REVIEW – One of my dreams is that someday, the companies that make our laptops will send smaller portable chargers with those laptops. Wouldn’t that make sense since laptops are meant to be portable? Until then, I’m stuck purchasing smaller more portable third-party travel wall chargers. I was excited to review the RAVPower PD Pioneer 90W GaN Tech Type C Wall Charger because it has two USB-C power delivery (PD) ports and it delivers 90 W total power.
What were my results using the RAVPower charger? I found that it delivered the power that I needed to fully charge our Lenovo Yoga 730 13″ laptop, Lenovo Yoga 930 14″ laptop, 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018, and Pixel 2 XL phone in the same amount of time as their OEM charging adapters. Additionally, it successfully charged my laptops simultaneously! However, there were a couple of days that the wall charger provided intermittent power to my laptop which then mysteriously resolved itself a day later. And then the RAVPower USB-C cable stopped working with my Yoga 730 laptop. Using my Anker USB-C cable seemed to solve that issue.
What is it?
The RAVPower PD Pioneer 90W GaN Tech Type C Wall Charger is a USB-C two-port wall power adapter that provides up to 90 W of power to laptops, tablets, and phones. It uses Gallium Nitride semiconductors instead of silicon semiconductors to make the charger smaller, faster, and more efficient.
What’s in the box?
- RAVPower PD Pioneer 90W GaN Tech Type C Wall Charger
- RAVPower USB-C to USB-C cable
- Extend your warranty card
- User Guide
Hardware specs
- Input AC: 100-240V, 50/60Hz 2.5A
- PD Port 1 Output PD: 18W/30W/45W/60W/61W/87W/90W
- PD Port 2 Output PD: 18W/30W/45W/60W/61W/87W/90W
- Dimensions: 2.5 x 2.5 x 1.2in / 64 x 64 x 32mm
- GaN tech & Pi chip work in tandem to lower power consumption, maximize charging efficiency to over 93%, provide up to 90 W of charging power & shrink the size for a small solid structure
- Power Delivery (PD) 3.0 90 W Output – Powerful enough to fast charge your MacBook Pro 15” within 2 hours, also brings stable high-speed charging to other laptops that rate under or over 90 W
- Dual Device Fast Charging: Performance-boosting smart power distribution detects & optimizes the power for the connected devices
- Perfected to work with both PD & QC charging protocols for seamless use with all USB-charged devices
- Engineered to completely guard against overheating, overcurrent, overvoltage & short-circuit issues for a safe performance
- Foldable prongs
Design and features
The RAVPower PD Pioneer 90W GaN Tech Type C Wall Charger is made of matte black plastic, has an LED status light to tell you it is plugged into power (it glows blue when plugged in), and it has two USB-C Power Delivery (PD) ports. The charger uses Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors to replace the silicon semiconductors which makes this adapter smaller, faster, and more efficient. 
The bottom of the charger displays the charger’s specs. It can deliver up to 90 W total output, but each port can deliver up to 90 W if there is nothing else plugged into the other port.
I like the fact that the outlet prongs fold up when not being used which is an attractive feature for a travel wall power adapter.
Performance
I used the RAVPower wall charger several times to charge my Lenovo Yoga 730 13″ laptop alone. The charger charged my laptop in about 2 hours and 15 minutes (from about 39% to 100%) each time. The charger also charged our Lenovo Yoga 930 14″ laptop in about 2 hours and 20 minutes (from about 17% to 100%). These times are comparable to their OEM charging adapters (65 W). I then used the RAVPower charger and cable to successfully charge our 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018 and my Pixel 2 XL phone.
When I plugged both of our laptops into the charger, the Yoga 930 (beginning at 34%) finished before the Yoga 730 (beginning at 39%), but both had received power simultaneously. I don’t know the exact amount of time that each laptop needed to reach full charge, but the Yoga 930 was approximately comparable to it’s OEM charging adapter while the Yoga 730 took maybe about an hour or so longer when charged simultaneously.
There were a couple of days when the charger was acting flaky. When I plugged my laptop into the charger using the RAVPower cable that came with the charger, the power delivery was intermittent no matter the laptop’s battery level. I was able to observe this problem because my screen is brighter when the laptop is plugged into a power source than when it is using the battery. So my screen went from bright to dark to bright to dark etc.
I thought the problem might be with the cable, so I tested the charger using two other USB-C cables (PD capable) and they also had the same problem. I then tried other outlets and still had the problem. Then on another day, I switched back to the RAVPower cable and the charger was suddenly fine. I tried the other USB-C cables and they were fine as well.
And most recently in these last couple of days of testing the RAVPower charger, I discovered that the RAVPower cable did not want to work with my Yoga 730 laptop. When I switched to my Anker USB-C cable and used it with the RAVPower charger, my Yoga 730 charged just fine. Was it a bad cable? Well, I tested the RAVPower cable (while plugged into the RAVPower charger) with a couple of other laptops without any issues. Hmm…
What I like
- The RAVPower PD Pioneer 90W GaN Tech Type C Wall Charger provides up to 90 W to one device (Lenovo Yoga 930, Lenovo Yoga 730, 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018, and Pixel 2 XL phone)
- The charger successfully charges two laptops simultaneously
What I’d change
- I’d like it to be more reliable – I had an intermittent power delivery issue for a couple of days which seemed to resolve itself after another day and then I had some problems with the RAVPower USB-C cable not working with my Lenovo Yoga 730 laptop
Final thoughts
The RAVPower PD Pioneer 90W GaN Tech Type C Wall Charger is a nice two-port wall charger that provides up to a total of 90 W of power to devices and thus I was able to charge each of my Lenovo Yoga 730 and Yoga 930 laptops in the same amount of time as when using their OEM adapters (65 W). I was also able to charge a 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018 and my Pixel 2 XL. Additionally, I could even charge the aforementioned two laptops simultaneously. I love this! And the charger feels well made, is fairly small, and has a good heft to it.
There were a couple of days during testing that I had an intermittent power delivery problem that mysteriously resolved itself the next day. Also, over the last few days of testing, I discovered that the RAVPower USB-C cable quit working with my Yoga 730 laptop and yet the same RAVPower cable and charger worked with other Lenovo laptops in our house. After switching to my Anker USB-C cable, my Yoga 730 laptop charged just fine. So even though I had some issues, I was able to resolve them (or they resolved themselves) and use the charger to successfully charge my devices.
The charger is a little expensive and if I hadn’t had these issues, I would fully recommend it. For now, I can still recommend it, but with some reservations.
Price: $54.99 (click on the $5 coupon and you pay 49.99 on Amazon)
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by RAVPower.
