No AU/NZ pin

Dimensions:   1.21 x 2.99 x 3.78in (3.1 x 7.6 x 9.6cm)

Ports: 1x USB-C (140W PD 3.1), 2x USB-C (65W), 1x USB-A (12W)

Although it isn’t suitable for Australasian power sockets this 140W PD 3.1 wall charger can sit at home in the US, UK or EU and travel with you when you visit any of those regions—although it’s heavy compared to similar wall chargers with travel plugs.

Even if you’re not a frequent traveller, we think you’ll appreciate the option of the interchangeable international plugs and it works just fine if you decide not to travel at all.

It has four ports: 1x USB-C at 140W so can fast-charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro when using Apple’s MagSafe charging cable; 2x USB-C at 65W; and 1x USB-A at 12W. When all the ports are active it powers as 65W PD USB-C, 45W USB-C, 20W USB-C and 12W USB-A port, so can charge a couple of 13-inch or entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro plus smaller devices such as your iPhone or Apple Watch.

Minix Neo P3 100W Turbo 4-Ports – Best budget travel wall charger

Dimensions:   1 x 2.36 x 2.36in (2.5 x 6 x 6cm)

Weight: 7.1oz (200g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (20W), 1x USB-A (18W)

This 100W PD charger boasts four ports, with two USB-C rated at 100W. However, the special thing about the Minix Neo P3 wall charger is its set of travel plugs (U.K., E.U.) that slide on to the folding U.S. plug pins. At 100W (PD 3.0), it’s enough to fast-charge a 14-inch MacBook Pro. There are two 100W USB-C PD ports, one 20W USB-C and an 18W QuickCharge 3.0 USB-A port, which should be enough to charge most of your devices out of one charger.

Alogic 100W 4-Port PD USB-C Wall Charger

• AU plug available
• Ships with 2m cable
• Low-power second USB-C

Dimensions:   1.16 x 3.15 x 3.15in (2.95 x 8 x 8cm)

Weight: 9oz (254g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (18W), 2x USB-A (12W)

Although it is also available in U.S. and U.K. models, we have picked the Alogic 100W Rapid Power 4-Port USB-C GaN Charger because it is one of the few trusted brands that offers an AU/NZ/CN wall plug PD charger, aside from Apple itself.

It has four ports: 1x USB-C at 100W; 1x USB-C at 18W; and 2x USB-A at 12W. When all the ports are active it powers as 65W PD USB-C, 18W USB-C, and 17W across both USB-A ports, so can simultaneously charge a 13-inch or entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro plus smaller devices.

As a bonus, it comes with a braided 2m USB-C cable.

OneAdaptr OneWorld65 – Best 65W USB-C PD travel adapter and charger

• Five ports plus one power socket
• Travel plug adapter
• Total output limited for 5 ports

Dimensions:   2.15 x 2.64 x 2.72in (5.5 x 6.7 x 6.9cm)

Weight: 6.3oz (178g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (65W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (20W), 1x USB-C & 2x USB-A (sharing 15W)

The OneWorld65 looks like any international adapter but boasts a built-in 65W PD Charger and can charge up to six devices simultaneously.

It features one 65W USB-C PD port, one 20W USB-C PD port, another USB-C charging port and two USB-A charging ports—the non-PD USB-C port and two USB-A ports share 15W of power.

Maximum power output is 65W so if you are charging a mid-sized laptop in full use, there won’t be much spare juice for the other devices.

As well as all the USB ports you can also use this as a travel adapter. Sliding connectors will fit into US, European, Australian/NZ/Chinese and British wall sockets so covering over 200 countries, and you can plug a similar range of plugs into the OneWorld 65 from the other side.

OneAdaptr OneWorld135 – Best USB-C PD travel adapter for 16-inch MacBook Pro

• 135W PD 3.0
• Four ports plus one power socket

Dimensions:   3.7 x 2.13 x 2.09in (9.4 x 5.4 x 5.3cm)

Weight: 9.63oz (273g)

Colors: Bue or White

The OneWorld135 is a souped-up version of the OneWord65, and with 100W USB-C output it’s powerful enough to charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro, although not fast charge it as that requires one 140W PD 3.1 port. With its universal power outlet and four USB ports, it can charge up to five devices simultaneously.

Max output is 135W, so it can handle charging a large laptop and still have enough power for another small one or fast-charge multiple phones, headphones and watches.

Sliding connectors will fit into US, European, Australian/NZ/Chinese and British wall sockets.

There is also a slightly cheaper OneWorld100 available in Black, although max output as the name suggests is 105W, so if your 16-inch MacBook is sucking all the watts, there won’t be much left for charging your phone by the other USB ports, but a 14-inch MacBook and iPhone could happily fast-charge together connected by USB-C.

MacMate – travel charging station add-on

• Wireless charging pad
• Compact and lightweight
• Requires 100W charger to power all ports

Dimensions:   2.07 x 2.17 x 0.79in (52.5 x 5.5 x 2cm)

Weight: 1.8oz (51g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (60W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (20W), 1x wireless charging pad (10W)

Also from OneAdaptr, the MacMate isn’t a charger in its own right; indeed it require you to connect one to it. But we’ve included it here as it’s an interesting add-on—and it can be purchased as part of the OneWorld65 Wireless or OneWorld100 Wireless bundles.

Once connected to either of those travel chargers or any other 60W+ charger it becomes a charging hub for a MacBook, iPad, iPhone and Wireless AirPods Case or any three-way combination of those Apple devices.

It also features a wireless charging pad for a third device.

Once connected to a charger, the MacMate can be hooked up to a MacBook and charge it at up to 60W via a USB-C PD port. Another USB-C PD port offers up to 20W charging for another device. On the top is the 10W wireless charging pad—sadly not MagSafe compatible but will work with all wireless-charging iPhones regardless.

To charge all three devices at top power you’ll need a 100W charger connected to the MacMate.

The charging station is tiny and lightweight, so makes a great travel multi-device charging companion—especially when paired with the OneWorld 65.

Ugreen 145W Power Bank for Laptop – Best power bank for MacBook

• Portable 25000mAh power
• 145W total power output
• Requires charger

Dimensions:   6.3 x 3.2 x 1.1in (16 x 8.1 x 2.8cm)

Weight: 18.1oz (513g)

Ports: 1x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (45W), 1x USB-A (18W)

We are not always sat next to a power socket when we need to recharge our MacBook Pro or Air. And without a power point none of the other chargers reviewed here will be of much use.

While we are quite used to carrying around power banks for our phones, laptop power banks are a rarer breed—but just as handy when power fades to zero.

Boasting 25000mAh, this Ugreen laptop power bank can recharge a fading MacBook Pro back to full power and still have enough power over to fast-charge your iPhone—indeed you can charge both at the same time, along with your AirPods or Apple Watch as this MacBook power bank has three ports.

There’s a handy LED battery-capacity percentage indicator, so you can tell how much power is left before you leave home.

It’s air-travel-friendly so makes a useful companion in your cabin bag if you are going to be using your MacBook on a long flight.

You’ll need to bring along your charging cables, although the supplied USB-C cable can be used to both charge your MacBook and recharge the power bank—though not simultaneously. A 65W wall charger (not included) can get the power bank back to 100% in around two hours.

Ugreen 65W Power Strip DigiNest Cube GaN Extension Lead – Neatest USB-C power extender

• 4 USB ports and 3 AC power sockets

Dimensions:  3 x 3 x 3in (7.6 x 7.6 x 7.6cm)

Ports: 2x USB-C (65W PD 3.0), 2x USB-A (18W), 3x power socket

This is a clever power strip or plug extender that includes four USB ports (2x USB-C, 2x USB-A), two of which are PD compatible at 65W, and three power plugs. Maximum output on the USB ports is 65W shared.

It’s like a desktop charger, but with three added AC power sockets for TV, monitor, hard drive, lamps and so forth. Its cable length is 6ft (1.8m).

It’s a great way to reduce cable clutter on your desk, or in any room.

Ugreen 100W USB-C GaN Power Strip – Best USB-C power extender

Dimensions: 3 x 2 x 5in (4.2 x 3.6 x 4.4cm)

Weight: 1.51lb (685g)

Ports: 2x USB-C (100W PD 3.0), 1x USB-C (22.5W), 1x USB-A (22.5W), 3x power socket

This power strip or plug extender is also from Ugreen and includes four USB ports (3x USB-C, 1x USB-A), two of which are PD compatible at 100W. Maximum output on the USB ports is 100W, and for the three power plugs (one on the top, and two behind) 1,870W.

It’s both a desktop charger and AC power extender with sockets. Its cable length is 6ft (1.8m).

Baseus PowerCombo 100W All-in-One USB C Charging Station – Compact USB-C power extender

• 4 USB ports and 2 AC power sockets
• Smaller than similar USB power extenders
• U.S./CA only

Dimensions:  3.5 x 1.6 x 1.6 inches (8.9 x 4.1 x 4.1cm)

Another great power extender is the gaN-based Baseus PowerCombo, which comes in several models. At the top-end, the 100W PowerCombo gives you four USB ports (2x 100W USB-C and 2x 60W USB-A); maximum output is 100W in a variety of combinations depending on your needs.

When charging phones, it supports Apple Fast Charging and Samsung’s 45W Super Fact Charging 2.0.

It also includes two AC power sockets, so you can plug in your monitor, hard drive or other powered devices at the same time as using the main charger. Its power cable length is 5ft (1.5m), and it ships with a USB-C cable.

In the PowerCombo family lineup there’s a 40W PowerCombo with 2x USB-C and 1x USB-A, and a 65W PowerCombo with 2x USB-C and 2x USB-A.

Best charger for M1 or M2 MacBook Air

The MacBook Air ships with either a 30W or 35W Power Adapter, but we recommend at least a 45W charger for the MacBook Air (Intel-based as well as M1/M2 models).

For a 45W charger with just one port, the ultra-compact Anker 713 Nano II 45W Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) is a great option, and about 40% smaller than Apple’s 30W charger. It’s more powerful than Apple’s 35W Power Adapter and less expensive. It does have just the one port, but the amount of spare charge you’d get using a 35W charger with a MacBook Air isn’t likely to offer much if you are also trying to charge even your AirPods unless the laptop was sitting doing not much at all at the time.

Going for a 65W or even 100W multiport charger makes more sense. Anker’s three-port Anker Prime 67W GaN Wall Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) can charge a laptop at 45W and an iPhone or iPad at 20W. It has two USB-C ports (both capable of PD charging at 65W, although not at the same time) and a 22.5W USB-A port. You could even charge a MacBook Air at 40W (still higher than Apple’s supplied charger), an iPhone at 12W and a set of AirPods at 5W. Or fast-charge an M2 MacBook Air.

Ugreen’s 3-port Nexode Pro 65W USB-C Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) is similar, although a smidge larger. Using all three ports, you could charge a laptop at 45W and two smaller devices at 15W shared.

Best charger for 13-inch or 14-inch MacBook Pro

The 13-inch MacBook Pro ships with a 67W Power Adapter, so you can look to a 65W charger to save on money and size.

Your choice of charger for the 14-inch MacBook Pro depends on the model. The M3 14-inch MacBook Pro ships with a 70W adapter while the M3 Pro and M3 Max model ships with a 96W charger.

A 65W charger will suffice, but you won’t get fast-charging like you will with a 100W model. Anker has the most affordable single-port charger, the 715 Nano II 65W ( U.S. / U.K. ). For a multiport 100W charger we rate Ugreen’s 4-port Nexode 100W USB-C Wall Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) or the Anker 737 GaNPrime 120W Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ), which is smaller and has a higher total power output but features one less port. Very similar to the Ugreen 100W Charger is the Anker Prime 100W GaN Wall Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ), which both U.S. and U.K. users will appreciate for its foldable plug prongs.

As well as fast-charging a 14in Pro using the 100W port, you can charge at full 65W power and have spare to charge another device at up to 30W, or charge the laptop a little slower and charge three other devices, say your iPhone, iPad and AirPods.

Best charger for 15-inch MacBook Pro

While it shipped with an 87W Apple Power Adapter, we recommend a 100W charger for the 15-inch MacBook Pro. We prefer a charger that can power multiple devices at the same time, so we like Ugreen’s 4-port Nexode 100W USB-C Wall Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ).

For a budget one-port 100W wall charger, the Nekteck 100W USB-C Charger ( U.S. ) will save you some cash and has a neat foldable U.S. plug. It also comes with its own 2m (6.5ft) USB-C cable but doesn’t work with Apple’s MagSafe 3 charger.

The most powerful desktop charger we’ve tested is Ugreen’s Nexode 200W USB-C Desktop Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ), which boasts a whopping six ports (4x USB-C, and 2x USB-A).

Best charger for 16-inch MacBook Pro

Until recently Apple made this recommendation easy. Its 140W Power Adapter ( U.S. / U.K. ) will fast-charge the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2021 and later models) from 0-50 percent charge in 30 minutes as it supports the most up-to-date PD 3.1 charing.

Apple recommends pairing its 140W Power Adapter with a 16‑inch MacBook Pro (2021) using its USB-C to MagSafe 3 as the only way to fast-charge—the Tunderbolt ports are PD 3.0 rated rather than 3.1. It’s not cheap, but for pure power this is the combination you want with Apple’s largest MacBook.

Anker, Ugreen and Plugable have now released their own PD 3.1 fast-charging USB-C 140W chargers—the Anker 717 Charger ( U.S. ) is the same price and limited to the same one port. It is, however, 40% smaller than Apple’s super-tall 140W charger.

The Ugreen Nexode Pro 160W Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) is much smaller than the Apple 140W charger and boasts four charging ports. Fast-charge the 16-inch MacBook using the top USB-C port, and luxuriate with 100W and 30W ports below, and a 22.5W USB-A port at the top—although remember that the maximum total output is 160W. As the most able PD 3.1 charger, we recommend this as a portable second charger for 16in MacBook Pro owners if they travel with their laptop a lot.

If you can live without the fast charging, a 100W charger should be ample for most situations, and here there are more options with multi-charging opportunities.

Ugreen’s Nexode 100W USB-C Wall Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) has four charging ports, but for a budget one-port 100W wall charger it’s hard to beat the Nekteck 100W USB-C Charger ( U.S ), which comes with its own 2m (6.5ft) USB-C cable.

And, again, Ugreen’s powerful Nexode 200W USB-C Desktop Charger ( U.S. / U.K. ) is a great, if less portable, option.

Which charger does each MacBook need?

Here are the power specs of the batteries and power adapters that Apple ships with each of its MacBooks:

M1 MacBook Air : 30W Power Adapter

M2 MacBook Air : 30W or 35W Power Adapter depending on 8-or-10-core GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)

13-inch M1 MacBook Pro : 67W Power Adapter

13-inch M2 MacBook Pro : 67W Power Adapter

14-inch MacBook Pro : 67W or 96W Power Adapter depending on 14-or-16-core GPU

15-inch MacBook Pro : 87W Power Adapter

16-inch MacBook Pro : 140W Power Adapter

Can you use a charger with a higher wattage than your laptop?

Yes, you can safely use a laptop charger with a higher wattage as the laptop will only ever draw the amount of power required at the time. If your laptop was supplied with a 35W charger it will never draw more than 35W unless being fast-charged, so you can use a 65W, 90W or higher charger.

If the charger has multiple ports that extra juice will mean you can charge other devices at the same time.

Can you use a charger with a lower wattage than your laptop?

You can but you should try to avoid using a lower wattage charger than what your laptop requires. A 30W charger can’t supply sufficient power for a 90W laptop’s needs. At the least, your laptop is likely to run out of power while you are using it. At the worst, you could damage the laptop or create dangerous problems for the charger.

The under-powered charger won’t have enough power to give to your laptop and it therefore has to work harder to try to match the needs of your laptop. The danger is that this can cause overheating and potentially fire.

For more details read our explainer What wattage USB-C charger can you use to charge a MacBook?

Author: Simon Jary , Contributing writer

Simon was Editor of Macworld from the dark days of 1995 to the triumphant return of Steve Jobs and the launch of the iPhone. His desk is a test bench for tech accessories, from USB-C and Thunderbolt docks to chargers, batteries, Powerline adaptors and Fitbits.

Recent stories by Simon Jary:

• Best MagSafe wireless chargers for iPhone 2024
• Best MagSafe portable battery packs and power banks for iPhone 12, 13, 14 and 15
• Best laptop stands for Apple MacBook Pro and MacBook Air

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Apple 60W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter for MacBook Pro with 13-inch Retina Display

Purchase options and add-ons, about this item.

• The 60W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter features a magnetic DC connector so if someone should trip over it, the cord disconnects harmlessly and your MacBook Pro stays put safely. It also helps prevent fraying or weakening of the cables over time. In addition, the magnetic DC helps guide the plug into the system for a quick and secure connection.
• When the connection is secure, an LED located at the head of the DC connector lights up; an amber light lets you know that your notebook is charging, while a green light tells you that you have a full charge. An AC cord is provided with the adapter for maximum cord length, while the AC wall adapter (also provided) gives you an even easier and more compact way to travel.
• Designed to be the perfect traveling companion, the adapter has a clever design which allows the DC cable to be wound neatly around itself for easy cable storage.
• Compatible with MacBook Pro with 13-inch Retina display.

Top Brand: Apple

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What's in the box

• Apple 60W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter (for MacBook Pro with 13-inch Retina display)

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Customer reviews.

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers like the performance and quality of the adapter. For example, they mention it works well, is of high quality and a genuine product. That said, opinions are mixed on value and cord length.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers like the performance of the adapter. For example, they say it works well, is cost effective, and has performed flawlessly for 18 months. Some appreciate the functionality of either using both cords or removing the longer plug. That said, some want more cord length, but this length functions well.

"Not a cheap copy - working great " Read more

"...Grabbed this as a replacement and it worked perfectly !" Read more

"... works really well do . Good buy and very convenient. I think it's more affordable than going into the store and buying it from them as well." Read more

" Works great " Read more

Customers like the quality of the adapter. They say it's a high quality OEM replacement, genuine, and works great. Some mention that it charges quickly and is 100% reliable.

" Not a cheap copy - working great" Read more

"...I bought a Macbook because they are tough, well made items . But the chargers WERE NOT AND ARE NOT...." Read more

"...This does not look authentic :The box is cardboard, not poly-coated like all other Apple products..." Read more

"...I paid for exactly what I wanted, Apple quality ." Read more

Customers are mixed about the value of the adapter. Some mention it's great value, less expensive than at Apple, and a good buy. However, others say it'll overcharge their expensive MacBook.

" Half the price if I bought it at the store. Works like the original charger, prolonged the life of the old macbook for a few more years." Read more

"The price is high though I saved 7 dollars by purchasing from amazon." Read more

"...works really well do. Good buy and very convenient. I think it's more affordable than going into the store and buying it from them as well." Read more

"...I have had a perfect experience with each of them, at a considerable cost savings . Good deal. Highly recommended." Read more

Customers are mixed about the cord length of the adapter. Some appreciate the longer cord that gives flexibility, while others say that it began to crack after only two months. The cord frays and wears down near the plug end.

"... Authentic Apple adapter with original cords ! I would defintely buy again from this seller. Also the package arrive one day eariler than stated." Read more

"Seems to be deteriorating faster than the original ." Read more

"...The cord is long and spotlessly white. My computer has had no issues charging since I've been using it...." Read more

"More recently, my wire became frayed and stopped working altogether...." Read more

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The Best Apple Wireless Charging Stations for Multiple Devices

By Nick Guy

If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, there’s a good chance you’re all in: iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. One way to keep each of these devices powered is to run three cords to three adapters—but the best way is to use a single charging station. If you have an older iPhone, Mophie’s 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand is the best charging station, offering fast wireless power for all your Apple gear (well, except for your MacBook and iPad) in a tidy, convenient design that’s worth the price. And if you’ve upgraded to an iPhone 12 or 13 with Apple’s MagSafe charging and mounting system, don’t worry—we have a pick for you, as well .

Everything we recommend

Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand

The best three-in-one charging dock for a non-magsafe iphone, apple watch, and airpods.

The stand-style iPhone charger and the divot for an AirPods case make alignment easy. Plus, because it holds an Apple Watch in landscape orientation, you can conveniently snooze alarms.

Buying Options

Belkin Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe

The best charging dock for iphone 12 and 13.

This multi-device charger is the easiest to use and the best looking, and it offers the fastest possible wireless charging speeds. But it works only with the iPhone 12 and 13 series.

Apple MagSafe Duo Charger

The best charging station for frequent travelers.

This is the most portable charger you can get for an iPhone and Apple Watch, and it charges at the iPhone’s maximum rate, but unlike our other picks it can’t charge three devices at the same time.

The Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand is the best way to wirelessly charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods every day, provided you own a handset from the iPhone 8 through 11 series. Rather than requiring you to precisely line up your phone on a flat pad for charging, as many other wireless charging stations do, the Mophie offers an angled stand that makes proper alignment practically foolproof. The cross-shaped AirPods divot properly fits either the basic or Pro headphones case, and the Apple Watch charger puts the display in landscape orientation so that you can utilize Nightstand Mode . Mophie’s dock charges a little quicker than other non-MagSafe charging stations, and none of its competitors offer such a great combination of features at a comparable price. (However, if you have an iPhone 12 or later, you should consider upgrading to a MagSafe-compatible wireless charging station like the Belkin Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 or the Apple MagSafe Duo Charger , either of which provides faster charging and is easier to align.)

The Belkin Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe provides full 15 W MagSafe charging and the best ease of use of any charging station we’ve tested, making it the best option if you have an iPhone 12 or later. Rather than lying on a flat pad or against an angled stand, your iPhone “floats” on a raised magnetic mount in whatever position you choose. Because the phone locks magnetically into place, there’s no way to misalign it, so you’ll never have to worry if your phone is actually going to charge. The dock’s design looks more sculptural than techy, with a round base and an angled metal stalk that branches off to hold your iPhone and Apple Watch. Belkin’s charger comes with the wall adapter, so everything you need is in the box, and its two-year warranty also covers your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods if something goes wrong while they’re charging.

A charging station with room for three devices is ideal for your nightstand, but if you want something more compact to take with you while traveling, the Apple MagSafe Duo Charger is the best choice. The MagSafe Duo fits in the palm of your hand when folded up, and it’s as thick as an iPhone in a case. Compared with most wireless charging stations, that’s tiny. It will also charge your iPhone 12 or 13 faster than any non-MagSafe multi-device wireless charger—at the full 15 W that MagSafe allows—and thanks to the magnetic alignment system, you don’t have to worry about lining it up properly for charging. If you have an older, Qi-compatible iPhone, it’s still the only travel-friendly multi-device wireless charger you can get, though you won’t see MagSafe charging speeds. It does make a couple of trade-offs: First, it has just two charging spots—one for an iPhone (or an AirPods case) and one for an Apple Watch. Second, it doesn’t come with a power brick; if you buy a 20-watt power adapter (which is required for the fastest charging speeds), that brings the price up by $15 to $20.

The research

Why you should trust us, who this is for, how we picked, how we tested, our pick: mophie 3-in-1 wireless charging stand, flaws but not dealbreakers, also great: belkin boost charge pro 3-in-1 wireless charger with magsafe, also great: apple magsafe duo charger, other good apple wireless charging stations, what to look forward to, the competition.

I’ve been reviewing mobile accessories since 2012, and I’ve been covering them for Wirecutter since 2015. I’m also the author of Wirecutter’s guides to USB wall chargers and car chargers , for which I’ve seen and tested pretty much every available charging variation.

I researched and wrote Wirecutter’s first guide to Qi wireless chargers in 2017, and I have continued testing new models and updating that guide. I also wrote our guide to Qi power banks , battery packs that use the same wireless technology.

These charging bases are designed for people who own multiple Apple devices—namely, an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and AirPods—and want to charge all of them at once, presumably overnight. Like single-device Qi chargers , these three-in-one chargers work without your having to plug cords into any of your devices.

Qi (pronounced “chee”) is the wireless-charging standard from the Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group with more than 500 members, including device manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung, as well as accessory makers such as Foxconn (Belkin’s parent company) and Mophie. For a charger to be certified by the WPC, the manufacturer has to submit it to an authorized test lab . All iPhones since the iPhone 8—even the iPhone 12 and 13 series with MagSafe—use a version of Qi charging.

If you want the fastest possible charge for your iPhone, you need to use a cable—going wireless is about convenience, not speed. Affordable, wired 20 W USB-PD chargers paired with a USB-C–to–Lightning cable are about 30% faster than the fastest wireless chargers.

The other downside to wireless charging is that you can’t pick up your phone and use it while it’s charging, as you can with a charging cable. This limitation makes a wireless option better for recharging overnight or when you want to see the phone’s display on your desk or in the kitchen, rather than while you’re watching Netflix, say, or scrolling through Twitter.

Apple first stoked the desire for this kind of accessory when it announced its AirPower charging station in late 2017. The flat pad was supposed to be able to charge an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and AirPods all at once, no matter where you placed them on the pad. Ultimately, Apple pulled the plug on the project in early 2019.

In 2020, however, the company introduced its MagSafe charging and magnetic mounting system as part of the iPhone 12 lineup. Hidden magnets inside the phone allow you to connect supported accessories and charge at up to 15 watts, in contrast to 7.5 watts with other Qi chargers. The magnets also ensure proper alignment, so you don’t have to worry about your phone being out of place and not charging properly. You can find non-MagSafe-branded magnetic chargers, too, but they can’t take advantage of the faster charging speeds that MagSafe allows.

A good wireless charger should meet all of the following basic criteria, which we used as guidelines for our research:

• WPC and MFi certification: We considered only those chargers that have been certified by the WPC . This means that a charger has been tested and found to be both safe and in compliance with the Qi standard. If a wireless charger isn’t certified, that doesn’t necessarily indicate it’s unsafe or noncompliant—but choosing something that has been verified is prudent. The same can be said for MFi certification, which is Apple’s own program that supplies the hardware components for licensed accessories and applies specifically to the charging puck and MagSafe components.
• Charging speed: Most of the chargers we tested advertised 7.5 W charging for iPhones; MagSafe chargers support 15 W. We weren’t concerned about the 10 W charging that some Android phones support because people are unlikely to use an Android phone alongside an Apple Watch.
• Design: We considered not only how the charging pad looked but also how grippy the surface was for holding a phone in place, how easily we could align devices with the charging coils, and where the watch sat (some band styles may prevent AirPods from aligning properly, for example, depending on the design). We also noted any extras, such as charging or placement indicator lights.
• Noise: Some wireless chargers emit a faint (and sometimes not so faint) whine or clicking noise, which can quickly become annoying. We listened for this in our tests.
• Maker: We considered models only from companies that we knew had a good reputation for warranty coverage and customer support. Even if a charger is WPC certified, there are no guarantees it will never have a problem, and you should be able to get help if you need that.

We tested the performance of each wireless charging base by placing an iPhone 13 with a fully drained battery on the charging pad. We measured the phone’s battery level after 30 minutes of charging and then again after one hour. A good Qi charger should fully charge any phone in a few hours (and certainly will overnight), so we focused on differences in short-term charging. I first tested everything at my desk, but if I heard a sound that could be annoying, I also tested the charger in my bedroom at night, sleeping with it positioned a couple of feet from my head to see if the noise would interfere with my sleep.

The Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand is the best choice if you have an iPhone that uses regular Qi wireless charging (iPhone 8 through 11) and you want a single charging station that can power your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time. It charges such iPhones just as quickly as any other non-MagSafe multi-device charger we’ve tested, and it’s better designed to accommodate all three devices thanks to a stand-style phone charger and a cross-shaped divot that snugly accommodates both styles of the AirPods charging case. These thoughtful design touches make it easy for you to align the respective devices so that they charge properly. Similarly, the placement of the Apple Watch charger conveniently allows you to use the watch as an alarm clock.

We’ve found through testing single-device Qi chargers that we prefer angled, stand-style chargers that hold the phone upright, for two reasons: You can more easily align the phone properly so that it actually charges, and you can more comfortably look at the screen while the handset is charging. The Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand and the Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock rank among the first models to bring that raised-charger design to multi-device power stations. We found that the angle made an appreciable difference in everyday use, especially at night and in the dark. It’s not impossible (or even necessarily difficult, with practice) to line up a phone on a flat charger, but it’s certainly easier to place a phone on a stand that keeps the device in the right position. The stand makes things so foolproof, you can do it by feel without even looking.

To the right of the phone charger is the Apple Watch charging puck, and to the left, a cross-shaped indentation for your AirPods or AirPods Pro case, ensuring a precise hold no matter which version of the headphones you use. Other Qi charging stations require you to align the AirPods case properly on a flat surface or in a round divot that doesn’t perfectly cradle the AirPods case as Mophie’s does, and that task can be difficult, especially without a clear visual guide. Mophie’s design allows the case to just nestle in, making charging the AirPods so simple that it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever head to work with dead headphones.

Apple certifies only those Apple Watch chargers that use Apple-approved charging pucks, which this Mophie model does. That means it’s as safe as any first-party Apple charger for charging any Apple Watch. It works with open or closed bands and holds the watch in landscape orientation. Both the 40 mm and 44 mm watch sizes sit low enough that, if you’re using your Apple Watch’s Nightstand Mode, you can press its Digital Crown to snooze an alarm without knocking the watch off the charger. It’s a thoughtful design decision that makes the charging station more useful.

None of the iPhone and Apple Watch combo charging stations we tested filled up the phone’s battery quite as quickly as the fastest single-device charging stands we’ve tried. Since this combined charger is slower, we think it’s best for a nightstand, where, assuming you’ll be charging overnight, the slower charging rate won’t be as big of a concern. The Mophie charger powered our iPhone 13 to about 23% full battery after half an hour and 50% after an hour. Our Apple Watch Series 7 (45mm), also starting at zero, got to 23% battery capacity after a half hour and 55% after an hour.

Battery charging results on the Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand

The Mophie charger has a notably basic design. It’s an 8-by-4-inch rounded rectangle with a body primarily made of glossy black plastic. Rubber feet on the bottom prevent it from sliding around. It lacks the heaviness that you might expect high-quality materials to have, but that doesn’t affect performance. Indicator lights on the front of the charger (underneath the phone-charging stand) show whether your phone and AirPods, respectively, are charging. The lights are not terribly bright, and they turn off after a few seconds.

The power cord that you plug into the back of the Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand uses a round, barrel-style connection instead of Micro-USB or USB-C, so it won’t be as easy to replace if something goes wrong or you lose it. Mophie offers a two-year warranty on its charger and says it generally replaces the entire product rather than individual pieces under the warranty.

If you have an iPhone 12 or later and want to take advantage of the easier alignment and faster charging that the MagSafe charging system allows, consider one of our other picks below.

After we experienced intermittent charging issues while using the 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand with an iPhone 12 Pro in a MagSafe case, we reached out to Mophie, who confirmed that this is a known issue with some iPhone 12-series phones. The company has implemented a firmware update that should resolve the issue for all iPhones, and those affected should contact customer service for a replacement. If you have an iPhone 12 or 13, we think you should get the Belkin charger anyway. But if you’ve already invested in the Mophie charger and are having issues, seek a replacement. In the meantime, we’ve found removing the case can help resolve the issue.

Unlike other models, this Mophie charger can work only with the specific combination of a phone, an Apple Watch, and AirPods; that is, you can’t use the AirPods charging spot for a second phone.

The charger’s glossy surface collects more fingerprints than a detective. If that’s the kind of thing that bothers you, this model may not be the right pick for you. Both the Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock and the Belkin Boost Charge 3-in-1 Wireless Charger , our former top pick, are better options in that case.

Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe should be your first choice if you have an iPhone 12 or 13–series phone. It’s one of the first third-party chargers to incorporate Apple’s MagSafe feature, and it’s the best implementation of the feature we’ve seen so far. Not only is attaching your phone impossible to mess up, but the dock also supports the fastest iPhone wireless charging speeds, and it’s the best-looking option. The Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 costs about the same as our top pick from Mophie, and it comes with a wall adapter, unlike Apple’s MagSafe Duo Charger . Belkin’s two-year warranty covers both the charger and connected devices.

MagSafe offers two major benefits: perfect alignment and fast, 15 W charging speeds. Although you can find plenty of magnetic chargers for sale that work like MagSafe, the Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 is officially licensed by Apple, meaning it can take full advantage of these features. In contrast, non-licensed models may hold your phone properly but won’t charge at full speed.

Most comparable charging stations require you to lay your phone on a flat pad or an angled stand that conceals a Qi charging coil. The Belkin dock holds your phone in the air, attached to a magnetic charging puck, with its center about 4½ inches above the 5¼-inch round, soft-touch rubber-covered base. A circular indentation in the center of the base lets you charge your AirPods (or another phone, albeit at a slow, 5 W charging rate). A forward-angled metal stalk behind it branches off and terminates to the left with the phone charger and to the right with the Apple Watch puck.

As long as you’re using aa MagSafe-compatible phone—either without a case or with a MagSafe-compatible case —you can’t misalign your phone. You can turn it in any orientation without disrupting its charging. The sturdy base ensures that you can tap your phone without the charging station sliding around, and its rubbery underside provides enough grip that you can easily pull the device off with one hand without the dock moving. The Apple Watch charger works much the same way and supports any kind of watch band.

At this point, only Apple-licensed magnetic chargers can support 15 W speeds; models like the Mophie 3-in-1 are limited to 7.5 W. But although the Belkin charges at a faster clip than the Mophie, it’s not twice as fast in practice, as you might expect from reading those numbers. Across three tests on the Belkin, our iPhone 13 charged from 0% to an average of 37% in half an hour and 68% in an hour, versus its results of 23% and 47%, respectively, on the Mophie. Those numbers match what we’ve seen from Apple’s own MagSafe accessories, and they’re as fast as you’re going to get in charging your devices wirelessly.

Not only does the Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 work well, but it looks great, too. It’s available in either black or white, and both versions have a matte finish that doesn’t show fingerprints like the Mophie model’s glossy surface does. It looks more like a modern sculpture than a tech gadget. If there’s a downside to the design, it’s the rather bright white light on the base that indicates when that particular charger is in use. Light-sensitive sleepers might not love that light in their bedroom.

Belkin offers a two-year connected equipment warranty , covering not only the charger itself but also up to $2,500 in costs “for the repair or replacement of connected equipment damaged from surges or spikes that occur when they are properly connected to a Belkin product.” Having a two-year warranty on the dock itself is already pretty good, but that extra protection offers real peace of mind.

Our other picks are better options if you plan to charge your gear at your bedside, but if you travel a lot (or hope to in the future), consider Apple’s MagSafe Duo Charger . This iPhone and Apple Watch charger is far smaller than any other charging station when in use, and it folds in half to take up even less space in your bag or a pocket. Because it uses Apple’s MagSafe charging system, the iPhone 12 and 13-series phone will charge faster on this model than with any non-MagSafe wireless charger, and they’ll magnetically snap into place so you don’t have to fuss with alignment. Even for a multi-device wireless charger, it’s a relatively expensive option, considering it doesn’t come with an AC adapter; since it has only two charging spots, it can charge either your phone or your AirPods, not both at the same time. But it’s the only wireless charging station that’s practical to take on the go.

The first thing that sets the MagSafe Duo Charger apart from every other wireless charging station is its compact size. Coated in soft-touch rubber, the charger consists of two 2.8-inch rounded squares with a thin hinge connecting them; you can fold it up when you aren’t using it, and the magnets hold it shut. The left square is the MagSafe phone charger, which can also charge AirPods or any other Qi-compatible device, and the right side is the Apple Watch charging puck, which you can use flat or folded up for Nightstand Mode. Opened up, the charger is roughly the width of an iPhone 12 or 13 and just a little taller. Folded, it’s about 0.6 inch thick, roughly the size of a makeup compact.

The other important feature is MagSafe, which magnetically locks compatible phones in place and also allows for faster iPhone charging than on traditional Qi chargers like our Mophie pick. It supports 15-watt charging speeds on the iPhone 12/13, 12 Pro/13 Pro, and 12 Pro Max/13 Pro Max, and 12-watt charging on the iPhone 12 mini/13 mini. In our tests, the MagSafe Duo Charger was just as fast as the Belkin Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 and notably faster than the Mophie 3-in-1 , our next-fastest pick: A fully drained iPhone 13 reached 34% battery capacity in 30 minutes and 69% in an hour, even when an Apple Watch was charging at the same time. (Apple also sells a stand-alone MagSafe phone charger, but it’s no faster than the MagSafe Duo Charger.) You can charge older iPhones and other Qi-compatible devices on this model, as well, but you don’t get the same speeds or the magnetic attachment.

The MagSafe Duo Charger typically costs $130, and that price doesn’t include the 20-watt adapter you need to get the fastest charging speeds; buying that accessory brings the total price to $150, about the same as for our other picks. That’s a lot to ask for a charger that offers one fewer charging pad. But we’d never even consider traveling with one of those other chargers, whereas the MagSafe Duo Charger could be convenient if and when we ever travel again.

If you are a frequent traveler , you might like the Anker PowerWave Go 3-in-1 Stand . Its modular design makes it more useful than any other charging station we’ve seen because you can add or remove just the parts you need. The phone charging stand is actually a 10,000mAh (37Wh) wireless power bank that you can take with you for portable power, and its 20 W USB-C port can charge most phones at their fastest speeds. The Apple Watch charger is removable as well, with a USB-C connector that means it can get power from the power bank, the USB-C port on your computer, or any other USB-C charger . And the wall adapter is Anker’s Nano II 45W , which (with the included USB-C-to-USB-C cable) can be used to charge many other devices as quickly as possible, including laptops and tablets. But while these individual pieces are all exciting, they contribute to a particularly high asking price of around $180 (at the time of this writing). Despite the steep cost, the PowerWave Go 3-in-1 Stand is also slower at wireless charging than our picks, charging an iPhone 12 to 17% in 30 minutes and 33% in 60 minutes, compared to 22% and 42% from our top pick from Mophie. For most people, we think it makes sense to stick with our simpler, cheaper, and quicker picks for standard bedside or desk charging.

If you want to be able to charge two phones at once , the Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock is a good alternative to the Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand. Like our top pick, it has a stand-style charger for your phone and an Apple Watch charging puck. The third charging spot is flat, allowing you to power either AirPods or another phone. But the Logitech’s main charger was a little slower than that of the Mophie in our testing, it’s harder to line up an AirPods case without a dedicated divot, and this larger charging station doesn’t look as nice as our top pick.

We’re planning a new round of testing for the spring of 2023, which will pit our current picks against the following models:

• Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe
• Anker 533 Wireless Charger (3-in-1 Stand)
• Anker 544 Wireless Charger (4-in-1 Stand)
• Belkin MagSafe 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand 2nd Gen (WIZ017)
• Einova Power Bar
• ESR HaloLock 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with CryoBoost
• HyperJuice 4-in-1 Wireless Charger
• Mophie 3-in-1 Stand for MagSafe Charger
• Mophie 3-in-1 Travel Charger with MagSafe
• OtterBox 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station for MagSafe (78-80533)
• Satechi 3-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charging Stand
• Satechi Duo Wireless Charger Power Stand

We’re also excited about a new wireless charging standard called Qi2 that the World Power Consortium (WPC) introduced in January 2023. Apple allowed its proprietary MagSafe technology to be used as the basis for Qi2’s key feature, called the Magnetic Power Profile. Like MagSafe, the WPC says this feature uses magnets to “ensure that phones or other rechargeable battery-powered mobile products are perfectly aligned with charging devices, thus providing improved energy efficiency and faster charging.” We look forward to testing some Qi2-compliant devices from a variety of companies as they start to roll out later this year.

Nomad’s Base Station Hub with Magnetic Alignment packs in three 10W charging coils, an 18W USB-C port, and a 7.5W USB-A port; either of those ports can be paired with an optional Apple Watch Mount and your own Apple Watch charging cable if you’d like to charge your Watch. The biggest difference between this version and past Base Stations is the promise of magnetic alignment, which should work with MagSafe-equipped iPhones. Unfortunately, the magnet is quite weak in our experience. You have to move your phone around to search for it on the blank surface, unlike with true MagSafe accessories that make alignment foolproof. The charging pad is not sized properly for the iPhone 13 Pro; the phone’s raised camera bump prevents it from laying flat enough to make the necessary magnetic connection. While the iPhone 13 mini’s dimensions allow the magnets to make a connection, it’s still weaker than if the phone were able to lie totally flat.

Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad with MagSafe is a flat, three-device charging station, and one of the first non-Apple products to support fast charging with the Apple Watch Series 7 (the other is a standalone Watch charger also from Belkin). We don’t care for the flat design; it takes up more room on your nightstand and leaves your phone flat, rather than propped up at an angle, and our tests showed this model charged an iPhone 13 more slowly than our picks from Belkin and Apple.

The Scosche Base3 3-In-1 Wireless Charging Dock has a traditional Qi stand rather than a MagSafe charger, and is less expensive than our picks. But it charges quite slowly—our drained iPhone 13 got to 15% in half an hour and 30% in an hour—and the all-plastic design isn’t as nice. It’s worth considering if you’re on a tighter budget.

Belkin’s Boost Charge 3-in-1 Wireless Charger is our former top pick, and it’s still a good choice. But the biggest downside is its AirPods charging spot: Instead of a divot that matches the size and shape of the charging case, the spot is a round indentation, which makes alignment the slightest bit more difficult. The spot is also located right behind the Apple Watch charger, so if you’re using a closed-band loop—such as the Solo Loop Apple introduced in 2020—you need to fuss with the placement to ensure that the AirPods don’t get knocked out of place.

The ESR HaloLock 2-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charger is a flat pad with two charging spaces. One is a standard Qi charger, and the other is magnetic, allowing it to grab MagSafe-equipped iPhones and cases. Because it’s not an officially licensed MagSafe charger, it’s slower than the Belkin and Apple models we list, but it’s just as fast as other third-party magnetic chargers. In our tests, it brought a fully depleted iPhone 12 battery to 22% in 30 minutes and 48% in an hour. The lack of an Apple Watch charger knocks it out of contention for this guide, although we do appreciate the particularly low price. At the time of publication, it costs $30, and that includes a 18 W USB-C charger.

The Zens Liberty Wireless Charger Glass Edition was the first “place anywhere” wireless charger available to buy, and compared with all the other charging stations we’ve tested, it more closely matches what Apple originally promised with the AirPower station. It has 16 overlapping charging coils, all visible through a clear glass top, and those coils allow you to position two phones or other Qi-charging devices pretty much anywhere on its surface aside from the very edges. This design makes placement almost foolproof, solving one of wireless charging’s biggest drawbacks. We also like that the Liberty uses USB-C instead of a proprietary charger. But it has its downsides. The Liberty is large and expensive (a cheaper version without a glass top is available), it has loud fans that kick on when you’re charging a phone, and it doesn’t support Apple Watch charging without a $45 accessory . So although it’s a neat proof of concept, it’s best suited for early adopters willing to spend extra cash to have the coolest new tech toy.

Nomad’s Base Station Pro is similar in concept to the Zens Liberty though a bit more refined, with a slimmer and sleeker aluminum and leather design. Consisting of 18 charging coils under a roughly 5-by-9-inch surface, it’s made to charge up to three Qi devices at once, no matter where you place them. The Base Station Pro claims to power iPhones at 7.5 watts and all other devices at up to 5 watts, which means that non-Apple devices may not charge at their top speeds. But in our tests, charging was pretty slow across the board, with the iPhone 11 averaging only about 15% in half an hour and 26% in an hour, and the LG V30 hitting 9% and 16% over the same periods. Those numbers for the V30 are particularly low, but the Base Station Pro likely produced such results because it hasn’t been optimized for most Android devices yet; firmware updates may change that down the line. Rather than speed, Nomad and its partner Aira, which designed the charging technology, say the Base Station Pro’s major value proposition is convenience. It’s certainly true that you can very easily throw a phone (or three) onto the pad without worrying about lining them up perfectly, but that convenience isn’t worth the premium price: The Base Station Pro currently costs $200, or $60 more than our top pick. It’s not that hard to get your phone in the right spot with a conventional three-in-one charging pad. We hope that this technology advances quickly and falls in price, but it’s not something that most people should invest in right now.

Mophie’s 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad is another previous favorite and remains a good choice. We like its simple, clean aesthetics and its attention to detail—including features such as rubber elements that ensure your devices won’t slip and a divot for AirPods. But we prefer the stand-style charger of our current picks over this Mophie flat design, and this charger is also a total fingerprint magnet, much like the screen of an iPhone or iPad.

Native Union’s Drop XL Wireless Charger (Watch Edition) has a small footprint and is the least techy-looking of the chargers we tested. Thanks to the neutral gray fabric and rubber surface, it doesn’t scream “gadget” like much of the competition does, and it quickly charged everything we placed on its surface. Aligning AirPods can be difficult because the Drop XL has no clear marking, but other than that, it has no major faults that would prevent us from recommending it if you like the way it looks.

Satechi’s Trio Wireless Charging Pad was just a little slower than our picks in charging both phones we tested. It’s a flat charger, so lining a phone up on the raised rubber ring is slightly harder compared with using a stand, and it takes up a few more square inches on a desk, but we do like the AirPods divot, the fold-up Apple Watch puck (which can also work flat), and the USB-C charger.

The Zens Dual+Watch Aluminum Wireless Charger is a good alternative multi-device charger, particularly if you charge two phones at once on occasion. It charges devices quickly and looks quite nice. But lining up the AirPods case is difficult without any markings or a dedicated divot, and even getting a phone into the right position can take a bit of finagling.

We were excited about STM’s ChargeTree as an affordable alternative to the $100-plus chargers out there, but it turned out to be a rebranded version of a generic design. (We’ve seen at least two other companies serving Instagram ads selling the same thing.) That alone wouldn’t necessarily be disqualifying, but the ChargeTree isn’t MFi-certified, and it doesn’t come with an AC adapter. Taking all those factors together, we can’t recommend it.

Meet your guide

Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It’s impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.

Further reading

The Best Qi Wireless Charger for iPhone and Android Phones

by Nick Guy

We’ve spent over 900 hours testing Qi wireless chargers, and we’ve found great models across a wide spectrum of styles.

The Best USB Phone Charger

by Sarah Witman and Nick Guy

No matter what kinds of USB-powered devices you own, we have picks to power them at their fastest charging speeds.

The Best USB Car Charger

by Nick Guy and Sarah Witman

We’ve tested the best car chargers, and we have recommendations for affordable, reliable options that can fast-charge any device while you’re on the road.

iPhones No Longer Come With a Charger or Headphones. Here’s What to Get If You Need Them.

by Lauren Dragan and Nick Guy

Apple’s newest phones won’t ship with a charger or headphones. If you don’t already have something that’ll work, here’s what we recommend.

• 9to5Toys Lunch Break

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New all-time low takes $500 off Apple’s 16-inch M2 Pro MacBook Pro

Not sold on the new 3nm chips? Authorized Apple retailer Expercom via Amazon is now offering the previous-generation  16-inch M2 Pro MacBook Pro for  $1,999 . This takes the original $2,499 price tag and drops it down to the lowest price we’ve seen for a new condition model. The previous discount was only $299 off, and now you can save a whopping $499 on one of Apple’s most capable MacBooks to date. You can read all about how these discounts stack up by diving into  our launch coverage .

Apple’s  now previous-generation MacBook Pro  comes outfitted with the same form-factors as before as well as its newer counterpart. Everything is centered around a 16-inch Liquid Retina display with a silver finish, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of SSD storage. From there, you’re looking at mostly under the hood improvements that come centered around the latest in Apple Silicon. The M2 Pro processor powers the experience to make this Apple’s most capable portable MacBook yet. There’s up to 22-hour battery life and Wi-Fi 6E support for the first time to go alongside a new 8K HDMI output and three Thunderbolt 4 ports. The SDXC slot remains on the side, too.

Anker’s GaNPrime PowerCore 65W plugs into the wall to refuel

Anker’s official Amazon storefront is now offering its  GaNPrime Power Bank for  $63 . Today’s offer is down from the usual $100 price tag and is notably the first price cut in months. It has been out of stock since our previous mention back in November at $70, and is now back with an extra $27 in savings attached. Our  Tested with 9to5Toys  review  offers a closer look at what to expect, where we noted how it was the Swiss Army knife of chargers. This model wasn’t updated when Anker launched its new Prime series earlier in the fall, so today’s offer is still on the latest release for this form-factor.

Anker’s  GaNPrime PowerCore 65W  arrives as a hybrid charger for your Apple set that combines a USB-C GaN wall adapter with a portable battery. Its 65W output can be spread over its dual USB-C ports, as well as a USB-A slot and leverages the built-in 10,000mAh internal battery to refuel away from home. I adore the built-in AC plug that also makes recharging a breeze.

ESR’s just-released 15W Qi2 MagSafe Car Mount hits $24

ESR’s official Amazon storefront now offers its  new 15W Qi2 MagSafe Car Mount for  $24 . Today’s offer is, first and foremost, a new all-time low. It’s down from the usual $36 price tag and on top of being a 33% discount, is also one of the first chances to save. It’s an extra $3 under our previous mention from earlier in the spring, too.

I just got my hands on the new ESR car mount. You can read my  Tested with 9to5Toys  hands-on review  for a better idea of what to expect, but I ultimately walked away impressed by just how good such a budget-oriented offering could be. It’s the very first Qi2 release from ESR so far, and is the first of its kind as far as car mounts go across the whole market right now. It features an interchangeable air vent and dashboard design with a ball mount that lets you position your iPhone 15 at the perfect angle. There’s also 15W charging speeds!

Best trade-in deals

9to5Mac  also keeps tabs on all the best trade-in deals on iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch, and more every month. Be sure to  check out this month’s best trade-in deals  when you decide it’s time to upgrade your device, or simply  head over to our trade-in partner directly  if you want to recycle, trade, or sell your used devices for cash and support  9to5Mac  along the way!

Subscribe to the  9to5Toys  YouTube Channel for all of the latest videos, reviews, and more!

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Review: Insta360 X4 ushers in the 8K era with a bigger battery and easy-to-use mobile editing [Video]

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140W USB-C Power Adapter

Product Information

The 140W USB-C Power Adapter offers fast, efficient charging at home, in the office, or on the go. It’s compatible with numerous USB-C charging cables. Apple recommends pairing this power adapter with your 16-inch MacBook Pro (2021) using a USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable to take advantage of fast charging, so you can go from 0 to 50 percent charge in around 30 minutes.✝︎

Charging cable sold separately.

What’s in the Box

Apple 140W USB-C Power Adapter

Compatibility

Iphone models.

• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 15 Plus
• MacBook Air (13-inch, M3, 2024)
• MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024)
• MacBook Air (15-inch, M2, 2023)
• MacBook Air (13-inch, M2, 2022)
• MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13‑inch, 2020)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018–2019)
• MacBook Pro (13‑inch, M2, 2022)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016–2019)
• MacBook Pro (14‑inch, 2023)
• MacBook Pro (14‑inch, 2021)
• MacBook Pro (16‑inch, 2023)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016–2019)
• MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015 – 2017)
• Apple Vision Pro

AirPods Models

• AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with MagSafe Charging Case (USB-C)

2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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21 Things to Know Before You Go to Moscow

Featured city guides.

Shooter Files by f.d. walker

Street Photography Tips, Interaction, Travel, Guides

Apr 24 2017

City Street Guides by f.d. walker: A Street Photography Guide to Moscow, Russia

*A series of guides on shooting Street Photography in cities around the world. Find the best spots to shoot, things to capture, street walks, street tips, safety concerns, and more for cities around the world. I have personally researched, explored and shot Street Photography in every city that I create a guide for. So you can be ready to capture the streets as soon as you step outside with your camera!

At over 12 million people, Moscow is the largest city in Russia and second largest in Europe by population ( Istanbul is #1). An urban, cosmopolitan metropolis with more than enough glitz and glam to cater to the elite, but without losing its fair share of Soviet era roughness around the edges. It can be fast paced, brash, busy, and trendy like other big cities, but it has its blend of West meets Russia atmosphere and beauty that provides plenty of unique interest. The Red Square is as famous as it gets, but there’s so much more to this city, including the most beautiful subway system you’ve ever seen. It would take years to capture all of Moscow, but that means you have an endless amount of areas to discover.

So here’s a Street Photography guide so you can be ready to capture all that Moscow has to offer before you even arrive!

• Patriarch’s Pond
• Old Arbat Street
• Maroseyka Street
• Tverskoy Boulevard

Top 5 Street Spots:

1. red square.

The Red Square is the most famous square in not just Russia, but all of Eastern Europe. The name actually doesn’t come from the color of the bricks or communism, but from the name in Russian, Krásnaya, once meaning “beautiful” before its meaning changed to “red.” This large plaza is what you see on the cover of guide books and magazines for Moscow, with St. Basil’s Cathedral being the center piece next to Lenin’s Mausoleum surrounded by the Kremlin Wall. Of course, the Red Square attracts hordes of tourist due to the main attractions, but all that activity around an interesting atmosphere does provide street photo opportunities. It’s also the central square connecting to the city’s major streets, providing a good starting point to explore outward.

You’ll also find the popular pedestrian only Nikolskaya Street connecting the Red Square to Lubyanka Square. This line of expensive shops includes plenty of activity, while also leading you to another popular square. Filled with history rivaling any city, the Red Square and surrounding areas are the heart and soul of Russia.

2. Patriarch’s Ponds

Patriarch’s Ponds is one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Moscow. Despite the name being plural, there’s only one large pond, but it’s worth a visit with your camera. It’s a popular spot for locals and expats to come relax or take a stroll around the pond. You get an interesting mix of young and old too, from young love to “babushkas” feeding pigeons. It’s a very peaceful park atmosphere in one of the nicer areas within the city center, while bringing enough activity for street photography. 

The pond is shallow and in the winter becomes a popular spot for ice-skating too. The area is also well-known for the location in the famous Russian novel, The Master and Margarita. 

3. Old Arbat (Stary Arbat)

Old Arbat is the most famous pedestrian street in Moscow, and dating back to the 15th century, also one of its oldest. Originally, it was an area of trade, but soon became the most prestigious residential area in Moscow. During the 18th century, Arbat started attracting the city’s scholars and artists, including Alexander Pushkin. Cafes lined the streets and impressive homes filled the neighborhood. Since then, New Arbat street was created as a highway in the area, while Old Arbat was paved for a 1km pedestrian only walkway.

Due to the historic buildings, famous artists that lived here, and the bohemian atmosphere, Old Arbat has become a big attraction for tourists today. Now, there’s a mix of cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops, street performers, street merchants and other attractions for visitors, and some locals, to come enjoy. It can get really busy here and there’s usually something interesting going on so it’s a good street to come walk with your camera for guaranteed life.

4. Gorky Park

One of the most famous places in Moscow is Gorky Park. The official name is Maxim Gorky’s Central Park of Culture & Leisure, which gives you an idea of what goes on here. When built, it was the first of its kind in the Soviet Union. Divided into two parts, it stretches along Moscow River. One end contains fair rides, foods stands, tennis courts, a sports club, a lake for boat rides, and more. This end brings more active life due to its number of attractions, while the other end is more relaxed, where you’ll find gardens, trees, older buildings, and an outdoor amphitheater.

Gorky Park attracts mostly locals so it’s a good spot to capture the non-tourist side of Moscow life. Muscovites come here to escape the city and unwind in a picturesque setting. The park remains alive outside of the warmer months too, especially when the lake turns into the city’s largest outdoor skating rink. I’d recommend taking the metro out here to spend at least half a day exploring the massive park’s life with your camera.

5. Maroseyka Street

Maroseyka Street is a popular area not too far from the Red Square. The long, winding street turns into Pokrovka and is lined with restaurants, cafes, bars and places to stay. It’s actually where I like to stay when I’m in Moscow due to its location and solid street photography opportunities itself. You have Kitay-gorod station near and if you keep walking southwest, you’ll get to the Red Square. But if you walk northwest, as it changes to Pokrovka, you can find a long street of activity for photography with its own interesting atmosphere.

6. Tverskoy Boulevard

Tverskoy Boulevard is the oldest and longest boulevard in Moscow, beginning at the end of Nikitsky Boulevard, and finishing at Pushkin Square, a spot to come for activity itself. The boulevard is made up of two avenues, with pedestrian walkways in-between. You’ll find grass, shrubbery, trees, benches and more walking it’s almost kilometer length. Many people come here to enjoy some relaxation, walk their dog, or just to use it to walk wherever they’re going. Its center location also provides a nice place to walk with your camera near plenty of other spots you’ll want to check out anyway.

Sample Street Walk:

For a full day of Street Photography, covering some of the best spots, you can follow this sample street walk for Moscow:

• Start your morning walking around the Red Square (1), while exploring the surrounding area, including Nikolskaya Street
• Then walk northwest to Patriarch’s Ponds (2) and slowly walk the pond and surrounding area with your camera
• Next, walk east to the Pushkin Monument and stroll down Tverskoy Boulevard (6)
• Once Tverskoy Boulevard (6) ends, it will turn into Nikitsky Boulevard. Follow this down until you get to the start of Old Arbat Street (3), across from Arbatskaya station
• After you’re done walking down Old Arbat Street (3) for more street photography, spend some time checking out Moscow’s beautiful metro stations
• To finish off the day with more street photography, get off the metro near Red Square (1) again, Maroseyka Street (5) or wherever you’re staying for the night.

3 Things I’ll Remember about Shooting in Moscow:

1. museum metro.

The Moscow metro system was the first underground railway system in the Soviet Union and today includes 203 stations across 340km of routes. The elaborate system has some of the deepest stations in the world too, with escalators that seem to go on forever. None of this is what makes it so special, though. Many of its stations feel like stepping inside a museum, making it without a doubt the most interesting and beautiful metro system I’ve been in.

When built, Stalin wanted to make the metro stations “palaces for the people” with marble, chandeliers, and grand architecture. The best part is the variety of architecture and styles used, making many of the stations a completely different experience visually. You could easily spend a whole day traveling the stations and there are even tours available for people who wish to do just that. My advice, though, would be just to buy a ticket and hop on and off at different stations, while exploring different lines. The museum-like surrounding mixed with the crowds of characters can make for a great photography experience.

Since there are so many stations, here are some of my favorites to check out:

• Novoslobodskaya
• Mayakovskaya
• Elektrozavodskaya
• Komsomolskaya
• Ploschad Revolyutsii
• Dostoyevskaya
• Prospekt Mira

2. Moscow is Big

It’s no secret that Moscow is a big city, but it can feel even bigger with how spread out much of it is. This is especially true if you compare it to cities outside of Asia. If I compared it to cities in Europe, I’d probably say only Istanbul would warrant more time to really discover the depths of this city. Most only explore around the Red Square and surrounding area, but that is such a small part of the city. Although, that central area does give you plenty to see on its own.

Fortunately, I had a good friend living in the city to show me around, but it opened up my eyes even more to how much there is to discover in Moscow. It’s a big city with a variety of atmosphere that can take you from “east” to “west” and trendy to rugged depending on where you go. I’d imagine you’d have to live here a while to really know the city.

3. Cosmopolitan Mix of East meets West

Modern skyscrapers mixed with amazing architecture, a world-class metro system with museum-like beauty, trendy fashion and chic clubs, Moscow is a rich mix of Russian culture and history in a more western cosmopolitan package. There is a push to keep the Russian culture, while also pushing forward with a modern metropolis the whole world will envy. This comes with an impressive skyline, that continues to grow, and endless modernities, but with soviet nostalgia and atmosphere mixed in for good measure.

Mixed in with this grand western cosmopolitan atmosphere, is a strong national pride in Russia. This includes their famous leader, Vladimir Putin. Maybe no other place will you see a country’s leader more often. All over, from the pricey tourist shops to the underground walkway stalls, you’ll find goods with Putin’s likeness covering them. From t-shirts to magnets to Matryoshka dolls. There’s a strong national pride that can be seen around the city, which also extends to their leader. Moscow is many things. It’s East meets West, modernizations meets Soviet era, and a whole lot more.

What To Do For a Street Photography Break?:

Eat at a stolovaya.

Stolovayas are Russian cafeterias that became popular in the Soviet days. You grab a tray and walk down the line of freshly prepared local dishes, and select whatever you want from the chefs. They’re usually inexpensive and a much better value than restaurants, while giving you the opportunity to try from a wide selection of everyday Russian food. They’re also very tasty. I always include some borsch on my tray and go from there. The places themselves are all over Moscow and usually come with Soviet-era aesthetics to complete the experience.

Street Safety Score: 7

*As always, no place is completely safe! So when I talk about safety, I’m speaking in general comparison to other places. Always take precaution, be smart, observe your surroundings and trust your instincts anywhere you go!

Being the 2nd largest city in Europe with over 12 million people, you’re going to have your dangerous areas, but for the most part, it feels safe walking around. Russia is statistically higher in crime compared to most of Europe, but this generally doesn’t apply to tourists and visitors. Around the Red Square and surrounding city center, you should feel completely safe walking around. Pick pocketing can happen, but no more than other touristic places. I always explore Moscow freely without coming across too much to worry about. It’s a spread out city, though, so of course it matters where you are. Just use basic street smarts, know where you are and Moscow shouldn’t give you a problem. 

People’s Reaction Score: 7

Moscow is fast paced, big city life, which usually means people aren’t too concerned with you, or your camera. I don’t find people notice or pay much attention to me when I’m out taking photos in Moscow. For the most part, people just go about their day. You shouldn’t get too many looks or concern. But it can depend on the area you are in. The more you stick out, the more you might get noticed with suspicions. I’ve never had any problems in Moscow, or Russia, but just be careful who you’re taking a photo of if you get out of the city center. Other than that, it’s about average for reactions. 

Street Tips:

Learn the alphabet .

Much of Moscow, including the metro system, doesn’t use english. The Russian alphabet uses letters from the Cyrillic script, which if you aren’t familiar with it and don’t know the sounds, can be hard to decipher the words. This is most important for street names and metro stops when trying to get around. It can save confusion and make it easier getting around if you learn the basic alphabet. At the very least then, you can sound out the words to see which are similar in the english conversion, which can help matching them to maps. When out shooting street photography, getting around is as important as anything. So save yourself some time and frustration by learning the Russian Alphabet.

Use the metro

While Saint-Petersburg feels very walkable for a city its size, Moscow can feel very spread out, even for its bigger size. Outside of the Red Square area, you can have plenty of walking before getting anywhere very interesting, so you’ll need to take the metro a lot if you really want to explore the city. Maps are deceiving here too, it will always be further than it looks.

Another reason it’s less walkable than Saint-Petersburg is its completely different set-up. Moscow’s streets are mostly contstructed in rings with narrow, winding streets in-between. This is common with medieval city cities that used to be confined by walls, but you usually don’t have it in a city this massive. Saint-Petersburg has a more grid-like pattern that also uses the canals to help you know your way around. When it comes to navigating on foot in Moscow, it can be more difficult, so bring a map and take the metro when needed. It’s why Moscow’s metro carries more passengers per day than the London and Paris subways combined.

Explore other areas if you have time

Moscow is really big. While most people stay around the Red Square within the Boulevard Ring, there’s so much more to the city. I covered some other spots outside of this circle, but if you really want to see the city, you’ll need time. If you do have time, some other areas I’d check out first are Zamoskvarechye, along some of the south and western Moscow.

Inspiration:

For some more inspiration, you can look through the Street Photography of Moscow photographer Artem Zhitenev  and check out 33 of my photos taken in Moscow .

Conclusion:

Moscow’s name brings a certain mystique, but once you’re there it might bring a different atmosphere than you expect. It’s big and sprawling, but beautiful in many ways. It can feel like a European capital on a grand scale, but you can definitely find its Russian side in there.

The urban sprawl of Moscow can be intimidating, but give it enough time and you’ll be rewarded with plenty to discover. All with the world’s best metro system to take you around.

I hope this guide can help you start to experience some of what Moscow contains. So grab your camera and capture all that Moscow has to offer for Street Photography!

If you still have any questions about shooting in Moscow, feel free to comment below or email me!

(I want to make these guides as valuable as possible for all of you so add any ideas on improvements, including addition requests, in the comment section!)

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