REVIEW – Travel wall chargers are starting to catch up to our power-hungry devices. Thankfully my Lenovo Yoga 730 laptop only needs a travel charger that will provide 45 W to charge it (my laptop came with a 65 W OEM USB-C charger). I recently received the opportunity to review RAVPower PD Pioneer 65 W GaN Tech USB-C Wall Charger. It has a USB-C Power Delivery (PD) port that will provide up to 65 W when used alone or between 45 W and 60 W when used simultaneously with the USB-A iSmart Quick Charge (QC) 2.0/3.0 compatible port which provides between 5 W to 18 W of power to your device.
In my tests, I found that the USB-C PD port charged my Lenovo Yoga 730 13″ laptop and Pixel 2 XL phone at full speed, the Lenovo Yoga C930 14″ laptop at a slightly slower speed, and 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018 at a much faster speed compared to their OEM USB-C charging adapters. The USB-A port is useful for fast-charging devices that are QC 2.0/3.0 compatible like the HTC U11.
What is it?
The RAVPower PD Pioneer 65 W GaN Tech USB-C Wall Charger (RP-PC133) is a travel wall power adapter that contains USB-C Power Delivery and USB-A iSmart Quick Charge 2.0/3.0 compatible charging ports. The USB-C PD port provides up to 65 W when used alone or between 45 W and 60 W when used simultaneously with the USB-A iSmart port which provides between 5 W to 18 W of power to your device. This wall charger 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 65 W GaN Tech USB-C Wall Charger
- Extend your warranty card
- User Guide
Hardware specs
- Input: 100-240V, 50/60Hz, 1.5A
- USB-C PD Output: 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3.25A, 65 W Max
- USB-A iSmart Output: 5V/3A, 9V/2A, 12V/1.5A
- Total Output: 65 W Max
- Dimension: 55 x 55 x 31.5 mm /2.2 x 2.2 x 1.2 in
- Net Weight: 125 g / 4.41 oz
- 100% safe charging with advanced overcurrent, overcharging, overvoltage and short-circuit protection
Design and features
The RAVPower PD Pioneer 65 W GaN Tech USB-C Wall Charger is made of shiny white plastic, has an LED status light to tell you it is plugged into power (it glows blue when plugged in), and it has one UBC-C PD port and a USB-A iSmart port that is Quick Charge 2.0/3.0 compatible. 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 65 W total output using the USB-C port alone, but if both the ports are used together, the charger can distribute power between them (between 45 W to 60 W via the USB-C port and 5 W to 18 W via the USB-A port).
I like the fact that the outlet prongs fold up when not being used.
And as you can see from the photo above, the charger is very nice and small. Perfect for a travel charger!
Performance
The above photo shows that my Lenovo Yoga 730 laptop normally draws 38.2 W when using its OEM USB-C charger.
Our other laptop, a Lenovo Yoga C930, draws 55.3 W using its OEM USB-C charger (not pictured). 
The photo above shows the amount of power that the RAVPower USB-C PD port delivers to my Yoga 730 laptop (39.3 W) which is essentially the same as my OEM USB-C charger (38.2 W). Thus I had no problem charging my laptop in the same amount of time. It went from 19-100% charge in 1 hour 45 minutes.
However, when using the RAVPower USB-C port with our Lenovo Yoga C930, it delivers a little less power (51.6 W) than its OEM USB-C charger (55.3 W). Thus, it charges the laptop a little more slowly but it does charge it in about 1 hour 50 minutes (19-100%) which is excellent, in my opinion.
When using the RAVPower USB-C port with our 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018, it delivered 33 W which was much more than its 18 W OEM USB-C charger which charges the iPad at about 17 W. The RAVPower charged the iPad in about 2 hours 30 minutes (19-100%).
The above photo illustrates that even when I plugged my phone into the USB-A port to charge at the same time as my laptop was charging using the USB-C PD port, there was no decrease in the amount of power that my laptop needed to charge normally. For those of you who have more power-hungry laptops, you may see the power to your laptop decrease while using the USB-C port with the USB-A port. 
The USB-C port provided my Pixel 2 XL with about 9 W while I was using it to take this photo. After I put my phone in sleep mode, the power delivery increased to about 15 W then quickly dropped down to 11 W which seems to be my phone’s fastest charging speed. My 18 W OEM USB-C charger delivers about 10.6 W to my phone.
The USB-A port, on the other hand, only delivered 7 W to my phone when it was sleep mode. My phone supports Power Delivery but does not support Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0. However, the RAVPower USB-A and USB-C ports fast-charged our HTC U11 phone (14 W and 15 W respectively, charging time 1 hour 25 minutes from 27%-100%) which is PD and QC 3.0 compatible. 
The above photo shows that the charger doesn’t block the other outlet. That’s awesome.
What I like
- The RAVPower USB-C PD port charged my Lenovo Yoga 730 laptop (38 W, charging time 1 hour 45 minutes) and Pixel 2 XL (11 W, charging time 2 hours 15 minutes) as fast as their OEM USB-C chargers
- It charges our Lenovo Yoga C930 (51 W, charging time 1 hour 50 minutes) a little more slowly than its OEM USB-C charger (55 W) but is able to still charge the laptop in 1 hour 50 minutes
- It charges the 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018 (33 W, charging time 2 hours 30 minutes) much faster than its OEM UBC-C charger (17 W)
- The USB-C port fast-charged the HTC U11 at 15 W and the USB-A port fast-charged it at 14 W
- The charger is small and doesn’t block the other plug on an outlet
What I’d change
- It’s a little expensive
Final thoughts
The RAVPower PD Pioneer 65 W GaN Tech USB-C Wall Charger is a nice small well-made two-port wall charger. The USB-C PD port can provide up to 65 W to a device if the other port is not being used. If both ports are being used, the power is distributed between the USB-C port (45 W to 60 W) and the USB-A port (5 W to 18 W). Using the RAVPower USB-C port, I was able to charge my Lenovo Yoga 730 (38 W, charging time 1 hour 45 minutes) and Pixel 2 XL phone (11 W, charging time 2 hours 15 minutes) in the same amount of time as when using their OEM USB-C chargers (38 W and 10 W respectively). The Yoga C930 laptop charged a little slower using the RAVPower USB-C port (51 W, charging time 1 hour 50 minutes) than its OEM USB-C charger (55 W). However, I was able to charge a 12.9″ iPad Pro 2018 much faster (33 W, charging time 2 hours 30 minutes) than its OEM USB-C charger (17 W).
The RAVPower charger is a little expensive but it worked well for me every time and thus I highly recommend it if you don’t need more than 65 W for your device.
Price: $47.99
Where to buy: Amazon Use coupon code: GARPC133 to bring the price down to $36.79 (Code expires 04/23/2020 11:59 PM PDT)
Source: The sample of this product was provided by RAVPower.
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Is the USB C port USB-IF certified? If not, that’s bad. It’s also not UL listed, unfortunately.
E Douglas Jensen – I contacted RAVPower about their certifications and they stated that most of their chargers are TUV certified which is equivalent to UL certifications in the U.S. However, they are not USB-IF certified.